A new round of talks aimed at ending Russia’s devastating war against Ukraine got underway in Istanbul on Tuesday amid persistent doubts that it would end in a compromise or ceasefire.

       The two-day talks, closed to the press, are being held inside a high-security presidential office complex adjacent to Istanbul’s ornate Dolmabahce Palace compound along the Strait of Bosphorus.

       The negotiations, the latest in several rounds of discussions aimed at ending Russian president Vladimir Putin’s onslaught against its western neighbour, an armed conflict which has quickly become the most destructive and disruptive war in Europe since the 1990s.

       Ahead of the talks, Ukraine’s leader Volodymyr Zelensky said his country is ready to declare neutrality and offer security guarantees to Russia, including keeping the country nuclear-free if Moscow withdraws its troops.

       Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was hoping for a resolution to the country’s humanitarian disaster at the very least, and a ceasefire at best. "We are not trading people, land or sovereignty,” he said.

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       Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it would become evident on Tuesday or Wednesday whether the peace negotiations were promising.

       The biggest sticking point in the talks is the status of Ukrainian territories in the east and southeast seized by Russia. Moscow wants Kyiv to recognise the land grabs in the Donbass region and the Crimean Peninsula, something which Ukraine refuses to do.

       By hosting the talks, Turkey hopes to boost its own diplomatic status, but also end a conflict which has driven up global energy and food prices and damaged the Turkish tourism industry.

       The war has also created Black Sea security threats. Twice naval forces have encountered unexploded mines that had apparently drifted from the conflict zone into Turkish waters. One made into the crucial Bosphorus Strait, where hundreds of passenger ferries and dozens of tankers filled with fuels pass daily.

       “We believe that a just peace will have no losers, and a prolonged conflict is not in anyone’s interest,” Turkey’s president Recep Tayyup Erdogan told negotiators ahead of the talks, according to the official Anadolu news agency.

       Davyd Arakhamia, a Georgian-born Ukrainian businessman and parliamentarian, leads Kyiv’s delegation while Vladimir Medinsky, a former Russian minister of culture, heads Moscow’s team.

       Members of the delegations are to hold parallel meetings “on the entire spectrum of contentious issues,” Mikhail Podolyak, an adviser to the Ukrainian president, wrote on Twitter.

       Ukrainian television reported that the first face-to-face talks in more than two weeks had started with "a cold welcome" and no handshake between the two sides.

       Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich was pictured at the talks despite reports that he suffered symptoms from a poisoning attempt at an earlier round of negotiations.

       Roman Abramovich is seen in Turkish TV footage of the start of peace talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian delegations

       (Screengrab/Twitter)

       Late on Monday, the Wall Street Journal and investigative news outlet Bellingcat cited unnamed sources claiming that Mr Abramovich and two Ukrainian peace negotiators suffered from red eyes and peeling skin on their faces and hands earlier this month after a meeting in Kyiv.

       The sanctioned billionaire - who has repeatedly distanced himself from claims from the UK government and others that he is close to Mr Putin - last month accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the war.

       The Kremlin and Ukrainian officials have dismissed the reports about the suspected poisoning as untrue. Mr Kuleba - Ukraine’s foreign minister - said before the talks - wryly - that he advised “anyone going for negotiations with Russia not to eat or drink anything, (and) preferably avoid touching surfaces".

       Ukraine, a former Soviet republic long under the dominion of Russian empires, has been drifting more and more into orbit of the EU and Nato.

       Russia launched the war with the apparent aim of taking control of Ukraine, a nation of more than 40 million, and turning it into a satellite state.

       But the war went badly from the start. Russian troops met fierce Ukrainian military and political resistance. Western nations unified to impose crippling sanctions that have pummelled the rouble.

       This map shows the extent of the Russian invasion of Ukraine

       (Press Association Images)

       Few analysts give the talks much chance of success. During the ongoing decade-long war in Syria, Russia and its allies frequently use peace talks and ceasefires in what critics described as distractions aimed at giving themselves diplomatic cover and time to regroup and reset military strategy.

       Samuel Ramani, a Russia specialist at the Royal United Services Institute - a thinktank - said Kremlin voices in recent days have not publicly signalled any concessions.

       A Russian defence ministry spokesman said the “ringleaders” of the Kyiv government must be “tracked down and properly punished” while Mr Peskov said Russia still aimed to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, an apparent reference to obliterating any Ukrainian national sentiment.

       “My conclusion is that Russia is using these talks to show it’s acting in good faith,” Mr Ramani told The Independent. “They are trying to buy some time on the military front while they’re still telling their own audience they're firmly committed to regime change.”

       Still, recent signals suggest that the Russian offensive may be recalibrating its military aims to focus on Ukraine’s southeast, which abuts the Black Sea, raising the possibility that it is seeking an exit strategy from the war.

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       Turkey, hosting the talks, maintains good relations with both Moscow and Kyiv. It has supplied Ukraine with combat drones that have proven effective against Russian armour while refusing to agree to sanctions on the Kremlin, even welcoming oligarchs such as Mr Abramovich.