A day after exchanging some of the most intense air attacks of the war, Russia and Ukraine met in Istanbul on Monday for peace talks, discussions that were complicated by their entrenched positions and the situation on the battlefield.

Russia and Ukraine were expected to formally exchange their respective conditions for a deal in the second round of negotiations since the two sides resumed direct dialogue two weeks ago.

Expectations were low for the talks, which kicked off midafternoon at a five-star hotel on the European shore of the Bosporus. The talks concluded after less than two hours. It was not immediately clear whether they had yielded any tangible results, although both sides were expected to brief the news media later in the afternoon.

Moscow and Kyiv are talking under pressure from President Trump, who has alternatively cajoled and chided both countries’ leaders. But Russia and Ukraine have been holding firm, with neither expected to present conditions in the discussion that are acceptable to the other side.

As negotiations sputter, attacks on the battlefield have intensified. The Russian army appears to have launched a new offensive, advancing at the fastest pace since last fall and opening a new front in the northern Sumy region of Ukraine. It has also bombarded Ukrainian cities with some of the biggest drone and missile attacks of the war, including a barrage of 500 drones and decoys on Sunday.

Ukraine, for its part, has adapted and evolved in the face of a much larger military with deeper resources. Ukrainian drones, in an ambitious, coordinated attack, struck air bases deep inside Russia this weekend.