U.S. military commentators praised Ukraine's "remarkable" Trojan Horse-like use of wooden sheds as it bombed as deep into Russia as Siberia.

As Ukraine and Russia exchanged intensifying attacks and held a second round of negotiations on Monday, the Trump administration has been notably quiet -- signaling a forewarned but subtle shift in the U.

Officials from Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul on Monday failed to reach a ceasefire but agreed to exchange more prisoners.

Russian and Ukrainian delegates met in Istanbul on Monday for their second set of direct peace talks, a day after Kyiv launched a shock drone attack on Russia’s nuclear-capable bombers, in an operation that President Volodymyr Zelensky said was a year and a half in the making.

With 41 military aircraft impacted, the Ukrainian drone attack was described by some commentators as Russia's "Pearl Harbor." The attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941 was a surprise air raid by Japan on the U.S. during World War II. Kyiv's assault follows ground advances by Moscow troops in recent days in Ukraine's Sumy border region.

The second round of talks was even shorter than the first and didn’t address any substantive issues to ending the three-year conflict.

Delegations from Russia and Ukraine met in Turkey for their second round of direct peace talks in just over two weeks.

Delegations from the warring sides met for barely an hour and agreed to exchange more prisoners of war - focusing on the youngest and most severely wounded - and return the bodies of 12,000 dead soldiers.

It also roughly tallies with attempts by Russian independent media, such as Meduza and Mediazone, to count the bodies. By this time last year, Meduza reckoned that between 106,000-140,000 Russian soldiers had died. Much of their analysis was based on inheritance records and obituaries on social media and in other outlets.