“I’m confident that Turkey’s special role in these matters will continue to be in demand,” the Russian president said during talks with Erdogan on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit.

Putin added that the three rounds of direct talks with Ukraine in Istanbul have made some progress on the humanitarian track.

The talks have failed to yield a breakthrough over Russia’s three-and-a-half-year invasion and resulted only in exchanges of prisoners and soldiers’ bodies.

The warring sides have radically different positions and Ukraine has accused Russia of sending low-level officials with no real decision-making power to the Istanbul talks.

Russia has called on Ukraine to effectively cede four regions that Moscow claims to have annexed, a demand Kyiv has called unacceptable.

US President Donald Trump has called for a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, but Moscow said it was too early to do so before key issues are resolved.

Russia’s full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, has ravaged swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine, killing tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.