Tirana, Albania - Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and the leaders of France, Germany, Britain, and Poland held a phone call with US President Donald Trump Friday after talks between Moscow and Kyiv concluded in Istanbul.

The conversation on the sidelines of a European leaders' meeting in Albania involved Emmanuel Macron, Friedrich Merz, Keir Starmer and Donald Tusk, and came after Zelensky called for a "strong reaction" from the West should the talks fail.

"We just had a meeting with President Zelensky and then a phone call with President Trump to discuss the developments in the negotiations today and the Russian position is clearly unacceptable and not for the first time," Starmer told reporters afterwards.

"As a result of that meeting with President Zelensky and the discussion with President Trump, we are now closely aligning and coordinating our responses and will continue to do so," said the British premier, speaking alongside his three EU counterparts.

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A spokesperson for Zelensky separately announced the call with Trump, to discuss Ukraine and Russia's first direct peace talks in Turkey since the invasion in 2022.

Briefing reporters, Macron hit out at Russia for again ignoring a demand for a ceasefire.

It is "unacceptable that Russia and President [Vladimir] Putin have not responded for a second time to the demands made by the Americans, supported by Ukraine and the Europeans," Macron said.

"We continue to fight for peace, we continue to stand by President Zelensky and coordinate very closely with the United States."

German Chancellor Merz expressed disappointment.

"The diplomatic efforts we have made so far have unfortunately failed due to Russia's unwillingness to take the first steps in the right direction," Merz said.

Tusk had a similar message, while underscoring that the priority was "to maintain full unity between our European and American partners on the Ukrainian issue".

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Russia and Ukraine on Friday agreed on a prisoner exchange, said they would trade ideas on a possible ceasefire, and discussed a potential meeting between Zelensky and Putin.

But coming out of the highly anticipated talks in Istanbul, which lasted just over 90 minutes, there were few signs of more significant progress on how the war might end.