“Positive signals”for Volodymir Zelesky, discussions “substantial” for the Russian negotiators, and the Kremlin which specifies that nothing is “very promising” and that there is no “breakthrough”: this is how the two Russian and Ukrainian camps welcomed the progress made on Tuesday 29 march in Istanbul, Turkey during talks to find a settlement to the war in Ukraine.
The discussions have entered a concrete phase: the Ukrainians have proposed a ten-point plan to the Russian side, which has undertaken to respond to it, also believing that it has made concessions and a step towards peace.
And even, if we stick to the words pronounced Tuesday by the chief negotiator of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, two steps towards peace: the Russian side presents as a pledge of good will the reduction of the intensity military on the kyiv and Chernihiv fronts, north of the Ukrainian capital, and accepts the principle of a meeting between Vladimir Putin and Volodymir Zelensky once a draft agreement has been written between the two parties. Charge the two presidents to discuss the points that are still stuck. For his part, on Wednesday morning the spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitry Peskov, declared to the press that “There is a lot of work to do.“
Among the main sticking points, the status of Crimea and the separatist republics of Donbass. For Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, the Ukrainians would offer to enter into a round of negotiations that could last fifteen years. One way of pushing back the problem which would have the advantage for the Russians of keeping their grip on the territory and of saying that kyiv has given up trying to reconquer it militarily.
From there to saying that the way to a resolution of the conflict seems open, there is more than one step, if only because the Russians immediately made it clear that the military de-escalation in the direction of kyiv did not mean a cease -fire. The fighting continues: Vladimir Putin announced Tuesday evening to Emmanuel Macron that it was not possible to envisage a humanitarian operation in Mariupol. And then, yesterday’s rather positive remarks came from the negotiators present in Istanbul: Deputy Minister of Defense Alexander Fomin and chief negotiator, former Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky.
Neither of them are leading figures and if there is something that we know about the workings of Russian power, and that the last few weeks have set in stone, it is that so many that Vladimir Putin has not spoken, nothing is certain in Moscow. During the night of Tuesday to Wednesday, the bombardments had resumed on Chernihiv, despite Russian promises.