Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sees “positive” signals from Tuesday’s Russian-Ukrainian talks in Turkey, but Ukraine does not “intend to relax” its military efforts, while Moscow has mentioned “substantial” discussions.
“We can say that the signals we hear in the negotiations are positive, but they don’t make us forget the explosions or the Russian shells,” Zelensky said in a video message.
After three hours of discussions in Istanbul, the head of the Russian delegation and representative of the Kremlin, Vladimir Medinski, reported him “substantial discussions” and said that kyiv’s “clear” proposals for an agreement would be “studied very soon and submitted to President Vladimir Putin. Announcements, however, greeted with circumspection by Western leaders who also claim to want to judge Moscow on its actions.
Mr. Medinski estimated that a summit between MM. Putin and Zelensky would be possible in the event of an agreement to end hostilities. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, Moscow had always rejected this request from kyiv.
Another hopeful statement after nearly five weeks of conflict: Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced that Moscow would “radically reduce [son] military activity in the direction of kyiv and Cherniguiv”, in the north of the country.
For his part, the Ukrainian chief negotiator, David Arakhamia, also considered that the conditions were now “sufficient” for a summit meeting between MM. Putin and Zelensky.
“If they keep their word”
But US President Joe Biden was quick to say Westerners were waiting to see if Russia was “keeping its word” on reducing its military activity towards kyiv and Cherniguiv.
“We will see if they keep their word,” he told reporters, shortly after meeting with the French, British, German and Italian leaders. “There seems to be a consensus that you have to see what they have to offer.”
Earlier, these Western leaders had warned against any “slackening of Western resolve” in the face of the Russian invasion and expressed “their determination to continue to increase the cost paid by Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine. »
US Department of Defense spokesman John Kirby said Russian forces around kyiv had begun a “repositioning” but “not a real withdrawal”.
“We can confirm that we have seen a small number” of troops “beginning to reposition,” he said. But “we must be ready to see a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine” and “that does not mean that the threat against kyiv is over”.
In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson said London would judge “Putin and his regime by his deeds, not his words”.
The UK will hold a donors’ conference on Thursday to mobilize more lethal weapons for Ukraine.
Shortly after the end of the talks, the Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium and the Czech Republic successively announced that they were expelling Russian diplomats suspected of spying.
In Istanbul, the Ukrainian negotiator explained that kyiv was calling for an “international agreement” signed by several guarantor countries which “will act in a similar way to Article 5 of NATO and even in a firmer way”. Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance treaty stipulates that an attack against one of its members is an attack against all.
Mr Arakhamia cited, among the countries that Ukraine would like to have as guarantors, the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom – permanent members of the UN Security Council – but also Turkey, Germany, Poland and Israel.
kyiv also asks that this agreement in no way prohibit Ukraine’s entry into the European Union, and proposes that Crimea and the Donbass territories under the control of pro-Russian separatists be “temporarily excluded”.
To resolve the specific issue of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, kyiv is proposing “fifteen years” of separate Russian-Ukrainian talks, according to another Ukrainian negotiator, Mykhaïlo Podoliak.
Land takeover
No reliable assessment of the victims of the conflict has yet been provided. President Zelensky reported on Sunday 20,000 dead since the beginning of the Russian invasion, without specifying whether they were Ukrainians only or also Russians, civilians only or also soldiers.
As for the battles on the ground, the Russian Minister of Defense considered that Russia had achieved its “objective”: “the military potential of the Ukrainian armed forces has been reduced significantly, which makes it possible to concentrate attention and efforts on the main goal, the liberation of Donbass,” Sergei Shoigu said.
In the kyiv region, Russian troops fired more than 40 missiles and rockets in 24 hours at residential areas, destroying more than 550 targets, the regional military administration announced on Telegram.
On Monday, the Ukrainian authorities announced that they had “liberated” Irpin, the scene of fierce fighting twenty kilometers northwest of kyiv.
The situation seemed relatively calm on Tuesday in this locality, where we heard sporadic gunfire, however, according to AFP journalists.
Soldiers nevertheless blocked journalists’ access to the destroyed bridge leading into the city, explaining that Ukrainian forces were still “cleaning up” the area.
New Russian strikes
In the west of the country, Russian forces also bombed the military airfield of Starokostiantyniv on Tuesday, destroying all fuel stocks in this city, announced its mayor Mykola Melnytchouk.
In the South, a Russian strike hit Tuesday morning the building of the regional administration of Mykolaiv, a city near Odessa which has experienced a respite in the bombardments in recent days.
At least twelve people died and 33 others injured, according to a new assessment given by President Zelensky during a videoconference intervention before the Danish Parliament.
AFP journalists saw rescuers pull two bodies from the rubble, and the building was gutted to its full height.
In the south, three humanitarian corridors were set up on Tuesday, notably from the besieged city of Mariupol, after a suspension of civilian evacuations on Monday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.
Crime against humanity
Mr Zelensky on Tuesday accused the Russians of a “crime against humanity” in Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov which the Russian army has been trying to seize since the end of February, where around 160,000 people are still believed to be stuck. .
“They even blow up shelters when they know full well that civilians are hiding there, women, children and old people,” he added.
According to Tetyana Lomakina, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, “around 5,000 people” were buried there, but there could actually be “around 10,000 dead”.
Following a telephone exchange with French President Emmanuel Macron, President Putin made the surrender of Ukrainian forces defending the city a condition for the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol.
“To find a solution to the difficult humanitarian situation in this city, Ukrainian nationalist fighters must stop resisting and lay down their arms,” Putin said.
The French presidency, for its part, considered that the conditions for launching in the coming days a humanitarian operation to help the inhabitants of Mariupol “are not met at this stage”.
Another subject of concern is the situation of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants. The International Atomic Energy Agency announced that its director general was in Ukraine “for discussions with government officials” to provide “technical assistance” to ensure the safety of these facilities.