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De-escalation in Kyiv 1st promise towards peace
Following the talks, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said there were “sufficient” conditions for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet.
Russia said it would scale down fighting around Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and a northern city following talks with Ukraine on Tuesday, and raised the possibility of a meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian presidents.
The outcome of the face-to-face talks at a palace in Istanbul reflected the first hopes of some reprieve, more than a month after Russian troops invaded their neighbour, unleashing a campaign of bombing, shelling and infantry assaults that has left thousands dead and forced millions from their homes.
But London and Washington immediately cast doubt on Russia’s words and, on the ground, Ukraine said Russian forces blasted a gaping hole in a nine-story government administration building in the southern port city of Mykolaiv, killing at least seven people, Reuters reported.
Following the talks, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said there were “sufficient” conditions for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet.
Russian deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin said there had been progress in talks on “the neutrality and non-nuclear status of Ukraine”.
Therefore, “a decision has been made to radically, by several times reduce the military activity” around the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernihiv”, he said.
Ukraine’s team set out a detailed framework for a peace deal under which the country would remain neutral but its security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including possibly the US, UK, France, Turkey, China and Poland, in an arrangement similar to NATO’s “an attack on one is an attack on all” principle.
Ukraine said it would also be willing to hold talks over a 15-year period on the future of the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014.
The Kremlin, which said one of the conditions Ukraine put forward was for it to be allowed to join the European Union, demanded among other things that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO, which it sees as a threat.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken responded saying he doubted Russia’s “seriousness”. “There is what Russia says and there is what Russia does. We’re focussed on the latter,” he said, speaking at a press conference in Morocco. “What Russia is doing is the continued brutalisation of Ukraine and its people, and that continues as we speak.”
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said: “We will judge Putin and his regime by his actions and not by his words”.
Following the announcements on Tuesday, European stock markets lifted and oil prices fell by five percent as supply fears eased, while the ruble surged 10 percent against the dollar.
Just hours earlier, Ukraine said seven people were killed in a Russian strike against the regional government headquarters in Mykolaiv, adding to a toll estimated by Zelensky at 20,000 so far.
Ukrainian forces have pushed back Russian forces from around the city in recent days and have recaptured territory in other parts of the country, including in the suburban town of Irpin outside Kyiv -- an important gateway to the capital.
Ukraine has also resumed evacuations from areas in the south of the country occupied by Russian forces.
While Ukraine’s forces are counterattacking in the north, they are struggling to retain control of the southern port city of Mariupol.
Russian forces have encircled the city and have embarked on a steady and indiscriminate bombardment, trapping an estimated 160,000 people with little food, water or medicine.
On Tuesday morning, a Russian rocket hit the regional administration building in Mykolaiv, killing at least seven people and wounding 22, local authorities said. Eighteen of the wounded were pulled from the rubble by rescue workers, who continue to work at the scene, the emergencies service said in an online post.
Footage from the state rescue service showed a blood patch in the debris, and shattered glass and upturned furniture strewn on the floor in the offices inside the building.
“This is just a nightmare. A girl died on my floor. What can I say? Are you kidding? I hugged her, two minutes passed, and she passed,” said a woman who was helped out of the building by rescuers.
“They destroyed half of the building, got into my office,” regional governor Vitaliy Kim said.
Russian forces have attacked Ukraine’s southern ports including Kherson, Odesa, Mykolaiv and Mariupol as they try to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and establish a land corridor from Russia to Crimea, the peninsula Russia seized in 2014.
At least 5,000 people have already died, according to one senior Ukrainian official who estimated the real toll may be closer to 10,000 when all the bodies are collected.
Zelensky said the Russian siege constituted a “crime against humanity, which is happening in front of the eyes of the whole planet in real time”.
As he opened the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan acknowledged that both sides had “legitimate concerns”, but urged the delegations to “put an end to this tragedy”.
Russian oligarch and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, who has been hit by Western sanctions, was also in attendance.
The Kremlin said he was acting as an intermediary and denied reports that he had been poisoned during a previous round of negotiations in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry called the situation “catastrophic”, saying Russia’s assault from land, sea and air had turned a city once home to 450,000 people “into dust”.
