New negotiations begin this Tuesday in Istanbul to try to end the war in Ukraine. At the same time, the Ukrainian forces claim to have regained ground, particularly near kyiv, and are struggling to keep control of Mariupol.
Russian negotiators arrived in Istanbul on Monday, where a previous negotiating session had already taken place on March 10, at the level of foreign ministers, but had not resulted in any progress. The discussions then continued by videoconference.
One of the important points of the negotiations concerns “security guarantees and neutrality, the nuclear-free status of our state”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Russian media on Sunday. This point “is being studied in depth” but it will require a referendum and security guarantees, he warned, accusing his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and his entourage of “dragging things out”.
Clear instructions from Kyiv
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba later said on his ministry’s website that Zelensky had “given very clear instructions to our delegation. We do not trade people, territory or sovereignty”.
According to him, the minimum objective of the talks in Turkey is to solve the humanitarian problems, and the ultimate goal is to achieve a stable ceasefire. The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov judged that a meeting between Putin and Zelensky, whom the latter calls for, would be “counterproductive” for the time being. The conflict has already forced nearly 3.9 million Ukrainians to flee their country, according to the UN, which will seek for its part to obtain a “humanitarian ceasefire”.