About four and a half weeks after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Moscow and Kiev will begin a new round of talks on Tuesday in Istanbul.
Delegations from Russia and Ukraine will meet at the president’s office in Istanbul’s Dolmabahce at around 9:30 am ET on Tuesday, the Turkish presidential office said. Before negotiations start, the Turkish side wants to meet with the delegations, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said after a cabinet meeting in Ankara. He emphasized again that he expected an early ceasefire.
Erdogan said he was in phone contact with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Kremlin chief Vladimir Putin, saying things were going in a “positive direction”. Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia have already met three times in the Belarusian border area. After that, the lectures were held in videoconferences.
More than four weeks after the start of the Russian war of aggression, negotiations between the Ukrainian and Russian delegations are proving extremely difficult. For example, Kiev wants the withdrawal of Russian troops and security guarantees. Moscow is demanding that Ukraine renounce NATO and recognize the breakaway areas of eastern Ukraine as separate states and the Crimean peninsula on the Black Sea, annexed in 2014, as part of Russia.
Zelenskyj: Despite Ukrainian successes, the situation is tense
Despite some military successes, Zelenskyy continues to assess the situation in his country as tense. He said this in his telegram video night speech. Ukrainian defenders could have repelled Russian units from the town of Irpin, near Kiev, he said. However, fighting continued there and in other parts of the country.
Russian troops controlled the northern Kiev region and had resources and strength, Zelenskyy said. They tried to rebuild destroyed units. The situation also remains “very difficult” in the regions of Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donbass and southern Ukraine.
Selenskyj again called for tougher sanctions against Russia. Regarding an embargo on Russian oil supplies that is being discussed in Europe, he said there are now many indications that this tightening of sanctions against Russia will only occur if Moscow uses chemical weapons. “There are no words for it,” Zelenskyj said. ‘Think how far you’ve come. Waiting for chemical weapons,” he said, asking if everything Russia has done so far deserves such an embargo. He did not elaborate on where those clues came from.
Reports of Major Destruction in Kharkiv
In the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, nearly 1,180 multi-storey residential buildings have been destroyed since the beginning of the Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian sources, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov was quoted as saying by Unian news agency. In addition, more than 50 kindergartens, almost 70 schools and 15 hospitals were destroyed. In 24 hours, Russian troops bombarded Kharkiv nearly 60 times with artillery and mortars. The information cannot be independently verified.
About 30% of the population left the city, according to Terekhov. But some people came back. Before the start of the war, Kharkiv had around 1.5 million inhabitants and is the second largest city in Ukraine after Kiev. Since the Russian invasion four and a half weeks ago, the city has been attacked from the air and with artillery.
According to Terekhov, residents of the bombed houses are housed in the remaining schools, kindergartens, basements and subway stations. Despite the attacks, supermarkets in Kharkiv are still open and all necessary groceries are available. Kharkiv is also receiving humanitarian aid from other cities.