Russian and Ukrainian negotiators Sunday confirmed the start of a new round of face-to-face peace talks early next week. to end the conflict unleashed in the country on February 24.
However, both parties have given different information on the exact celebration of the same.
The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, has confirmed that the meeting will take place from Tuesday, March 29 to Wednesday, March 30, as announced on its messaging channel on the Telegram platform.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, David Arajamia, has hinted that talks will start tomorrow Monday, even citing Turkey as the venue, according to Facebook reports.
Negotiations continue at a difficult time. This Friday, Russia expressed its pessimism about the development of the talks, which it believes are practically at a standstill due to the current situationUkraine’s refusal to accept a comprehensive treaty led to constant attempts by Kiev to postpone the meetings.
To this we must add that Ukraine has shown no willingness to negotiate on the status of the Russian-controlled and post-Kyiv occupied Crimea or Donbass areas, and negotiations on a possible partial disarmament of the Ukrainian army do not seem to be progressing either, or on the of Moscow demanded renunciation of Ukraine’s NATO membership aspirations.
Medinski repeated that Russia demands security guarantees, demilitarization and denazification of Ukraineand the recognition of Crimea and the breakaway Donbass regions in the east of the country. “Without considering these aspects,” he added, “an agreement is unlikely to be finalized.”
Instead, Russia notes that Ukraine’s primary concern is obtaining security guarantees from third powers in the event Ukraine does not join NATO, which it called a perfectly understandable position.
However, the negotiator explained that precisely because of these negotiations, Ukrainians are in no hurry, believing that time is on their side. While both sides seem to be converging on secondary issues, he concludes that we are getting nowhere on the most important political issues.