Ukraine and Russia yesterday failed to make progress in halting the war and bridging the vast differences between them at the first high-level talks between their foreign ministers since the Russian invasion began.
Russia indicated it would continue attacks until its goals are met, Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said after the meeting lasting about 90 minutes with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, in Turkey.
“The broad narrative he conveyed to me is that they will continue their aggression until Ukraine meets their demands, and the least of these demands is surrender,” Kuleba said.
Photo: AFP / National Police of Ukraine
Russia is open to serious talks between the two presidents, “but those contacts must have added value,” Lavrov told reporters after the meeting.
Hosted by Turkish Minister of Foreign Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu in Antalya, it was the most senior in-person meeting between Ukraine and Russia since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24.
It followed two weeks of war in which Russia’s plans for achieving a rapid military victory have hit increasing difficulties as Ukraine mounts a determined defense, backed by flows of weapons from the US and its allies.
Photo: EPA-EFE / Cem Ozdel / Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
That has prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin to adopt increasingly brutal tactics, with his forces shelling Ukrainian cities to try to break resistance.
Kuleba had set out Ukraine’s three key demands before the meeting with Lavrov — a ceasefire, an improvement of the humanitarian situation in besieged cities and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the country.
Russia did not plan to discuss a ceasefire at yesterday’s talks, because the main negotiations are the ones that have taken place in Belarus, said Lavrov, who gave no commitments on humanitarian corridors for Ukrainian cities.
He insisted that Russia had not invaded Ukraine, but is carrying out what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation” there.
“We want a Ukraine that’s friendly and demilitarized, a Ukraine in which there isn’t a risk of the creation of another Nazi state, a Ukraine where there won’t be a ban on the Russian language, on Russian culture,” Lavrov said.
Russia lacks any political will to end the war and “Putin, in poker terms, has gone all in — so he either wins or he loses,” Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas said in an interview with Bloomberg Television.
“It’s up to everybody to make sure that Putin doesn’t win this war,” she said.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday spoke to Putin by phone and reiterated their demand for an immediate ceasefire.
The three leaders agreed to stay in close touch in coming days, a statement from Scholz’s office said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said he is willing to consider some compromises on Russia’s demand that his country abandons ambitions to join NATO and to adopt a neutral position.
Zelenskiy has also said that “only after the direct talks between the two presidents can we end this war,” and that there has been no direct contact between him and Putin.
Ukraine is insisting on security guarantees from neighbors and allies such as the US, the UK and Germany, and will not cede a “single inch” of its territory to Russia, Ihor Zhovkva, Zelenskiy’s deputy chief of staff, said in a Bloomberg Television interview on Wednesday from Kyiv.
While Ukraine wants a diplomatic solution, “our first and foremost precondition for having such kind of negotiations is immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian troops,” Zhovkva said.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
Taiwan was ranked the fourth-safest country in the world with a score of 82.9, trailing only Andorra, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar in Numbeo’s Safety Index by Country report. Taiwan’s score improved by 0.1 points compared with last year’s mid-year report, which had Taiwan fourth with a score of 82.8. However, both scores were lower than in last year’s first review, when Taiwan scored 83.3, and are a long way from when Taiwan was named the second-safest country in the world in 2021, scoring 84.8. Taiwan ranked higher than Singapore in ninth with a score of 77.4 and Japan in 10th with
SECURITY RISK: If there is a conflict between China and Taiwan, ‘there would likely be significant consequences to global economic and security interests,’ it said China remains the top military and cyber threat to the US and continues to make progress on capabilities to seize Taiwan, a report by US intelligence agencies said on Tuesday. The report provides an overview of the “collective insights” of top US intelligence agencies about the security threats to the US posed by foreign nations and criminal organizations. In its Annual Threat Assessment, the agencies divided threats facing the US into two broad categories, “nonstate transnational criminals and terrorists” and “major state actors,” with China, Russia, Iran and North Korea named. Of those countries, “China presents the most comprehensive and robust military threat
RSS