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.
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