Delegations from Russia and Ukraine meet this Tuesday (29) in Turkey for the first face-to-face round of negotiations on the war in nearly three weeks.
Host President Recep Tayyip Erdogan welcomed Russians and Ukrainians and recalled that the responsibility to “stop this tragedy” is the responsibility of both sides.
Ukraine has little hope of immediate progress and has said it seeks a ceasefire, but without compromising its territory or sovereignty. Low expectations translated into what Ukrainian TV described as “a cold reception” at the place chosen for the meeting: there were no handshakes between the negotiators.
Still, the resumption of face-to-face dialogue is an important step towards a ceasefire. Although stalled on most fronts, the Russian offensive continues to inflict suffering on civilians and exacerbate humanitarian crises in besieged cities.
High-ranking figures from Russia and Ukraine set, still on Monday (29), the tone of low expectations for the negotiations that begin this Tuesday.
Dmitro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, said he would go to the table to reach an agreement that includes, at a minimum, humanitarian issues and, at most, a ceasefire, but without “negotiating people, land or sovereignty”.
Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for the Kremlin, said it was important for the meetings to take place in person again, although negotiations so far have not produced substantial progress – there were three previous meetings in Belarus and one in Turkey.
Images from Istanbul’s Dolmabahce Palace, where the meeting is taking place, showed Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich among the delegations, although his role in the talks is unclear.
On Monday, the American newspaper The Wall Street Journal published a report in which it claims that the oligarch and two Ukrainians had symptoms of poisoning after a meeting in Kiev earlier this month.
Amid expectations about the outcome of the fifth round of negotiations, the day in Ukraine began with sirens warning the population against air strikes sounding in various regions of the country.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday it hit a large fuel depot in the Rivne region of western Ukraine. The account of the attack, while seeking to reinforce the Russian argument that the offensive does not target civilians, denotes Moscow’s strategy of hitting targets far from the front lines to try to paralyze the supply lines of the Ukrainian resistance.
In a statement, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said Russia’s plan to focus attacks on fuel storage facilities was to “complicate logistics and create the conditions for a humanitarian crisis”.
“The enemy continues to carry out vile missile and bomb attacks in an attempt to completely destroy the infrastructure and residential areas of Ukrainian cities,” the statement reads.
In the evening speech that has become a tradition since the beginning of the war, President Volodymyr Zelensky repeated calls for the West to increase pressure on Russia in retaliation for the invasion.
“We, living people, have to wait. Everything the Russian military has done so far doesn’t justify an oil embargo?”, questioned the Ukrainian, reiterating one of the elements that appear in all his pronouncements.
Several Western countries have imposed tough sanctions on Moscow, but Europe is heavily dependent on Russia for energy supplies, so tougher measures like those suggested by Zelensky have been treated with some reluctance.
Mariupol, a port city whose status as a possible bridge between Crimea and separatist territories in the Donbass is strategic to Moscow’s interests, has become a scene of destruction after more than three weeks under Russian siege.
According to the city hall, 160,000 people are still trapped without being able to leave the city. The local government says 5,000 residents have died as a result of the Russian attacks. Among the victims were 210 children. The numbers could not be independently verified.
“There is no food for children, especially for babies. They are born in cellars because women have nowhere to go to give birth. All maternity wards have been destroyed,” an employee of a grocery store in Mariupol told Reuters news agency. who identified herself only as Nataliia, after managing to reach Zaporijia.
As the war drags on, what was thought to be one of President Vladimir Putin’s goals — the capture of Kiev — still seems far from being realized. “We have destroyed the myth of the invincible Russian army. We are resisting the aggression of one of the strongest armies in the world and we have managed to make them change their objectives”, said the mayor of the Ukrainian capital. Vitali Klitschko.
The speech, although somewhat romanticized with the rhetoric of resistance, also comes amid growing reports of a counterattack from Ukraine, which has been trying to retake territories previously taken by the Russians.
What some analysts call a change in the flow of the war, however, is seen by others as a consequence of Russia’s shift in strategy. Moscow is focusing efforts on expanding separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine.
