Putin and Zelenskyy meeting possible after Turkey Peace Talks: Ukraine
RUSSIA, UKRAINE: A face-to-face meeting between Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskky and Russia’s Vladimir Putin is ‘possible’ following the completion of the latest round of Peace Talks in Turkey’s Istanbul, an Ukrainian negotiator said Tuesday evening. This comes after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Monday that a meeting between the leaders of the warring countries could only happen after key issues were ironed out by the two delegations.
“The results of Tuesday’s meeting are sufficient for a meeting at the leaders’ level,” Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said.
Russia today said it had held ‘meaningful’ talks with Ukraine and has decided to ‘radically’ cut down military activity in capital Kyiv and Chernihiv – which is in northern Ukraine. Moscow’s declaration is being seen as the first major breakthrough after multiple rounds of ceasefire and Peace Talks since Russia invaded Ukraine last month.
Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin said the decision to reduce military activity was taken in the interest of creating mutual trust and the necessary conditions required for the occurrence of further talks between the two nations.
The Russian Minister further stated that there has been progress on negotiations on “preparing an agreement on Ukraine’s neutrality and non-nuclear status” and also giving the east-European country “security guarantees”.
Meanwhile, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said that the special military operation in Ukraine will continue until the set goals are achieved.
“The Russian Armed Forces will continue the special military operation until the set goals are achieved,” Shoigu said at a conference call, RT reported. Deliveries of lethal weapons to Ukraine by the West are irresponsible, Shoigu said. The Russian Defence Minister announced the fulfilment of the main tasks of the first stage of the special operation in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said the signals from Peace Talks with Russia could be called positive but expressed caution about Russia’s promise to sharply curtail military action in some areas and said Ukraine would not be easing off its defensive efforts.
“We can say the signals we are receiving from the talks are positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells,” he said, adding that Ukraine could only trust a concrete result from the talks.
– THE HINDU, IANS, NDTV