Newsman: Delegations from Ukraine and Russia held talks Monday morning on Belarus’ border. The two sides began talks Monday at the Pripyat River on the border, north of Chernobyl, the spokesperson said, an area that is currently under Russian military control.
Roughly six hours after the talks began, they ended with both sides reporting back to officials in their respective capital cities ahead of a possible second-round to talks.
“The Ukrainian and Russian delegations held the first round of talks today, the main purpose of which was to discuss the issues of a ceasefire on the territory of Ukraine and hostilities. The parties identified a number of priority topics on which certain decisions were outlined,” Mikhail Podolyak, adviser to the head of the office of the President of Ukraine, said in a statement following Monday’s talks.
Podolyak added, “In order for these decisions to get some opportunities for implementation, logistical solutions, the parties leave for consultations in their capitals. The parties discussed the possibility of holding a second round of negotiations in the near future, at which these topics will receive concrete development practice.”
Ukraine has said the key issue for the talks is an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops. Russia has signaled it wants to discuss Ukraine adopting “neutral status.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy agreed to send a delegation to meet with Russian negotiators during a phone call Sunday with Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s president’s office announced.
The Ukrainian delegation included Podolyak; David Arahamiya, a member of the Servant of the People political faction; Oleksiy Reznikov, the Minister of Defense of Ukraine; Andriy Kostin, the first deputy dead of the Ukrainian Delegation to the Tripartite Contact Group; Rustem Umerov, a member of the Parliament of Ukraine; and Deputy Foreign Minister Mykola Tochytsky.
Russia’s delegation includes officials from the foreign and defense ministries and presidential administration.
As the talks got underway, French President Emmanuel Macron and Putin spoke by phone.
According to a readout of the call released by the Kremlin, Putin told Macron Russia is open to negotiations with Ukrainian representatives and expects the talks will lead to the “desired results.” During the call, Putin denied that Russian forces are attacking civilian targets, according to the Kremlin’s readout.
The two leaders agreed to speak again in the coming days.
The Kremlin has signaled it wants to hold talks where Zelenskyy will discuss “neutral status” for Ukraine, in effect hoping to negotiate Kyiv’s terms of surrender. But Zelenskyy’s administration has said while it wants talks to end the killing in Ukraine, it will not make concessions.
“We will not surrender, we will not capitulate, we will not give up a single inch of our territory,” Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said at a press conference.
While brokering the meeting, Zelenskyy said Lukashenko has promised that no missiles or aircraft would carry out strikes on Ukraine while the negotiations were underway.
The diplomatic effort came as Russian troops continued to try to press their attack in Ukraine but faced a fierce defense from Ukrainian forces. In Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, in the country’s northeast, Ukrainian defenders succeeded in beating back Russian units during street fighting.
