On Monday, Ukraine and Russia were set to hold their first face-to-face peace negotiations in more than two weeks, with Kyiv certain that it would make no territorial compromises as the battlefield momentum changed in its favor.
Following a phone call between Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday, Ukrainian officials downplayed the likelihood of a substantial breakthrough at the discussions in Istanbul.
The fact that they were taking place in person at all – for the first time since an ugly meeting of foreign ministers on March 10 – was an indication of behind-the-scenes developments as Russia’s invasion slowed.
On the ground, there was little indication of relief for residents in besieged cities, particularly in the damaged port of Mariupol, where the mayor claimed that 160,000 people were still trapped inside and that Russia was preventing evacuation attempts.
The Kremlin, for its part, expressed concern over remarks made by US President Joe Biden at a speech on Saturday, in which he stated that Putin must not continue in office.
People were cleaning rubble out of a classroom on the third floor of a school in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city and one of Ukraine’s most hit, where a wall had been ripped out by a missile before daybreak.
“This is a target for civilians. It’s a school, after all! They have decided to destroy the city because they have been unable to seize it “After their own neighborhood was hit, Oleksandr sought refuge with his mother on a lower floor of the school.”Let them choke on their own body parts like the Russians are doing now. Even Nazis didn’t do stuff like this.”
TALKS
Russia and Ukraine have announced that their delegations will arrive in Turkey on Monday, with talks set to begin on Tuesday.
Officials in Ukraine have recently stated that Russia may be more inclined to negotiate now that whatever prospect it had of putting a new administration in Kyiv has faded in the face of tough Ukrainian resistance and heavy Russian losses.
A month after committing the bulk of its massive invasion force to a failed assault on Kyiv; Russia’s military signaled this week that it was turning its focus to concentrating on extending territory held by separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine accused Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of rejecting appeals to discuss a ceasefire when the two sides last met in person, while Lavrov insisted a ceasefire was not even on the table.
Since then, they’ve held video conferences and debated publicly a formula under which Ukraine would embrace some type of formal neutrality. However, neither party has budged on Russia’s territorial claims, which include Crimea, which Moscow seized and annexed in 2014, and the Donbas, which Moscow demands Kyiv cede to separatists.
On Monday, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko said, “I don’t think there will be any breakthrough on the fundamental concerns.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed some type of “compromise” involving Donbas in a conversation with Russian journalists over the weekend, though he did not recommend ceding the territory. In recent remarks, he stated that territorial integrity remained Kyiv’s top goal.
BIDEN’S WORDS ARE ‘ALARMING.’
The Kremlin, which often denounces the West in strong terms over Ukraine, has so far only issued a cautious response to Biden’s surprising call for Putin’s 22-year rule to end, possibly to avoid bringing attention to it.
At the close of a speech to a throng in Warsaw on Saturday, Biden improvised, “For God’s sake, this man cannot continue in power.” Removal of Putin is neither US nor NATO policy, according to Washington and NATO, and Biden stated on Sunday that he is not advocating for regime change.
“This is a statement that is undoubtedly worrying,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked about Biden’s remark on Monday.
“We will continue to pay close attention to President Trump’s words,” Peskov told reporters. Peskov had previously stated that the Russian people would choose their leader.
Russia’s efforts in Ukraine are described as a “special military operation” aimed at disarming and “denazifying” its neighbor. This is seen as a pretext by Kyiv and the West considers it an unprovoked invasion.
Western countries have declared from the start that Russia’s ultimate goal was to destabilize the Kyiv government, which Moscow has failed to do.
Ukrainian forces started on the offensive last week, forcing Russian troops out of Kyiv, the northeast, and the southwest. Meanwhile, Russia has maintained pressure on separatist strongholds in the southeast, particularly its deadly siege of Mariupol, which has been devastated while tens of thousands of civilians remain trapped inside.
Mayor Vadym Boichenko, who has fled the city and speaking from an unidentified location, said 26 buses were waiting to evacuate some of the 160,000 stranded inhabitants, but Russia refused to allow them to leave.
“The city’s condition remains challenging. People have crossed the boundary into humanitarian disaster “On national television, Boichenko stated.”Mariupol must be entirely evacuated.”
Because of intelligence warnings of likely Russian “provocations” along the routes, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said there were no preparations to open corridors to evacuate residents from besieged cities on Monday.
Russia’s armored columns are stuck somewhere, unable to restock and making little or no advance.
Russia’s positions have not changed significantly in the last 24 hours, according to the British defense ministry, with the majority of Russian gains being made in Mariupol, where severe action is taking place.
“As of today, the enemy is assembling its forces, but they are unable to advance anyplace in Ukraine,” stated Hanna Malyar, Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister, on Monday.
