Russia announced this Tuesday the decision to “drastically” reduce military activity around the Ukrainian capital, Kievand the besieged northern city of Chernígov following the negotiations held in Istanbul with the Ukrainian delegation.
This was reported to the press by Alexandr Fomin, Russian Deputy Defense Minister, after “constructive” talks with Ukraine in the Turkish city.
Fomin explained that the decision seeks to “increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for new negotiations with the ultimate goal of signing an agreement” with the Ukrainian authorities.
Thus, he noted that the decision is also due to the fact that “the negotiations on the preparations for an agreement on the neutrality and non-nuclear status of Ukraine, as well as the delivery of security guarantees to Ukraine, are advancing towards practice.”
“We start from the basis that the key decisions will be adopted in kyiv and that the conditions for further formal work will be created,” Fomin said, as reported by the Russian news agency Interfax.
Minutes earlier, the head of the Russian delegation to the negotiations in Istanbul, Vladimir Medinski, had revealed that Moscow would adopt two measures to reduce tensions in Ukraine, including one at the military level that would be announced by Fomin.
In this sense, Medinski stressed that the talks were “constructive” and added that the Russian delegation has received from its Ukrainian counterparts “a clearly formulated position to reach an agreement”, according to the Russian news agency TASS.
“We have received proposals from Ukraine for consideration. It is a clearly formulated position”, he explained, while emphasizing that “these proposals will be considered in the near future and presented to the president (Vladimir Putin)”. “We will give an answer”, he has settled.
Refugees
So far, the two parties have met in person on three occasions – on February 28, March 3 and March 7 – in Belarusian territory, while on the 10th the ministers met in Antalya (Turkey). of Foreign Affairs of Russia and Ukraine, Sergei Lavrov and Dmitro Kuleba, respectively.
Previously, the Ukrainian deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, announced on Tuesday that the kyiv government negotiated with Russia the creation of three humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from the besieged areas.
The first of them will allow the departure of civilians from the port city of Mariupol, in the southeast, to Zaporizhia, further north and under Ukrainian control, passing through the occupied town of Berdyansk.
For this purpose, 34 buses have been chartered and will reach the besieged city by nightfall, Vereshchuk wrote on Telegram.
According to the Mariupol Municipal Council, the plan is for the convoy, accompanied by civil defense services, to reach the city on Tuesday, but for the evacuation not to start until Wednesday morning “for security reasons.”
This source added that more than 75,000 residents of Mariúpol have been evacuated to Zaporizhia, where they have been assisted in finding accommodation and have been provided with basic necessities.
The second corridor aims to allow the evacuation of the residents of Melitopol (south), where a humanitarian aid convoy will arrive throughout the day, evacuating civilians also bound for Zaporizhia.
The last corridor will connect the town of Energodar (south), also under the control of the Russian army, with Zaporizhia.
For its part, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) announced that it will not participate in the evacuations that the Government of Ukraine has said it had negotiated with Russia for today and that would allow, among others, the departure of civilians from the punished city of Mariupol.
Three weeks ago, the entity made “detailed proposals” to both parties to the conflict to create corridors that allow the safe exit of civilians from Mariupol, a city in the south of the country besieged by Russian troops, without there having been any progress in that regard since then. .