Ukraine and Russia face each other for the first time this Monday in a timid start to dialogue that starts with misgivings, as the main actors have publicly acknowledged. No preconditions, The appointment starts at the border between Ukraine and Belarusa country the latter that is far from being an impartial observer in the conflict.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations began negotiations on Monday in Pripyat, on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, in which Kiev will try to achieve a ceasefire by Russia after five days of war.
The beginning of the meeting was broadcast live by the official Belarusian agency BELTA.
The Belarusian Foreign Minister, Vladimir Makéi, greeted the delegations, to whom he conveyed the wish of his country’s president, Alexander Lukashenko, that during the negotiations it would be possible to find ways to resolve “the problems”. “You can feel completely safe. This is our sacred duty!” Makéi pointed out.
The key topic of the talks for the Ukrainian side is to achieve an immediate ceasefire in the war that Russia launched five days ago in Ukraine and the withdrawal of troops from Ukraine, while it is important for Russia to address the possibility of the neighboring country adopting a neutral status with respect to NATO.
The Ukrainian president, Volodímir Zelenski, urged hours earlier in a video message – in which he addressed the Russian soldiers – to leave Ukraine and lay down their weapons.
“I say it once more: 4,500 Russian occupiers have fallen. Discard your equipment. Get out of here. Don’t trust your commanders. Don’t trust your propagandists. Just save your lives,” he stated.
[Siga la última hora del conflicto entre Ucrania y Rusia]
Russia has claimed that the negotiations do not imply that he stops the offensive.
The Ukrainian delegation includes Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, the leader of the “Servant of the People” faction of the official party, David Arakhamia, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak, the deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation to the Trilateral Contact Group for peace in Donbas, Andriy Kostin, Deputy Rustem Umerov and Deputy Foreign Minister Mykola Tochytsky.
On the Russian side, Vladimir Medinski, assistant to the President of Russia, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko, a Deputy Defense Minister, the chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Duma (Lower House) Leonid Slutski attended the meeting.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peksov said in his daily telephone press conference that he does not want to comment on the prospects of an agreement at the meeting., and urged everyone to let the negotiators work without noise from outside. “Actually, I suggest that we wait for the talks. I prefer not to announce any demands (of ours). The negotiations should be carried out in silence,” he said.
“Our only regret is that the negotiations did not start a day earlier, when we had this opportunity. As you know, our delegation has been waiting there, in Belarus, for many hours. Our delegation was ready from midnight, but the opposing party arrived a short time ago,” he added.
For logistical and security reasons, the Ukrainian delegation finally arrived shortly before 12 noon local time (0900 GMT) in a Polish helicopter, according to BELTA.
The Ukrainian officials finally agreed to travel to Belarus, although not to Minsk as Russia had initially proposed, since they consider that Lukashenko is not neutral in having welcomed more than 30,000 Russian soldiers and military equipment for some joint exercises that have served Moscow to cross the southern border of that country to attack Ukraine.
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In addition, Lukashenko recently declared himself willing to travel with Russian President Vladimir Putin to the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, annexed by the Kremlin in 2014.
It was in Minsk that the Peace Agreements for Donbas were signed in 2015pacts that due to the war have remained a dead letter and that, in Moscow’s opinion, in eight years have not been implemented by Kiev.
Ukraine agreed to start negotiations without expectations, although, according to the government, it managed to hold them “without conditions”, after the Kremlin demanded it lay down its arms first, always according to the Kiev version.