The Russian and Ukrainian delegations today began negotiations 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 president’s wish of his country, Alexandr Lukashenko, that during the negotiations it is possible to find ways to solve “the problems”.
“You can feel completely safe. This is our sacred duty”, Makéi pointed out.
The key issue 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 arms.
“I say it once again: 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 said.
Russia has stated that the negotiations do not imply that it stops the offensive.
The Ukrainian delegation includes Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov , the leader of the faction of the official party “The Servant of the People”, David Arakhamia, the presidential adviser Mykhailo Podoliak, the deputy head of the Ukrainian delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group for peace in Donbas, Andriy Kostin, the deputy Rustem Umerov and Deputy Foreign Minister Mykola Tochytsky.
On the Russian side, the meeting was attended by 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.
The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri Peksov, stated in his daily telephone press conference that he does not want to comment on the prospects of an agreement at the meeting, and urged at Let us all let the negotiators work without noise from the outside.
“Actually, I suggest we wait for the talks. I prefer not to announce any demands (ours). Negotiations must be carried out in silence”, he said.
“The only thing we 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 opposite party arrived a short time ago”, he added.
For logistical and security reasons, the Ukrainian delegation finally arrived shortly before 12: 00 local time (09: 00 GMT) in a Polish helicopter, according to BELTA.
Ukrainian officials finally agreed to travel to Belarus, although not to Minsk as Russia had initially proposed, given that they consider that Lukashenko is not neutral, having welcomed more than 30.00 Russian soldiers and military equipment for some joint exercises that have served Moscow to cross the southern border of that country to attack Ukraine.
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 where the Peace Agreements for Donbas were signed in 2015 , pacts that due to the war have remained a dead letter and that, in Moscow’s opinion, have not been implemented by Kiev in eight years.
Ukraine agreed to start negotiations without expectations, although according to said the Government, managed to hold them “unconditionally”, after the Kremlin demanded that they lay down their arms beforehand, always according to the Kiev version.
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