New negotiations begin on Tuesday in Istanbul to try to end the war that has raged in Ukraine since the Russian invasion more than a month ago, while Ukrainian forces claim to resist Russian assaults on major cities and even have regained ground.
Russian negotiators arrived in Istanbul on Monday, where a previous negotiating session had already taken place on March 10, at the level of foreign ministers, but had not resulted in any progress. The discussions then continued by videoconference.
One of the important points of the negotiations concerns “security guarantees and neutrality, the nuclear-free status of our state”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Russian media on Sunday.
This point “is being studied in depth” but it will necessitate a referendum and security guarantees, he warned, accusing his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and his entourage of “draging things out”.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, tempered expectations on Monday, stressing the lack of “significant progress” in the negotiations so far.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba later indicated on his ministry’s website that Mr. Zelensky had “given very clear instructions to our delegation. We are not trading people, territory or sovereignty”.
According to him, the minimum objective of the discussions in Turkey is to solve the humanitarian problems and the ultimate goal is to achieve a stable ceasefire.
The head of Russian diplomacy Sergei Lavrov judged that a meeting between MM. Putin and Zelensky, whom the latter calls for, would be “counter-productive” for the time being.
The conflict has already forced nearly 3.9 million Ukrainians to flee their country, according to the UN, which will seek for its part to obtain a “humanitarian ceasefire”.
– Regaining ground –
Ukrainian authorities announced on Monday evening that Irpin, the scene of fierce fighting on the outskirts of kyiv, had been “liberated” from Russian forces.
“The occupiers are pushed back from Irpin, pushed back from Kyiv. However, it is too early to talk about security in this part of our region. The fighting continues. Russian troops control the north of the Kyiv region, have resources and manpower,” Mr. Zelensky said in a video late Monday.
In the regions of Chernigiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Donbass, and in southern Ukraine, “the situation remains tense everywhere, very difficult”, he underlined.
The Ukrainian general staff said at the start of the night on Tuesday that its troops had “blocked the progress of the enemy in the Chernigiv region”.
“The enemy is weakened, disoriented, most have no more logistical support and are cut off from the bulk of the troops,” he noted on the situation of the Russian army in general.
Other fighting was taking place in several localities around the capital.
“The enemy is trying to break through around kyiv and block the roads,” said Ganna Malyar, Deputy Defense Minister, stressing that “the defense of kyiv” was continuing.
Fierce fighting was also taking place in the east, especially around Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, close to the Russian border.
In this region are deployed Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group, the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday, estimating that more than a thousand of these men could be brought to fight in the country.
– Counter-offensive –
Ukrainian soldiers also regained control of Mala Rogan, a small village about four kilometers east of Kharkiv, AFP noted, which saw two bodies of Russian soldiers lying in an alley and several Russian armored vehicles destroyed.
In the south, the Russian noose also seemed to be loosening around certain cities, such as Mykolaiv, a lock-town on the road to Odessa, Ukraine’s largest port.
The front has even retreated significantly, with a Ukrainian counter-offensive on Kherson, some 80 km to the south-east, the only major city which the Russian army has claimed to have taken completely since its invasion on February 24.
Not far from there, in the north of the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, the military official of the city of Kryvyi Rih affirmed on Tuesday night that the Russian forces had “been pushed back 40-60 km from the city “.
The Ukrainian authorities claimed to have “evidence” of the use by Russian forces of cluster bombs – weapons prohibited by international conventions – in the Odessa and Kherson regions, in the south.
– Blockade of Mariupol –
Mr. Zelensky denounced on Sunday a total blockade of the city of Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov which the Russian army has been trying to seize since the end of February. About 160,000 people are still stuck there, according to its mayor Vadim Boitchenko.
According to Tetyana Lomakina, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, “about 5,000 people have been buried (in Mariupol, editor’s note), but people have not been buried for ten days because of the continuous bombardments”. She estimated that there could actually be “around 10,000 dead”.
“All the entrances and exits of the city are blocked (…), it is impossible to bring food and medicine into Mariupol”, affirmed the Ukrainian president, accusing the Russian forces of bombarding the convoys of humanitarian aid .
A feeling shared by the NGO Amnesty International: “We are in intentional attacks on civilian infrastructure, homes”, bombings of schools, the secretary general of the NGO Agnès Callamard told AFP on Tuesday. accusing Russia of allowing humanitarian corridors to turn them into a “death trap”.
The Russian invasion in Ukraine is a “rehearsal” of Syria with a “multiplication of war crimes”, alerted the NGO during the presentation Tuesday in Johannesburg of its 2021-2022 report.
Meanwhile, the Kremlin continues to try to control the narrative of events.
According to Mr. Lavrov, a decree is being prepared to limit access to Russian territory for nationals of countries that have committed “unfriendly” acts against Russia, which has been targeted by a multitude of sanctions since the start of its offensive.
The Russian power passed several laws after its offensive providing for heavy sentences, which could go up to fifteen years in prison, for the dissemination of what the authorities consider to be “false information” about the army.
The mere use of the word “war” by media or individuals to describe the intervention in Ukraine is liable to prosecution, with the Kremlin and its media using the term “special military operation”.
And Mr. Putin promulgated a law on Friday evening repressing in the same proportion “false information” on Moscow’s action abroad.
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