Negotiations between kyiv and Moscow open earlier this week in Istanbul, Ukraine saying it is ready to discuss its neutrality “in depth”, as the humanitarian situation in Mariupol, in the east of the country, is described as “catastrophic”.
In the city besieged and bombarded for weeks, “the population is fighting to survive. The humanitarian situation is catastrophic”, affirmed in the night from Sunday to Monday the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs on its Twitter account.
“The Russian armed forces are turning the city into dust,” he added, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denouncing for his part a total blockade of this city that the Russian army has been trying to take for weeks.
“All entrances and exits from the city are blocked (…) it is impossible to bring food and medicine into Mariupol,” he said on Sunday evening. “Russian forces are bombing humanitarian aid convoys and killing the drivers,” he added.
Some 2,000 children were also taken to Russia, he said. “And that means abducted. Because we don’t know exactly where they are. Some are with their parents, some aren’t. It’s a disaster,” he said.
More than 2,000 civilians were killed in Mariupol, according to a recent report communicated by the town hall. According to the Ukrainian president, some 100,000 people are still stranded in this strategic port on the Sea of Azov. Several attempts to establish safe routes for civilians have failed, with both sides accusing each other of ceasefire violations.
And we still do not know, ten days after the bombing of its theater, the fate of the hundreds of civilians who had taken refuge there: an almost impossible mission, according to an elected municipal official from Mariupol.
The French president said on Sunday that he would speak to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on Monday or Tuesday to organize an evacuation operation from the city.
Emmanuel Macron, who has already spoken eight times with Vladimir Putin since the beginning of the Russian invasion on February 24, remains convinced that the path of dialogue with Moscow is still possible, “to stop the war that Russia has launched in Ukraine without going to war”.
– 3.8 million refugees –
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators meet in Istanbul, Monday or Tuesday according to sources, to try to stop this conflict which has already forced more than 3.8 million Ukrainians to flee their country, according to a UN count on Sunday.
One of the important points of the negotiations concerns “security guarantees and neutrality, the nuclear-free status of our state”, Ukrainian President Voldymyr Zelensky told independent Russian media on Sunday, according to the Telegram channel of the Ukrainian presidential administration.
“This point of the negotiations is understandable to me and it is under discussion, it is studied in depth,” he said. But it will have to be submitted to a referendum and guarantees are needed, he warned, accusing Russian President Vladimir Putin and his entourage of “draging things out”.
The Russian telecoms policeman Roskomnadzor told the Russian media in a statement not to publish this interview and indicated that an investigation was opened against those who had participated in the interview.
Later in the day, and this time in front of Ukrainian journalists, Mr. Zelensky recalled his priorities: the sovereignty of Ukraine and its territorial integrity, “which are beyond doubt”.
A negotiating session had already taken place on March 10 in Turkey, in Antalya, at the level of foreign ministers, but had not resulted in any concrete progress. Since then, discussions have continued by videoconference, deemed “difficult” by both sides.
These new face-to-face talks are taking place after the Russian army announced at the end of the week that it was changing its “main objective” in Ukraine.
On Friday, the Russian command had created a surprise by announcing “to concentrate the bulk of the efforts on the main objective: the liberation” of the Donbass mining basin.
This change of strategy makes the Ukrainian authorities fear a Russian desire to eventually obtain “two Ukraines” on the model of North and South Korea.
After failing to take kyiv and overthrow the Ukrainian government, Moscow “could impose a dividing line between the occupied and unoccupied regions of our country, (in) an attempt” to establish a Korean-style separation, said Ukrainian military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov on Sunday.
– Referendum in Lugansk –
A fear reinforced by the announcement of the holding “in the near future” of a referendum to join Russia in the separatist territory of Lugansk (east), whose independence Moscow has recognized.
“All false referendums in the temporarily occupied territories are null and void and will have no legitimacy,” reacted Oleg Nikolenko, spokesman for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
On the ground, the fighting continues but the noose seemed to loosen in certain besieged cities, such as Mykolaiv, a lock-town on the road to Odessa, the largest port in Ukraine, looted for days by Russian artillery.
However, new fires have broken out in the area of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant, occupied by Russian forces, according to the Ukrainian authorities who have called for the “demilitarization” of the sector under the aegis of the UN.
“Massive fires have started in the exclusion zone, which can have very serious consequences,” Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshuk wrote on her Telegram account on Sunday evening.
According to Ukrainian regional authorities, the Russian army took control of the town of Slavutitch, where the personnel of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant reside, briefly arresting the mayor and sparking pro-Ukrainian demonstrations.
In Mykolaiv, the inhabitants have found a little hope, after terrible weeks during which the Russian army tried in vain to take the city.
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 the start of its invasion of Ukraine. February 24.
– “Boucher” –
Visiting Warsaw on Saturday, US President Joe Biden violently attacked the master of the Kremlin, calling him a “butcher” and judging that he could “not stay in power” after his invasion of Ukraine.
“I will not use this kind of remark because I continue to discuss with President Putin”, reacted Mr. Macron. “We must continue to speak with the Russians, we must continue to speak with President Putin”, hammered Sunday his Minister of Foreign Affairs Jean-Yves Le Drian, guest of the Doha Forum.
The White House had to very quickly qualify the comments made by Mr. Biden. “What the president meant was that Putin cannot be allowed to exercise power over his neighbors or over the region,” she said. “He was not talking about Putin’s power in Russia, nor a change of regime”.
On the diplomatic level, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kouleba called for a boycott of the French supermarkets Auchan – which have chosen to stay in Russia – as well as the Leroy-Merlin (DIY) and Décathlon (sports) brands, detained by the same family group.
In Warsaw, stars of music and sport took the stage on Sunday during a telethon in favor of Ukraine, broadcast by the Polish public channel TVP in more than 20 countries.
And in Los Angeles, a minute’s silence was called for in tribute to Ukraine, during the 94th Academy Awards on Sunday evening.
During this brief moment of contemplation, screens broadcast messages calling for help to be sent by listing the essential needs of Ukrainians such as “food”, “medical care” or “blankets”.