Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met with his Ukrainian counterpart, Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey on Thursday and discussed the possibility of a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Throughout the fighting in Ukraine, Zelensky has said he’s willing to meet with Putin. After Thursday’s talks, Lavrov said Putin wouldn’t “refuse” a meeting with the Ukrainian leader.
Kuleba said that the talks failed to make progress on establishing a ceasefire around the city of Mariupol. Both sides have accused the other of hampering civilian evacuations from the city. “We also talked on the ceasefire but no progress was accomplished on that,” Kuleba said.
The talks in Turkey were the highest-level meeting between the warring parties since Russia started its invasion. Three rounds of talks between lower-level Ukrainian and Russian officials have been held in Belarus, which made some progress on humanitarian corridors.
Russia has said that if Ukraine declares neutrality, recognizes Crimea as Russian territory, and recognizes the independence of the Donbas republics, it would stop its assault. Zelensky has signaled that he’s willing to negotiate neutrality and is open to discussing Crimea and Donbas.
It is not this straight forward. Zelenski is an actor and seeks a great stage. Just after he said that — he said that he is not conceding sn inch of territory.
Lavriv pointed out in a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart that such meeting would require that Ukrainian side meets its obligations first. ,
There will be no meetinv just to tallk, This is a war. and something of substance must be agreed ahead of the meeting. Something that would end the war, These are early days.
Could be it’s all already over, … but for the coup d gras, on which Putin is hanging fire to give civilians every opportunity to evacuate, … and it’s to be hoped tending to the closing of all the rat lines. Zelinsky & co. may be offered some modicum of mercy in return for surrender.
They could resurrect the Minsk agreements and keep the Donbas in Ukraine. But they need to get rid of the Nazis (or whatever you want to call them) to make that work.
The Azov brigade. That’s the group that been bashing gay men in Kyiv for many years now.
The Azov Batallian seems to be the worst, but I thought there were other groups contributing to the attacks on Donbas.
The longer Zelinsky waits the smaller Ukraine gets…
Ironically the longer he waits the quicker his life will be become history. That’s incentive to cut a deal asap. But he won’t as Washington DC wants this war to continue.
The Russian requirements are simple and few in number, and have been well known for months. Given Zelensky’s repeated ‘willingness to discuss’ things with Russia- but never quite getting around to doing so before his next ‘Russia bad’ photo op- it’s my guess his Western handlers (and you know who that means) are not going to allow him to surrender until he’s no longer useful to their agenda. At that point Zelensky should be very, very afraid as he’s no doubt seen the fate of US ‘allies’ who aren’t needed or are a liabilty.
That’s rich. Why the hell would Putin meet this clown? He’s a drug-addled, bipolar incompetent who doesn’t eve have control of his administraton (much like our own.) Also people keep forgetting that when he’s out of range of his CIA handlers and off his cocaine, he says he considers neutrality. Then when he’s back under control and high he does his UK Parliament speech promising to “fight to the end.” Lavrov was just being polite to tell him Putin “wouldn’t refuse” a meeting – because Putin will never be offered that meeting. Lavrov knows there will be no result from these negotiations. The Russians are just going through the motions – like they did when they offered the US those treaty proposals. They knew they would go nowhere – and they these negotiations will go nowhere.
Because putin is an idiot. You pound the enemy into submission. That’s how you conduct a war.
Putin is a fool and a weakling. He knows Zelensky is a puppet and will do as he is told by the us, so there is no point in talks. You pound the enemy until they are begging you for mercy. That’s how you conduct a war.
Zelensky has a problem he can have as many meetings as he likes they will come to nothing because Zelensky has a monkey on his back called America.