Zelenskyy announces further talks

Ukrainian President Zelenskyy has announced that negotiations with Russia will continue. His security adviser Zhovkva spoke of the first progress in the daily topics.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, negotiations between Ukraine and Russia should continue. The Ukrainian delegation did a good job, Zelenskyy said in a video speech. He didn’t go into detail. At the same time, Zelenskyy called on the Russian soldiers to end the fight. “I’m offering you a chance to survive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Zelenskyi said he spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett to end the war quickly and achieve an honest peace. Bennett had also previously spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone. He also spoke to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel, said Selenskyj. “We have 100 percent mutual understanding.”

Selenskyj wants to hold war criminals accountable

Selenskyj wants to call those responsible for the heavy acts of war in his country to account without forbearance. “We are working with our partners on new punitive measures against the Russian state,” he said in the video message. “Everyone responsible for the war. Everyone responsible for destroying democracy. Everyone responsible for repressing people. Everyone gets an answer.”

The Russian military is definitely responsible for war crimes, for a “deliberately created humanitarian catastrophe” in Ukrainian cities, Zelensky said in the clip, which showed him in military gear at the presidential office in Kyiv. Russia is beginning to realize that it will not achieve anything by going to war. “They didn’t expect such resistance. They believed their propaganda, which has been lying about us for decades.”

Zelenskyj: “I know that you want to survive”

The Russian army had suffered higher losses within 19 days of the war in Ukraine than during the two Chechen wars, Zelenskyj said. He called on the Russian soldiers to lay down their arms.

We know from tapped telephone conversations between Russian soldiers and their families at home what many “really think about this war”. “I know you want to survive.” He is grateful to those Russians “who don’t stop telling the truth,” said Zelenskyj, referring to anti-war demos in Russia.

Fourth round of talks interrupted

Earlier, the fourth round of talks between Russia and Ukraine was paused for a technical break, Ukrainian chief negotiator Mykhailo Podoliak said. According to him, this served for additional discussions in the working subgroups and for clarification of individual definitions. “Negotiations continue,” Podoljak wrote on Twitter. The interviews were conducted via video for the first time.

According to Ukrainian sources, the fourth round of negotiations focused on a ceasefire, a withdrawal of Russian troops and security guarantees for Ukraine. Podoliak had said Ukraine insisted on a ceasefire before talks could begin on future relations.

Ukrainian presidential adviser demands collateral

The foreign policy adviser to the Ukrainian President also confirmed that Ukraine is seeking security guarantees for the future in negotiations with Russia. “We want this situation to never be repeated,” said Ihor Zhovka in the daily topics. In the negotiation rounds, considerations were recently made “about a possible peaceful solution, possible security guarantees for Ukraine after the end of the hostilities.”

The talks are “preparatory talks for actual negotiations that definitely need to take place at the presidential level with the Presidents of Ukraine and the Presidents of Russia and with the participation of other international leaders” in order to “achieve really tangible security guarantees for Ukraine,” Zhovka said.

“Ceasefire as an immediate result

“However, Zhovka initially called for a ‘ceasefire as an immediate result of the negotiations’. There were also Russian demands that were ‘absolutely unacceptable’, such as ‘some territorial demands’, he said. Other points could be discussed, but only together.” with a security guarantee for Ukraine in the future”.

The government in Moscow is demanding that Kyiv recognize the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian territory and the eastern Ukrainian separatist areas as independent states, and that Ukraine declare its neutrality.