most important The heads of Russian and Ukrainian diplomacy met this Thursday, March 10, in Turkey for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24. These conversations come a day after the explosion of a children’s hospital in besieged Mariupol, which killed three people, including a little girl.
The heads of Russian and Ukrainian diplomacy on Thursday failed to agree in Turkey on a ceasefire in Ukraine. They met for the first time since the start of the Russian invasion, the day after the bombing of a children’s hospital in besieged Mariupol that killed three people, including a little girl.
Russian Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian Dmitry Kuleba are adamant during this meeting, the first at such a level since Feb. 24, under the auspices of their Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Antalya, a seaside resort popular with Russian tourists.
“We talked about a ceasefire, but there is no progress in this direction,” Dmitry Kuleba told reporters, adding, however, that he “hopes” to continue the discussion with his colleague.
“Ukraine will not surrender”
According to Dmitry Kuleba, his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov assured him that Russia “will continue (its) aggression until we accept their demand for surrender.” “Today I heard that the ceasefire was linked by the Russian Federation with the fulfillment of President Putin’s demands on Ukraine,” he said. But “Ukraine did not give up, does not give up and will not give up,” he told reporters.
For his part, Sergei Lavrov said that Russia wants to continue the dialogue with Ukraine, but believes that the “Russian-Ukrainian format in Belarus”, which is held at a lower level of representation, has no “alternative”. Since the beginning of the invasion in the Russian allied country of Belarus, three sessions of negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have already taken place, which resulted in several local ceasefires and the opening of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians from the besieged cities.
But Russia has been repeatedly accused of violating these agreements. It also supports the siege of major cities and a bombing campaign like the one that hit a children’s hospital in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov (southeast) on Wednesday, besieged by Russian forces.
Around Kyiv
According to the General Staff of Ukraine, Russian troops continue the “offensive operation” to encircle Kyiv, on other fronts, striking at the cities of Izyum, Petrivske, Hrushevakha, Sumy, Akhtyrka, or in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions. North of Kyiv, soldiers were setting up roadblocks and digging trenches on Thursday morning, at -9°C.
To the northeast, clouds of smoke were rising over Skybin, less than a kilometer from Kyiv. The road was cut, and the soldiers warned that artillery fire could begin at any moment. According to Ukrainian Interior Ministry spokesman Vadim Denisenko, Ukrainian forces destroyed five Russian tanks during a counter-offensive on the western outskirts of Kyiv.
Two women and a 13-year-old boy were killed in a night shelling in Velyka Pisarevka, said the head of the military administration of the Sumy region (northeast), Dmitry Zhivitsky. In the Zhytomyr region (west of Kyiv), seven people were killed overnight, including five as a result of a rocket attack on a road, according to the National Police. Humanitarian corridors were reopened on Thursday to allow the evacuation of civilians from areas heavily affected by the fighting, forcing residents of several major cities to stay, sometimes for several days, hiding in basements.