Ukraine crisis: Russia says no breakthrough in talks

Bloomberg

The Kremlin said there are no breakthroughs in talks with Ukraine as skeptical Nato allies evaluate whether Russia’s promise to scale back military operations in Ukraine marks a turning point in the conflict or simply a tactical shift. Attacks continued to be reported near Kyiv.
President Joe Biden said he’ll wait and see whether Russia delivers on a pledge made after peace talks in Istanbul. De-escalation does not mean a cease-fire or complete withdrawal of troops from around Kyiv, said a person close to the Kremlin. Moscow’s likely war goals now are to take two eastern provinces, together with a land corridor from the Russian border to the Crimean peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014, the person said.
Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator, struck an upbeat tone on the results of the talks, saying that the written offer Ukraine presented “for the first time showed readiness to fulfill a whole range of the most important conditions” set by Moscow, state-run Tass news service reported.
Medinsky specifically cited Kyiv’s willingness to agree to give up its ambition to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, as well as declare its neutrality and commit not to obtain nuclear weapons. But he reiterated that Moscow refuses to discuss the status of Crimea, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Kyiv had sought talks on the issue as part of the peace deal.
Earlier on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this weeks’ talks had yielded no breakthroughs and that much work remains to
be done before a deal could be possible.
Government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said that Chancellor Olaf Scholz signalled in several phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy that Germany has a “general willingness” to act, together with other countries, as a security guarantor. He added, though, that this is still at a “very early” stage because there is not even a ceasefire yet.
Russia is deploying new forces for fighting in Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a speech to Norway’s parliament, without specifying the time frame.
“We have to do more to stop this war and first and utmost is weapons,” Zelenskiy said via video link from Ukraine. He added that Russian military has mined the Black Sea to blockade Ukrainian ports, endangering marine traffic.
Talks with Ukraine in Istanbul yielded “no breakthrough,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells journalists a day after peace talks in Istanbul, adding that much work remains to be done. He said Ukrainian negotiators’ willingness to provide specific proposals on paper was “positive.”
Peskov also told reporters that the process of switching to rubles payments for Russian gas export deliveries will take time and won’t begin immediately this week despite a March 31 deadline in a presidential order on the issue. “This process
is more drawn out in time
technologically,” he said.
Russia’s exports of refined fuels are sliding fast as buyers stay away following the invasion of Ukraine, denting supplies in a market that’s already fretting over stockpiles.
More than 4 million refugees from Ukraine have fled after five weeks of fighting, according to the United Nation’s refugee agency. Filippo Grandi, the UN high commissioner for refugees, said he’s in Ukraine now to meet with officials in the western city of Lviv. Overall, some 10 million people in Ukraine have been forced from their homes.
UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab said sanctions on Russia will remain until the nation withdraws its troops from Ukraine.
“The sanctions are there to tighten the grip on Putin’s war machine and until the invasion is withdrawn — and I think that would need to be entirely or on a verifiable basis — I don’t think the sanctions can or should be lifted,” Raab told BBC radio in London.
Fighting continued north and west of Kyiv, despite Russia’s declaration it would pull its forces back. Russian forces shelled targets in several cities, including Hostomel, Bucha and Makariv and there were skirmishes in villages along the main westbound highway out of the capital, according to Ukraine’s defense ministry.
Russian forces also shelled the northern city of Chernihiv overnight, damaging civilian structures including libraries and shopping centers, according to Vyacheslav Chaus, the region’s governor, who said he was skeptical of Russia’s promise. “Do we believe this? Surely not,” he said in a video statement.
Ukraine proposed that Russia should agree to establish humanitarian corridors to 97 areas that have suffered war damage, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a video statement. As of Wednesday, three such corridors have been agreed, leading from Mariupol, Melitopol and Energodar.
Russia shelled residential buildings in Lysychansk in the Ukraine-controlled part of Luhansk region, and several apartment buildings suffered significant damage, according to the region’s governor. Moscow also targeted the towns of Rubizhne, Kreminna and Zolote in the region overnight.
The shelling in the Luhansk region also caused another 30,000 households to lose electricity and 34,000 households to stop receiving gas supplies.
Some Russian units that have experienced heavy losses are returning to Belarus to regroup, the U.K. Defense Ministry said in an update on Twitter. “Such activity is placing further pressure on Russia’s already strained logistics and demonstrates the difficulties Russia is having reorganising its units in forward areas within Ukraine,” the ministry said, warning that Russia is expected to continue launching missile and artillery attacks.
The US State Department warned its citizens that Russian government security forces in Ukraine and Russia may “single out and detain” them — reissuing travel advisories for both countries that called on Americans to depart immediately.
There are some “positive” signals from the latest round of peace talks, though those signals “won’t drown out the explosions of Russian shells,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his daily video address to the nation.
The Ukrainian president again ruled out any compromise over Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the negotiations, and said the issue of easing sanctions on Russia can’t be raised before the war is over.
The threat to Kyiv isn’t over despite Russian talk of pulling back, because Putin’s goals continue to stretch well beyond the eastern Donbas region, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters.
“Nobody should be fooling ourselves by the Kremlin’s now-recent claim that it will suddenly just reduce military attacks near Kyiv or any reports that it is going to withdraw all its forces,” Kirby said. It’s “a repositioning, not a real withdrawal” from positions around the Ukrainian capital.