Russia announced a reduction in activity due to changes in Kyiv and Chernigov “at times”
One of the main news of the Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul was the statement of the Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia Alexander Fomin, from which it follows that Moscow will refuse to come to Kyiv and beyond. The Ukrainian negotiators raised the question that they are ready from the status of Crimea for 15 years and provide for the Donbass from the international agreement on security guarantees, which belongs to Ukraine from the Russian invasion.
The talks on Tuesday lasted about three hours. Then Fomin and the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, came to the journalists. The talks were constructive, Medinsky said. “We are also taking two steps to de-escalate the conflict,” Medinsky said. “One of the positions – on industrial units – will be announced by the deputy defense minister.”
The Russian Ministry of Defense “made a decision on the location, significantly reducing military activity in the Kiev and Chernigov annexes,” Fomin said.
“Interaction of Mutual Trust”
Negotiations on the preparation of a treaty “on the neutrality and non-nuclear status of Ukraine”, as well as on the provision of a security guarantee, are moving into practice, statements by the Deputy Minister of Defense of Russia. Therefore, according to him, the Russian Ministry of Defense “in the interests of mutual trust” and create conditions for crossing the borders, such a decision was made.
“This was not the consumption of fire, but this is supposedly approaching the de-escalation of the conflict, at least in search,” Medinsky later clarified in an interview with RT.
On the eve of the media reported that the negotiators are considering the refusal of Kyiv from foreign military bases and from the deployment of foreign military bases. A few months before the start of the second performance in Ukraine on February 24th.
Citing its sources, the Financial Times claimedthat Russia does not demand greater “denazification” of Ukraine and is available to Kiev for the EU if it agrees to military neutrality in the negotiations. In the draft agreement on the consumption of fees, not only “denazification” and “demilitarization”, but also the protection of the Russian language, the interlocutors of the publication said.
Ukraine and its Western allies have been skeptical of Vladimir Putin’s intentions, fearing he could use a special smokescreen to get the expected medical force and plan a new offensive, Financial Times magazine.
So far, things have been going on especially in Istanbul, with the first official government of the government since March 11, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. It also follows from his words that the Russian army can stop fighting in the assimilation of Kyiv and other cities, concentrating on the Donbass.
According to Shoigu, “in the overall main task of completing the first stage,” which “allows you to focus special attention and focus on the main goal – the liberation of Donbass.”
The first deputy chief of the Russian General Staff, Sergei Rudskoy, spoke about the same in importance. “In the main tasks of the first stage of the operation,” he said. “Our forces and means will be concentrated on the main thing – the complete liberation of Donbass.”
The Pentagon previously stated that the appearance in Kyiv has stalled and, apparently, Moscow has switched its attention to the fighting in the Donetsk and Luhansk manifestations. This was stated by a senior representative of the US Department of Defense. The latest maneuvers by the Russian army in the wake of Ukraine have shown that the capture of Donbass has become a priority for the Russian team, he told reporters.
Over the past month, armed formations and the Russian army have been developing in the Donbass. Several cities were captured, Mariupol is in a cruel siege. The General Staff of the Ukrainian army on Tuesday morning said that the armed forces of Ukraine in the Lugansk and Donetsk directions managed to repel seven attacking Russian soldiers. The Russian Defense Ministry did not comment on this.
On Monday, Ukrainian authorities, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, said they had regained control of the important city of Irpin near Kiev. According to British intelligence, “Ukrainian forces continue local counterattacks north of Kyiv, including in Irpin, Bucha and Gostomel.” “This attack happened and the Russians pushed back from several positions,” it was said in Germany. General Rudskoy in this book said that “in general, the main task is to carry out operations.”
The mayor of Chernihiv, Vladislav Atroshenko, said on Tuesday that, according to preliminary data, at least 350 people had already died in the city.
What Ukrainian negotiators said
Kyiv proposed signing a new international treaty of Ukraine on security guarantees, which will be presented in an article similar to Article 5 of the NATO Charter, said member of the Ukrainian delegation David Arakhamia.
The fifth article of the statute provides that one country is attacked by all its members, and all the consequences are in repelling the country’s aggression.
He clarified that among the guarantees of its security, Ukraine sees, first of all, the countries of the UN Security Council, in particular Great Britain, China, the USA, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel, transfer Interfax-Ukraine.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation at the talks with Russia, Mikhail Podolyak, after the first day of the meeting in Istanbul, said that the security guarantee agreement should be put to a referendum, and its results ratified by the Ukrainian parliament and the parliaments of the guarantor countries. At the same time, Arakhamia noted that the referendum can only be held in world time, UNIAN writes.
With regard to the seizure by the armed formations and the Russian army of intelligence of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the annexed Crimea, the violation of security guarantees will temporarily not work for such cases included in Arakhamia.
The Ukrainian side proposes to make the issue of Crimea a possible clause of the agreement and to conduct bilateral relations on the status of Crimea and Sevastopol for 15 years. “Ukraine and Russia will not be during this time, as long as they follow a special path, as military personnel or armed forces to resolve the issue of Crimea,” UNIAN quotes Podolyak.
Arakhamia stressed that the Ukrainian side only recognizes the extension of the border of Ukraine as of 1991.
The agreement should stipulate that all guaranteeing countries should not only not object to the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU, but also support this process, said Arakhamia (Financial Times wrote the day before that Moscow does not object to the possible accession of Ukraine to the EU).
“We have received written proposals from the Ukrainian delegation, agreed, as we understand, with the approach,” Medinsky retold the negotiating positions of Ukraine. no our assessment, but Ukraine has formulated its own approach.
“Ukraine refuses to enter foreign unions, to transfer foreign military bases, contingents, to enter the territory of Ukraine without the consent of the guarantor states, including the Russian Federation. For its part, the Russian Federation does not object to Ukraine’s aspirations to join the EU,” the head of the Russian Federation said. delegations.
The meeting of Presidents Vladimir Putin and Vladimir Zelensky is possible simultaneously with the initialing of the settlement agreement by the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine, Medinsky said. Negotiations are now over and will not resume on Wednesday, a Turkish official said.
Shortly after the news about the decrease in “military activity” on the Kiev protocol appeared, an air raid signal sounded in Kyiv, the BBC correspondent in Ukraine reports.
“The current nightmare has a chance to end soon”
“Now the liberation of the authorities will be divided into two camps,” political scientist Abbas Gallyamov predicts. “Three-quarters of them will be happy with the news from Istanbul, a quarter will be happy with the uprising of the army and domestic diplomacy, but the joy that the current nightmare has a chance to end soon will outweigh abstract “patriotic” organs”.
“In the future, the overjoyed, however, will increasingly have the question of whether the game was worth the candle,” he writes in his Telegram channel.
“The Kremlin, of course, understands all this, but it has no choice. It was not possible to quickly defeat Ukraine, and it definitely does not include its tasks to turn the current “special operation” into a kind of endless Afghan war,” Gallyamov said. the legitimacy of the Soviet Union, just as a protracted military confrontation with Ukraine would have finished off the Putin regime.”
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