Russia and Ukraine have agreed to create humanitarian corridors for civilians fleeing intensifying fighting as Russian President, Vladimir Putin said Moscow’s advance was “going to plan” and to schedule.
The agreement was the only tangible progress from a second round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv, according to an adviser to Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelensky, and it was not immediately clear how they would work.
A Russian negotiator and nationalist lawmaker, Leonid Slutsky confirmed the initiative and said it would be implemented soon.
Also, an Ukrainian negotiator said the second round of ceasefire talks with Russia had not yielded the results Kyiv hoped for, but the sides had reached an understanding on creating humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.
Ukrainian presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak said the two sides envisaged a possible temporary ceasefire to allow for the evacuation of civilians.
He stated;
That is, not everywhere, but only in those places where the humanitarian corridors themselves will be located, it will be possible to cease fire for the duration of the evacuation.
They had also reached an understanding on the delivery of medicines and food to the places where the fiercest fighting was taking place.
It was the first time the two sides had agreed any form of progress on any issue since Russia invaded Ukraine a week ago.
The two sides met after the fall of the first major Ukrainian city to Russian forces, with Putin apparently unwilling to heed a global clamour for hostilities to end as the war entered its second week.
Putin again said Russia was rooting out “neo-Nazis”, adding during the televised opening of a national security council meeting that he “will never give up on (his) conviction that Russians and Ukrainians are one people”.
He earlier told French President, Emmanuel Macron that Moscow “intends to continue the uncompromising fight against militants of nationalist armed groups”, according to a Kremlin account of their call.
Meanwhile, Zelensky has called on the West to up its military assistance, after NATO members ruled out enforcing a no-fly zone for fear of igniting a direct war with nuclear-armed Russia.
“If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!” Zelensky told a news conference.
“If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next,” he said, adding that direct talks with Putin were “the only way to stop this war”.
EU has offered fighter jets already, and a source in Berlin said the German government was planning to deliver another 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine.
The 27-nation bloc agreed further to approve temporary protection for all refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine — numbered by the United Nations at more than one million.
At the talks at an undisclosed location on the Belarus-Poland border, both sides shook hands across a table at the outset, the Ukrainian delegates in military attire and the Russians in more formal suits.
A first round of talks on Monday also yielded no breakthrough, and Kyiv says it will not accept any Russian “ultimatums”.
The invasion, now in its eighth day, has turned Russia into a global pariah in the worlds of finance, diplomacy, sports and culture.
UN has opened a probe into alleged war crimes, as the Russian military bombards cities in Ukraine with shells and missiles, forcing civilians to cower in basements.
Addressing the Putin regime in a video statement, Zelensky said;
You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full.
Thirty-three people died on Thursday when Russian forces hit residential areas, including schools and a high-rise apartment block, in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, authorities said.
Zelensky claims thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed since Putin shocked the world by invading Ukraine, purportedly to demilitarise and “de-Nazify” a Western-leaning threat on his borders.
Moscow on Wednesday said it has lost 498 troops, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin praised their sacrifice.
Kremlin (Russian government) has been condemned for likening the government of Zelensky, who is Jewish, to that of Germany in World War II.
