Face-to-face talks between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine that took place in Turkey on March 10 unfortunately ended with no progress. It was the first high-level contact between the two sides since Russia launched the so-called military operation in Ukraine.
The meeting came as both sides repeat their demands in order to call a halt to the fighting.
Moscow has said it wants the demilitarization of Ukraine and the recognition of separatist territories as independent. It has periodically called for regime change in Kiev.
Ukraine’s three key demands for the meeting with Russia are a cease-fire, an improvement of the humanitarian situation in besieged cities, and the withdrawal of Russian forces from the country.
A statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba spoke with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu before the talks with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov, and saws Ukraine’s negotiating position as “strong.”
Russia has said it won’t entertain a cease-fire without Ukraine meeting some of its own demands, let alone agree to a troop pullout.
Russian media reports say Lavrov told reporters after the meeting that Russia wants to continue negotiations with Ukraine and President Vladimir Putin would not refuse a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss “specific” issues.
Lavrov said Russia would not have started the conflict in Ukraine if the West had not rejected “our proposal on security guarantees“, according to TASS.
“Until the end, we wanted to resolve the situation in Ukraine through diplomatic means,” he said.
Western nations were behaving dangerously over Ukraine, and Russia’s “special military operation” there was going according to plan, he added.
The Russian foreign minister said he did not believe the standoff with the West over Ukraine would lead to nuclear war.
“I don’t want to believe, and I do not believe, that a nuclear war could start,” he told a news conference.
Russia had never used its oil and gas as weapons and it will always have markets for its energy exports, Lavrov added.
“We will come out of this crisis with refreshed views of the world – with no illusions about the West. We will try to never again be dependent on the West,” he said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, meanwhile, said he secured no promise from Russia’s Sergey Lavrov to halt firing so aid could reach civilians, including the main humanitarian priority – evacuating hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the besieged port city of Mariupol, according to Al-Jazeera.
“We also talked on the ceasefire but no progress was accomplished on that,” Kuleba said.
“It seems that there are other decision-makers for this matter in Russia,” Kuleba added.
He reportedly described the meeting as “difficult” and accused Lavrov of bringing “traditional narratives” to the table.
