প্রকাশ: 29/03/2022
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators held face-to-face
talks in Istanbul on Tuesday as Ukraine resumed evacuations from territory
occupied by Russian forces and clung on in the besieged city of Mariupol.
The talks were taking place with Turkish President Recep
Tayyip Erdogan in attendance and under the shadow of shock allegations
that delegates were poisoned at a previous round of negotiations.
Erdogan called on the delegations to "put an end to
this tragedy," saying both Russia and Ukraine both have
"legitimate concerns" ahead of the meeting at the Dolmabahce
Palace.
It is now more than a month since Russian President Vladimir
Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine, hoping to cripple or oust the
democratic government in Kyiv.
The fighting has already forced more than 10 million from
their homes and according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has
killed an estimated 20,000 people.
The prospects of a peaceful end to the war -- or an imminent
victory for either side -- appear faint.
On the edge of the suburban town of Irpin to the northwest
of Kyiv, AFP reporters on Tuesday heard the sound of sporadic shell fire,
a day after Ukrainian forces said they had recaptured the town.
"In my opinion, maybe some 70-80 percent (of the town)
is free, while the outskirts are taken" by Russians, said Irpin resident
Roman Kovalevskyi, 48, who was cycling out of the town to get supplies
from Kyiv.
- Negotiators poisoned? -
Ukraine also announced that evacuations from several areas
under Russian control in the south of the country were being resumed on
Tuesday, a day after Ukrainian officials suspended them saying they feared
Russian "provocations" along the humanitarian corridors.
The talks in Istanbul come after a report in the Wall Street
Journal said Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich and Ukrainian negotiators
were poisoned earlier this month after talks in Kyiv.
Abramovich -- a billionaire businessman under Western sanctions
-- and the negotiators reportedly developed symptoms including red eyes
and peeling skin, though they later recovered.
Zelensky has said his government received an offer of
support from Abramovich, who has long-standing links to Putin.
Ukraine played down the allegations and Foreign Minister
Dmytro Kuleba said the Istanbul talks would focus on easing the
humanitarian situation, and sounded a note of scepticism about the hopes
for success.
"If we see that the mood has changed and they are ready
for a serious, substantive conversation and balanced arrangements, then
things will move forward," he said.
"If it is a repetition of their propaganda," he
said, talks will again fail.
Abramovich was present at the talks in Istanbul on Tuesday,
according to a photograph released by the Turkish presidency.
Putin has demanded the "demilitarisation and denazification
of Ukraine", as well as the imposition of neutral status and
recognition of the Donbas and Crimea as no longer part of Ukraine.
- 'Catastrophic' situation –
Kuleba indicated there was little room for agreement there:
"We do not trade people, land and sovereignty. Our position is
concrete."
On the battlefield, both sides appear determined to press
where they can.
Ukrainian officials still believe that Russia wants to take
the capital Kyiv, dismissing suggestions the Kremlin is focused on the
eastern Donbas region.
Capturing "Kyiv is essentially a captured Ukraine, and
this is their goal," said deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar, insisting
Russia was still "trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv
and block transport routes."
On Monday Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than
80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the continued peril facing the
capital.
While Ukraine's forces are counterattacking in the north,
they are struggling to retain control of the southern port city of
Mariupol.
Russian forces have encircled the city and have embarked on
a steady and indiscriminate bombardment, trapping an estimated 160,000
people with little food, water or medicine.
At least 5,000 people have already died, according to one
senior Ukrainian official who estimated the real toll may be closer to
10,000 when all the bodies are collected.
"The burials stopped 10 days ago because of continued
shelling," Tetyana Lomakina, a presidential adviser now in charge of
humanitarian corridors, told AFP by phone Monday.
- Mariupol evacuations -
Local lawmaker Kateryna Sukhomlynova told AFP that unburied
bodies line streets and residents cowering in basement shelters have been
forced to eat snow to stay hydrated.
Ukraine's foreign ministry called the situation
"catastrophic," saying Russia's assault from land, sea and air
had turned a city once home to 450,000 people "into dust".
France, Greece and Turkey are hoping to launch a mass
evacuation of civilians from Mariupol within days, according to French
President Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking agreement from Putin.
In Mykolaiv, another key city in the south, the local
governor said that a Russian strike hit the regional administrative
building and eight civilians and three soldiers were missing.
As Russian casualties have mounted, Moscow appears to have
turned to ever-more brutal tactics.
Western powers say they have seen evidence of war crimes,
which are already being investigated by the International Criminal
Court.
On Monday, Ukraine's prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova,
said there was proof that Russian forces have used banned cluster bombs in
the southern Odessa and Kherson areas.
US President Joe Biden has expressed his "moral
outrage" at the conduct of the war, and ruffled feathers over the
weekend by suggesting Putin "cannot remain in power".
He has since denied seeking regime change and swatted away
concern that his remarks would ratchet up tensions with Putin.
"I don't care what he thinks," Biden said on Monday
as he proposed $6.9 billion in funding to Ukraine and NATO, and another $1
billion to help counter Moscow's influence.
প্রধান সম্পাদকঃ সৈয়দ বোরহান কবীর
ক্রিয়েটিভ মিডিয়া লিমিটেডের অঙ্গ প্রতিষ্ঠান
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