“Ukraine and Russia are set to hold negotiations at the Belarusian-Ukrainian border, according to the office of President Zelenskyy.”
I’ll be looking for updated information- Very good news if accurate. Russia has been requesting negotiations all along. Ukraine has been disagreeable to meeting.
I’m glad to see the acknowledgment in the above screenshot that it was Ukraine that had refused to meet- unless they were dictating terms. (Check yesterday’s post below) That is accurate. It also speaks to a certain unreasonable attitude on the part of Ukrainian leadership
Stay tuned for updates
9:30 am est
MINSK, February 27. /TASS/. Russia’s delegation is leaving for Gomel for holding talks with the Ukrainian side, the chief delegate, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, said on Sunday.
“All our delegates are leaving for the Gomel Region,” he said.
Earlier on Sunday, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that a Russian delegation had arrived in Belarus for negotiations with the Ukrainian side in accordance with an achieved agreement. The delegation consists of officials from the Foreign Ministry, Defense Ministry and other Russian bodies of power, including the presidential staff.
Russia’s special military operation with the aim of Ukraine’s demilitarization and denazification began on February 24. On Friday, the troops’ advance was paused in anticipation of likely talks with Kiev only to resume when the Ukrainian side refused to participate in them.
Update @ 1:50 PM EST:
Russia summoned Israel’s ambassador to Moscow on Friday to ask why Tel Aviv “supports neo-Nazis” in Kiev after Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid blasted the Russian military operation in Ukraine as a ‘grave violation of the international order’.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has assured Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett that Moscow remains open to talks with Kiev, but informed him that Ukraine’s leaders have shown “inconsistency” on the matter.
Sunday’s call took place on the initiative of the Israeli side, and “bilateral contacts” at various levels were said to have been agreed.
A Russian delegation arrived in Gomel, southeastern Belarus on Sunday for talks with Kiev representatives. Vladimir Medinsky, the former Russian minister of culture heading up the talks on the Russian side, said Sunday afternoon that a Ukrainian delegation is on route to Belarus for negotiations.
The current crisis is the culmination of eight years of escalating tension between Russia and the West over Ukraine following a pro-Western coup in Kiev in February 2014.