Saturday, July 27, 2024
Tuesday's peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives appeared to bear fruit, but fighting in key regions of Ukraine continued.
Tuesday’s peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives appeared to bear fruit, but fighting in key regions of Ukraine continued.
Negotiators from both sides of the conflict met in a 19th century Ottoman palace in Istanbul joined by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan. President Erdogan said before talks began, “As the members of the delegations, you have shouldered a historic responsibility… all the world is expecting good news from you.”
Coming out of the talks, Alexander Fomin, Russia’s Deputy Defence Minister, said that Moscow intended to “radically, by several times reduce the military activity” in Kyiv and Chernihiv. A mere hours after this promise was made, air raid sirens in Kyiv signaled the start of another intense volley of Russian shelling.
Officials from the US and Ukraine were highly skeptical of Russia’s promises to scale back attacks on and around Ukraine’s capital.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said yesterday that even the most “positive” affirmations from Moscow can not “drown out the ruptures of Russian shells.” US president, Joe Biden stated that he will not “read anything” from Russia’s claim “until I see what their actions are.”
John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary, had his doubts as well. He described Russia’s draw back of troops on the ground as “repositioning” pointing to the fact that only a small amount of Russian forces have actually pulled back. He told reporters, “We are not prepared to call this a retreat or even a withdrawal,” and stated that the pull back could be indicative of yet another “major” offensive veiled under a guise of peace.
Spokesperson for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov spoke more positively about the peace talks, saying, “What is positive is that the Ukrainian side has at least started to specifically formulating and putting on paper what it is proposing. Until now we had not managed to achieve that.”
Peskov cautiously added, “As regards the rest, we cannot, put it this way, at present state there have been any breakthroughs, anything very promising.” Peskov also indicated that they were a long way from finding a resolution.
According to the UK defense ministry, “Russia will likely continue to compensate for its reduced ground maneuver capability through mass artillery and missile strikes.”