Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky agreed to negotiate with Russia on Sunday “without preconditions” even as Moscow put its nuclear forces on high alert and Russian troops swarmed on Kiev and continued their harassment in several cities across the country.
A statement issued on Zelensky’s official channel on the Telegram messaging app said the Ukrainian government would send a delegation to meet their Russian counterparts “without preconditions” at the Ukraine-Belarus border near the Pripyat River.
Earlier in the day, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin and the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, set a deadline of 3:00 p.m. (local time) for Ukraine to join the negotiations, stating that Rejecting the proposal would place “all responsibility for the bloodshed” on the Ukrainian side, according to a report by the Russian state media outlet RIA. They received confirmation of the Ukrainians’ participation moments before the deadline, Medinsky said later.
“For our part, we guarantee 100% the safety of the route, the passage, and we will wait in this place for a delegation from the Ukrainian administration.”
It remains unclear who will lead the delegation and where exactly it will meet. Zelensky’s statement said Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko would be tasked with “ensuring that all planes, helicopters and missiles stationed on Belarusian territory remain on the ground during the trip, talks and return of the Ukrainian delegation.”
Zelensky had rejected an earlier call for negotiations in Belarus, saying that holding talks there – as instructed by Moscow – was untenable when Belarusian territory was being used as a base for the Russian invasion. “Of course, we want peace, we want to meet, we want the war to end,” Zelensky said earlier. “Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku… we have proposed all of this to Russia.”
Later on Sunday, reports emerged that negotiations had not yet started and could be delayed until Monday.
The news comes even as Putin ordered the Russian military’s nuclear deterrent forces to be on combat alert. Putin said he was giving the order because “senior officials from leading NATO countries have been making aggressive statements against our country,” according to a report by Russian state news operator TASS.
Still, news of the negotiations gives a glimmer of hope for a cessation of hostilities, even as the fighting – now in its fourth day – has sparked fierce battles in the streets of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. . Russian missiles were also reported to have hit a gas pipeline.
“Russian enemy light vehicles have broken into Kharkiv, including the city center,” regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said in a Facebook post. “The Ukrainian armed forces are destroying the enemy. We ask civilians not to go out on the streets.”
Kharkiv is about 15 miles from Ukraine’s northern border with Russia, making it an essential target for a raid. But fighting in cramped urban settings – the city has a population of around 1.4 million – is likely to result in high casualties.
On Saturday, an artillery shell hit a nine-story residential building in the city. One person died and 80 were rescued. As of Saturday afternoon local time, there were 240 civilian casualties, including 64 dead, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
The violence has also forced the exodus of some 368,000 people to neighboring European countries, the UN refugee agency reported on Sunday, more than double the figure mentioned earlier at the weekend. Governments estimate that the war could cause up to 5 million refugees.
There was also damage to infrastructure. On the outskirts of Kiev, Russian shelling hit an oil depot in the city of Vasylkiv, some 30 kilometers to the southwest. A video released by Ukraine’s State Service for Special Communications and Information Protection showed a fierce fire and a large plume of smoke rising into the night sky over the depot.
“The enemy wants to destroy everything,” Vasylkiv mayor Natalia Balasinovich said in a Facebook post.
Major General Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said Kherson and Berdyansk in Ukraine “were completely encircled” by Russian forces. The information could not be verified.
Kyiv residents woke up to a calm, cold but sunny morning, with only a few cars and cyclists breaking a citywide curfew that expired on Monday morning. In the distance, the rumble of explosions and the crackle of gunfire pierced the silence.
Beyond Ukraine, international backlash against Russia’s campaign – which Moscow insists on calling a “special military operation” but which has been condemned as an invasion – is growing.
Belgium said it would deny its airspace to Russian airlines, joining eight other European nations in doing so. Germany is apparently preparing to take a similar step.
Even the International Judo Federation has taken a stand, suspending Putin’s status as the group’s honorary president and ambassador “in light of the ongoing war in Ukraine.”
On Saturday, the Biden administration joined a host of European allies in agreeing to disconnect several Russian banks from SWIFT, the messaging system used by financial institutions to facilitate transactions around the world. In a statement provided by the Russian state news agency TASS, the Russian central bank said it “has the necessary resources and tools to maintain financial stability and ensure the operational continuity of the financial sector.”
“All client funds in the accounts are saved and available at any time. Banking services are operating normally. Bank cards of all banks in Russia also continue to work normally.
There are signs that if negotiations fail, Putin may be willing to accept a higher death toll. On Sunday, Ramzan Kadyrov, who heads Russia’s Chechnya region and is one of Putin’s main allies, said Russian forces had so far been “coddling” their Ukrainian adversaries, who “are armed to the teeth with new weapons, ammunition, state-of-the-art heavy equipment.”
“The time has come to make a concrete decision and start a large-scale operation in all directions and on the territory of Ukraine,” he said.
“In my opinion, the tactic chosen in Ukraine is too slow. It takes a lot of time and, in my opinion, it is not effective.”