Russia-Ukraine Talks To Continue

March 14, 2022 (EIRNS)—Talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed today in a virtual format. Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, leading the Russian delegation, said today that the talks will continue every day. “We are trying to do our best to implement the tasks set by [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, to ensure Russia’s peaceful future,” Medinsky wrote on his Telegram channel, reported TASS. No results from today’s session were otherwise reported, although Medinsky said the talks were “paused” for technical consultation and would resume Tuesday.

Leonid Slutsky, a member of the Russian negotiating team, has said he believes the “significant progress” he has observed in talks between Moscow and Kiev might soon lead the two sides in the conflict to sign an agreement, RT reported earlier. Speaking to RT Arabic on March 13, Slutsky—who also chairs the State Duma Committee on International Affairs—said, “If we compare the positions of both delegations at the talks, at the very beginning and today, we see significant progress. I am happy to report that, according to my personal expectations, in the next few days, this progress may develop into a joint position of the delegations and into documents to sign.”

RT suggests that the Ukrainian side has seen some progress in the talks as well. Ukrainian Presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Russian newspaper Kommersant that the two sides were approaching a compromise. He opined that the Russian side was “already seeing things much more adequately,” but reported that it would likely be some time before it “fully, 100%, understands the situation it has got into.”

Podolyak said he sees any agreement between Kiev and Moscow as being in the form of a “multi-component” document. It should include provisions on the termination of the war, the terms and time schedule of the withdrawal of the Russian forces, the guaranteed terms of the peace agreement, and a detailed description of compensation mechanisms, he stressed, as recovery efforts would likely amount to “billions of dollars.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this morning that the two sides in the talks must agree on a meeting between the Presidents of two countries. “Our delegation has a clear-cut task to do everything possible to organize the presidential meeting, which, I am sure, is anticipated by everyone. They must understand that it is a complicated story, as well as a tough, but extremely needed path,” he said, reported TASS. “Our aim is that in the course of this fight and this difficult negotiating process Ukraine gets the necessary result, which is necessary for all of us, for peace and security, for us to have normal and effective guarantees.”