President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky. File photoMOSCOW, March 9Vladimir Zelensky, in a video address on Tuesday evening, again called for negotiations to resolve the situation in Ukraine. The video message was published on the president's Telegram channel. «The war must end, we must sit down at the negotiating table, but honest and substantive, in the interests of the people,» Zelensky said. Russia and Ukraine had previously held three rounds of negotiations. During the second round, the parties reached an understanding on the joint provision of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of citizens, the delivery of food and medicine, but the humanitarian corridors did not fully work.Kyiv asked for direct negotiations with Putin. In particular, Kyiv on Tuesday announced the evacuation of Sumy residents along only one route — to Poltava, while the Russian Defense Ministry announced the possibility of evacuation to Russian territory. A representative of the people's militia of the DPR told RIA Novosti that Ukrainian nationalists blocked the exit of people from Mariupol and Volnovakha, humanitarian corridors could not be implemented. Following the results of the third round of negotiations, the assistant to the president of the Russian Federation, the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that Moscow's expectations from negotiations with Kiev did not materialize , but the dialogue will continue. Russia launched a military operation in Ukraine early on Thursday, February 24th. President Vladimir Putin called its goal «the protection of people who have been subjected to bullying and genocide by the Kiev regime for eight years.» For this, according to him, it is planned to carry out «demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine», to bring to justice all war criminals responsible for «bloody crimes against civilians» in Donbass. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Armed Forces strike only at military infrastructure and Ukrainian troops, the civilian population is not in danger. With the support of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the DPR and LPR groups are developing an offensive. But the occupation of Ukraine is out of the question, the Russian president emphasized.The development of the situation is in the online report >>
Medinsky hopes to reach an agreement with Ukraine on Crimea and Donbass
