Talks between the top diplomats from Moscow and Kyiv produced no breakthrough on ending the war in Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said.
Kuleba attended the meeting Thursday with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in Turkey to discuss humanitarian corridors and a cease-fire. It was the highest-level Russian-Ukrainian talks since the war began last month.
Kuleba said Lavrov agreed to continue to seek a solution to humanitarian issues caused by the war, but there are “other decision-makers” in Russia who need to be consulted before a deal is brokered.
As for a cease-fire, Kuleba said Moscow is not ready to offer one.
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“They seek Ukraine’s surrender. This is not going to happen,” he said.
In the Russian government’s first public comment on Wednesday’s strike on a maternity hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol, Lavrov didn’t deny or shy away from responsibility for the attack. He dismissed concerns about Russian military attacks on civilians as “pathetic shrieks” from its enemies.
Lavrov claimed without evidence that the site had earlier been seized by Ukrainian far-right radical fighters who were using it as a base. He also alleged all the patients and nurses were moved off the hospital before the assault, even though images in the aftermath of the blast showed wounded civilians and the city council said a child was among the three people killed.
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Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who took part as a facilitator in the talks, said the aim of the meeting was to pave the way for direct talks between Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy that would be facilitated by Turkey’s president — with Russia agreeing “in principle” to such a meeting.
The Turkish minister said that during the three-way talks he pushed for a “sustainable cease-fire.”
“Until that can be established, we stressed the need for humanitarian corridors to remain open... We especially stressed the need for humanitarian corridors in Mariupol,” he said.
NATO member Turkey, which has cultivated close ties with both Russia and Ukraine, is trying to balance relations with both nations. It has positioned itself as a neutral party, seeking to facilitate negotiations between the warring sides.
The brief meeting at a hotel conference room near the Mediterranean city of Antalya wrapped up by around 5 a.m. ET, and appeared to produce little progress toward ending the fighting, NBC News reported.
This is a live update. Click here for complete coverage of the crisis in Ukraine.
