(Finance) – After 34 days of war, the first positive signs arrive from Moscow but skepticism about Putin’s real intentions is rampant. “We see all the risks. We see no reason to trust the words of some representatives of a state that continues to fight for our destruction. Ukrainians are not naive people. Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion and in the last few days. eight years of war in the Donbass that we can only trust in a concrete result “. These are the words pronounced with which the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky he welcomed Russia’s pledge to drastically reduce its military activity in northern Ukraine. The Ukrainian leader urged his people to “remain vigilant” despite the fact that he said the signals received from the Istanbul peace talks with Russia appear positive.
“The situation hasn’t gotten any easier. The scale of the challenges hasn’t diminished,” Zelensky commented. rights that can send to the cauldron of war “. Zelensky has therefore confirmed that Ukraine will not reduce its defense efforts. “The enemy is still in our territory. The bombing of our cities continues. Mariupol is blocked. Missiles and air strikes do not stop. This is the reality. These are the facts. Yes, we can define positive the signals we hear from the negotiating platform. . But these signals – concluded the Ukrainian president – do not silence the explosion of Russian bullets “.
Me too’West has expressed strong doubts about the real intentions of the tsar. The US, the UK and the EU continue to be wary of the Kremlin and stress that they want to wait for the passage from words to deeds. While for the Pentagon the Russians are not withdrawing from Kiev, but are “repositioning themselves”, and “the threat to the capital is not over”. On the other hand, the markets seem to believe in the prospect of a truce, with European stock exchanges on the rise and oil in sharp decline. Optimism also comes from Turkey, which hosted the negotiations, with yours president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the front row among the delegations at the table.
Once the negotiations are concluded, Putin heard Emmanuel Macron, returning to demand the complete surrender of Mariupol. The port city in southern Ukraine, a link between the Russian-controlled Crimea and the Donbass, remains the key target of the offensive and before its conquest, an agreement will be difficult, the tsar said.
The Kiev proposals, defined as “clear”, “will be studied very soon and submitted to the president,” said Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky, the man the Kremlin has put in charge of the complicated negotiations from the beginning. The Kiev proposal provides for the stipulation of an “international agreement” with at least a dozen guarantors – the permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany, Turkey, Italy, Poland, Canada, Israel, but the list is not closed – who can intervene in the event of aggression, on the model of Article 5 of NATO. An agreement to be approved in an internal referendum and ratified in the parliaments of the countries involved. Outside remain the disputed regions of Crimea – on which the parties should engage in a long negotiation that could last up to 15 years – and of the Donbass, effectively freezing the knot of sovereignty and therefore the conflict. In return, Ukraine offers its neutrality, pledging not to seek membership in the Atlantic Alliance and not to host foreign bases on its territory, while Russia has promised not to oppose its eventual EU membership. Just the Crimea and Donbass node the most intricate one remains to be dissolved. Zelensky himself, in the evening, made it clear by reiterating that “there can be no compromises on sovereignty and our territorial integrity”.
In the night – according to what a adviser to the Ukrainian Interior Ministry, Vadim Denisenko – there have been air strikes practically all over Ukraine with bombings in the Donbass, Chernikiv and the Khmelnytsky region. Denisenko, reports the Ukrainian agency UNIAN, added that the situation in Chernihiv is very difficult as the situation in Mariupol remains very difficult. Denisenko said that almost all night in the Kiev region on the territory near Irpen there were military operations. “Therefore, for the moment, – said the adviser – it is not possible to say that the Russians are reducing the intensity of hostilities in the directions of Kiev and Chernikiv”. According to Kiev, however, some Russian military units and related equipment are returning to Belarusian territory.
For the day today – let us know vice premier Iryna Vereshcuk on Telegram – were three humanitarian corridors agreed in Ukraine, all in the south of the country. The three corridors are: – for the evacuation of Mariupol residents and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the city of Berdyansk; ? for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of people from the city of Melitopol; ? for a convoy of people with their own means from the city of Energodar to Zaporizhia. “Yesterday at the talks in Istanbul, the Russian delegation received proposals to organize humanitarian corridors to the 97 most affected settlements in the regions of Kharkiv, Kyiv, Kherson, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhia, Donetsk, Lugansk and Mykolayiv” underlines the deputy premier, adding that “Today we will continue to work to obtain approval for these humanitarian corridors”.