New talks are opening on Tuesday March 29 in Istanbul in the hope of finding an agreement between kyiv and Moscow to end the conflict which began on February 24 with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Meanwhile, war continues to rage in and around major Ukrainian cities, such as around kyiv where fierce fighting is taking place between the two enemy armies.
According to British intelligence, the Wagner group, Russian mercenaries already famous for their abuses in Africa, Libya and Syria, has been deployed in the east of the country. The British Ministry of Defense estimates that more than 1,000 fighters are brought to fight in the Moscow camp.
Russian-Ukrainian talks open in Istanbul
New negotiations begin on Tuesday in Istanbul to try to end the war that has been raging in Ukraine for more than a month, while Ukrainian forces claim to resist Russian assaults on major cities and even to have regained ground .
Russian negotiators arrived in Istanbul on March 28, where a previous negotiating session had already taken place on March 10, at the level of foreign ministers, but had not resulted in any progress. The discussions then continued by videoconference.
One of the important points of the negotiations concerns “security guarantees and neutrality, the nuclear-free status of our state”, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Russian media on Sunday March 27. This point “is being studied in depth” but it will necessitate a referendum and security guarantees, he warned, accusing his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin and his entourage of “draging things out”. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, tempered expectations on Monday, stressing the lack of “significant progress” in the negotiations so far.
Ramzan Kadyrov in Mariupol
Ukrainian authorities were worried Monday about a worsening situation in the besieged port of Mariupol, where at least 5,000 people have already died, according to a Ukrainian official. Russian media said on Monday that authoritarian Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, close to Vladimir Putin, had traveled to Mariupol to galvanize his troops taking part in the assault on the port city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday denounced the total blockade of this strategic port on the Sea of Azov where around 160,000 people are still stuck, according to its mayor.
Fierce fighting around kyiv
New fighting took place on Monday in several localities around kyiv, notably in Stoyanka, on the western edge of the capital. “The enemy is trying to break through around kyiv and block the roads,” said Ganna Malyar, deputy defense minister.
Ukraine announced on Monday evening that the town of Irpin, the scene of fierce fighting on the outskirts of kyiv, had been recaptured from Russian forces. On the eastern outskirts of Kharkiv, the country’s second city, Ukrainian forces have regained control of a village.
“Evidence” of weapons banned in the south
Ukraine has “evidence” of the use by Russian forces of cluster munitions, weapons banned by international conventions, in two southern regions of its territory, assured Monday the Ukrainian Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova.
The Wagner group deployed in the east
Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group have deployed in eastern Ukraine, the British Ministry of Defense said on Monday, which estimates that more than 1,000 fighters from the sulphurous paramilitary company could be brought to fight in the country.
“Due to heavy casualties and a largely stalled invasion (of Ukraine), Russia was most likely forced to redeploy its Wagner personnel to Ukraine at the expense of operations in Africa and Syria,” the ministry said in a statement. a status report published on his Twitter account.
Reputed to be close to Vladimir Putin, the Wagner group and its paramilitaries are suspected of abuses in Mali, Libya and even Syria. According to a Western official on Friday, Russian forces are concentrating their efforts in Ukraine on the Donbass where they face “the best equipped and most trained of the Ukrainian forces”.
kyiv quantifies its economic losses
The Ukrainian government estimated on Monday at more than 500 billion euros the economic losses caused by the war with Russia.
Several EU countries deter voluntary fighters
The seven countries of the “Vendôme group”, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, called on their nationals on Monday to refrain from volunteering to help Ukraine fight the offensive. Russian, in a statement by their Ministers of Justice.
A “rehearsal” of the war in Syria according to Amnesty
The Russian invasion in Ukraine is a “repeat” of Syria with a “multiplication of war crimes” for more than a month of conflict, Amnesty International warned during the presentation Tuesday in Johannesburg of its 2021-2022 report.
“We are in intentional attacks on civilian infrastructure, homes”, bombings of schools, the secretary general of the NGO, Agnès Callamard, told AFP, accusing Russia of allowing humanitarian corridors for the turn into a “death trap”.