KYIV, Ukraine — Preliminary talks between Russia and Ukraine concluded with out outcome on Monday night, with each delegations getting back from the positioning of the negotiations in Belarus to their capitals for consultations.
Kyiv is in search of a cease-fire in Ukraine and an finish to hostilities, in keeping with Mihailo Podolyak, a member of the Ukrainian delegation.
“The events recognized numerous precedence matters through which sure options had been outlined,” he mentioned after the discussions ended. “In an effort to get some alternatives for implementation and logistical options, the events are returning to their capitals for consultations.”
The Kremlin needs its safety calls for taken into consideration “unconditionally,” President Vladimir V. Putin advised the French president, Emmanuel Macron, as talks had been underway. These embrace the popularity of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, and “demilitarizing and denazifying the Ukrainian state and making certain its impartial standing,” that means that it offers up a proper to affix the NATO alliance.
Vladimir Medinsky, a former tradition minister who led the Russian delegation, mentioned that the events had “discovered sure factors the place we will predict widespread positions.”
He mentioned the following assembly would happen as soon as extra alongside the Ukraine-Belarus border within the “coming days.”
After the assembly ended, Mr. Podoloyak criticized his opponents in a tweet, saying “Sadly, the Russian facet remains to be extraordinarily biased relating to the damaging processes it launched.”
On Monday, dozens of individuals had been killed and lots of extra wounded in an assault by Russian rockets on Ukraine’s second-biggest metropolis, Kharkiv. As information broke that the negotiations had concluded for the day, explosions had been additionally heard in Kyiv.
Whereas the talks had been ongoing, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine signed an utility for membership within the European Union.
“Fairly positive that is actual,” he wrote on his Instagram web page, the place he shared a photograph of the signing ceremony.
Earlier within the day, in an impassioned speech, he urged the 27-member bloc to pave a swift path to accession.
“We enchantment to the European Union for Ukraine’s quick accession beneath a brand new particular process,” Mr. Zelensky mentioned in a video broadcast from the capital, Kyiv. “Our purpose is to face alongside all Europeans and, most significantly, to face on their stage.”