Russia-Ukraine War Updates: Russia’s President Vladimir Putin says Moscow still hopes to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Ukraine, even as the fighting has continued.
Speaking at a Kremlin meeting Tuesday with U.N. Secretary-General Antnio Guterres, Putin noted that Russian and Ukrainian negotiators made what he described as a serious breakthrough in their talks in Istanbul, Turkey, last month. He claimed, however, that the Ukrainian side later walked back on some of the tentative agreements reached in Istanbul.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Russia’s capture of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the initial phase of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine had pushed the world towards the “brink of disaster”.
“The world was once again on the brink of disaster” because Russia treated the Chernobyl zone “like a normal battleground, territory where they didn’t even try to care about nuclear safety”, Zelensky said during a press conference with UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi.
Here are Updates:
– Limping Pope Again Appeals for Peace in Ukraine | A badly limping Pope Francis again appealed for an end to the war in Ukraine on Wednesday, as he held his general audience a day after a fresh flare-up of knee pain forced him to abruptly cancel all activities. Francis, 85, arrived in St. Peter’s Square sitting in an open popemobile, which drove him to just behind a platform facing the crowd of several thousand.
He walked slowly and with a pronounced limp while holding the arm of an aide to his seat about 10 metres (yards) away. “I apologise because I will greet you while seated. The healing of this knee seems to be never ending and I can’t stand for long periods,” he said at the end of the audience about an hour later, before people he would normally go to greet came to him instead.
– In particular, Putin said Ukrainian negotiators have changed their position on the issue of the status of Crimea and separatist territories in eastern Ukraine, offering to leave it for the countries’ presidents to discuss. Putin charged that the shift in the Ukrainian stand makes it hard to negotiate a future deal. Putin has demanded that Ukraine recognize Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and recognize independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as part of a future agreement on ending the hostilities. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that those issues could only be decided by a future nationwide vote.
– During Tuesday’s Kremlin meeting, Guterres criticized Russia’s military action in Ukraine as a flagrant violation of its neighbor’s territorial integrity. He also urged Russia to allow the evacuation of civilians trapped at a giant steel mill in Mariupol surrounded by the Russian forces. Putin responded by claiming that the Russian forces have offered humanitarian corridors to civilians holed up at the Azovstal steel plant, charging that the Ukrainian defenders of the plant were using civilians as shields and not allowing them to leave.
– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday that Russia’s capture of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in the initial phase of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine had pushed the world towards the “brink of disaster”.
“The world was once again on the brink of disaster” because Russia treated the Chernobyl zone “like a normal battleground, territory where they didn’t even try to care about nuclear safety”, Zelensky said during a press conference with UN atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi.
– Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed “in principle” to U.N. and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement in the evacuation of civilians from a besieged steel plant in Ukraine’s southern city of Mariupol, the United Nations said on Tuesday.
– During a meeting in Moscow, Putin and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres discussed the situation at the huge Azovstal steel plant, where the last Ukrainian defenders of Mariupol are hunkered down after months of Russian siege and bombardment.
“Follow-on discussions will be had with the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the Russian Defence Ministry,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement after the meeting.
– Earlier on Tuesday, Putin told Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan that there were no military operations underway in Mariupol and that Kyiv should “take responsibility” for the people holed up in the Azovstal steel plant.
– Ukraine on Monday appealed for the United Nations and the ICRC to be involved in the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal. Guterres is expected to meet with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv on Thursday.
– During a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, Guterres said he has proposed a “Humanitarian Contact Group” of Russia, Ukraine and U.N. officials “to look for opportunities for the opening of safe corridors, with local cessations of hostilities, and to guarantee that they are actually effective.”
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