Ukraine and Russia make 'most meaningful progress' since start of peace talks
Russia will “fundamentally" cut back operations near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv following "substantial" peace talks in Istanbul, Russian negotiators said on Tuesday.
The talks marked the first face-to-face meeting for two weeks between the two sides and sparked hopes that progress is being made towards a ceasefire.
Russia's Deputy Defence Minister, Alexander Fomin, said the move was meant “to increase trust” in talks aimed at ending the fighting.
Russian troops have been bogged down and struggling to make major advances in recent weeks.
Fomin said Moscow had decided to “fundamentally [...] cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv” to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations."
Ukraine’s military said it had noted withdrawals around Kyiv and Chernihiv, though the Pentagon said it could not corroborate the reports.
As part of any settlement, Ukraine wants an international agreement to guarantee its security, with potentially several countries signing up to be guarantors.
After several hours of talks in Istanbul on Tuesday, Ukraine's chief negotiator David Arakhamia said "we insist that it is an international agreement which will be signed by all the guarantors of security".
"We want an international mechanism of security guarantees where the guarantor countries will act in a similar way to Chapter 5 of NATO and even more firmly" he added.
Ahead of the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his country was prepared to declare its neutrality, as Moscow has demanded, and was open to compromise over the contested eastern region of Donbas — comments that might have lent momentum to negotiations.
However Zelenskyy said he wanted Ukrainians to
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