Following negotiations on Thursday, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed on the necessity to establish humanitarian corridors and a possible truce surrounding them for Ukrainian people fleeing the conflict.
As the conflict reached its second week, Russian invading forces surrounded and shelled Ukrainian cities, despite Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky’s claim that the talks had made “great progress.”
On Thursday evening, Ukrainian soldiers and citizens maintained their resistance to the invading force, while the capital Kyiv and other major cities remained under their control.
However, the humanitarian crisis grew worse, with the UN reporting that one million people had abandoned their homes.
Those who stayed were subjected to shelling and rocket attacks on a number of cities, many of which were in residential areas. Large swaths of central Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. 1.5 million people, have been blasted into rubble.
The negotiations, which took place in an undisclosed location, were the first time the two parties had reached an agreement on any matter since the Russian invasion.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said the two sides discussed a possible short ceasefire to allow for civilian evacuations and the creation of humanitarian corridors.
“That is, not everywhere, but only where the humanitarian corridors themselves are located, will it be possible to stop firing for the length of the evacuation,” he explained.
They had also come to an agreement on how to get medications and food to the areas where the most intense combat was taking place.
Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had stated that Kyiv and Moscow might find a solutionof the war .If the Kremlin treated Ukraine on an equal footing and came to talks with a will to negotiate in good faith.
“”There are some things where some compromises must be made so that people do not die,” Zelenskiy said in a television interview, adding that he was eager to have an open talk with Putin.
Putin appeared to be completely indifferent to the almost universal condemnation of his acts around the world, as well as the international economic and financial sanctions targeted at crippling Russia’s economy.
In televised remarks, he said Russia’s military actions in Ukraine were going according to plan, praising its forces as heroes.
The talks had not delivered the results Kyiv had hoped for, but the two sides had reached an agreement on evacuating residents, according to a Ukrainian negotiator.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, in Moscow, brushes aside worldwide condemnation of the invasion, the military operation was going according to plan.