Fighting continues after the Russian attack on Ukraine. For the first time since the beginning of the war, the foreign ministers want to meet again at the negotiating table. An overview of what happened during the night.
Before the eagerly awaited meeting of foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia, both sides also fought in the war zone on Thursday night. Ukraine reported shelling on several major cities, and there was an air raid alarm in the capital Kyiv.
A new attempt was planned for the morning to save people from embattled cities during a regional ceasefire. Above all, hope rested on the first high-level talks between the two sides since the beginning of the war.
New diplomatic efforts
To this end, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba arrived in Antalya, Turkey, where he intends to explore options for ending the war with his Russian colleague Sergey Lavrov on Thursday morning. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu wants to mediate. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, wants to address the safety of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in Antalya.
As a condition for a cessation of fighting, Russia is demanding that Ukraine declare itself neutral in its constitution. In addition, Kyiv must recognize the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea as Russian and the separatist areas as independent. So far, Ukraine has largely rejected this. However, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has indicated a certain willingness to compromise.
On Thursday evening, Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the other EU heads of state and government will meet at a summit in Versailles near Paris to discuss the situation.
The war events
According to Ukrainian information, a new attempt is planned for Thursday to rescue people from cities in the Sumy region in the north-east via three escape corridors to the city of Poltava further west. A ceasefire is planned for these escape routes from 8:00 a.m. German time, the Sumy regional administration announced. Almost 50,000 people came out of the surrounded city of Sumy itself on Tuesday and Wednesday.
Above all, the evacuation of the southern Ukrainian port of Mariupol has been a struggle for days. There, on Wednesday, an attack on a maternity clinic caused horror – including that of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who called for an end to the “senseless violence”.
The events of the war on Thursday night remained confusing, especially since the information provided by the warring parties cannot be independently verified. Ukrainian authorities reported that Russian planes bombed the area around Sumy, including residential areas and a gas pipeline. The Ukrainian army spoke of attempted Russian attacks on the capital Kyiv and the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolayiv, as well as attacks on the region around the city of Kharkiv in the east. But the Russian offensive was slowed down.
What is important today
The Russian-Ukrainian foreign ministers’ meeting in Antalya is scheduled to begin in the morning, and the informal EU summit in Versailles in the afternoon (5:30 p.m.). Federal Minister of the Interior Nancy Faeser (SPD) travels to Poland for talks on refugees. German bishops want to pass a declaration on the Ukraine war at their spring conference. The refugee children are a topic at the Conference of Ministers of Education in Lübeck.
Source: Stern
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