The Russian and Ukrainian delegations held talks on a military operation in the territories controlled by Kiev on February 28. They took place in the Gomel region of Belarus. Russian representatives arrived at the meeting place a day earlier – on February 27 – but the Ukrainian delegation was able to get there only a day later. Negotiations began in the middle of the day on February 28 and lasted almost five hours.
The Russian delegation was headed by Presidential Aide Vladimir Medinsky, and also included the Russian Ambassador to Belarus, representing Moscow in the Trilateral Contact Group on Ukraine, Boris Gryzlov, and Deputy Foreign and Defense Ministers Andrey Rudenko and Alexander Fomin.
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Ukraine was represented at the talks by the head of the pro-presidential faction in the Verkhovna Rada “Servant of the People” David Arakhamia, Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, adviser to the head of the presidential office Mykhailo Podolyak, first deputy head of the delegation in the Trilateral Contact Group Andriy Kostin, deputy of the Holos party, a former delegate of the Crimea Kurultai of the Crimean Tatar people Rustem Umerov and Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolai Tochitsky.
Their main goal, Podolyak called discussions on the ceasefire in Ukraine and hostilities in general. After the end of the meeting, he stated that “the parties have identified a number of priority topics on which certain decisions have been outlined.” The negotiations took place in several rounds, the parties agreed to continue this process.
After the talks, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky said that Russia had voiced its position at the talks, but the meeting did not bring the results expected by Kiev. “Some Signals [российской стороны] we got it,” he said.
Russia has been conducting a military operation in Ukraine since February 24. Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russia was not going to occupy a neighboring state and was only seeking its “denazification and demilitarization.”