As Russian troops press toward Kyiv in the third week of its invasion, officials from Russia and Ukraine are to engage on Monday in the fourth round of peace talks.
This new round of talks raises hopes that progress can be made in getting emergency aid supplies to areas without enough food, water, and medicine and in evacuating civilians from besieged Ukrainian cities that have so far proved unsuccessful.
After failing to accomplish any major breakthroughs, the previous three rounds of talks also centered largely on humanitarian issues and cease-fires aimed at allowing civilians to leave cities though even those agreements have fallen through in the process.
Despite earlier talks on creating aid or evacuation convoys, Mariupol, for example, where the war has produced some of the greatest human suffering, remains cut off.
Monday’s round of talks will be held by video conference – despite the others being in person – and mark day 19 of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine after a week without negotiations.
According to a tweet published by Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak, Kyiv’s requests will make for a hard discussion since they include asking for peace, a cease-fire, the immediate withdrawal of troops as well as security guarantees.
He noted that Russia still has a delusion that the violence against the peaceful Ukrainian cities is the right strategy although it realizes the nonsense of its aggressive actions.
Podolyak explained in another tweet that the reason behind the conflict is too different political systems in the two countries, stressing that communication is being held, but it’s hard with the two sides actively expressing in the talks their specified positions.
He described Ukraine’s system as a free dialogue within the society where a consensus is obligatory as opposed to the Russian system, which he described as an ultimatum suppression of its own society.
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