Kyiv (Times Of Ocean)- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Tuesday that the latest round of peace talks with Russia in Istanbul, Turkey, could be considered “positive,” but “the enemy is still on our territory.”
“The signals we hear from the negotiating platform can be called positive,” Zelenskyy said on his Telegram account.
“But these signals do not drown out the ruptures of Russian shells.”
Noting that they see “all the risks” and “no reason to trust the words of certain representatives of a state that continues to fight for our destruction,” the president said “Ukrainians are not naive people. Ukrainians have already learned during these 34 days of invasion and over the past eight years of the war in Donbas that only a concrete result can be trusted.”
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held separate press briefings to inform the world about the outcome of the new round of talks in Istanbul.
Ukraine has asked several countries, including Turkey, to be guarantors of a possible future peace deal, while Russia has announced that it will drastically reduce military activities directed towards Kyiv and Chernihiv to increase trust for future negotiations.
On Feb. 24, Russia sent its troops into Ukraine in what it called a “special military operation.” The war has sparked international outrage, and the West has imposed tough financial sanctions against Moscow.
According to UN estimates, 1,179 civilians have been killed in Ukraine and 1,860 injured, although the true number is likely to be much higher.
More than 3.9 million Ukrainians have also fled to several European countries, with millions more displaced within Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency.