Zelensky resigned and accepts the fact that Ukraine will not be able to join NATO. But at the same time it asks for guarantees for its own safety and reserves the right to enter into agreements with individual countries. The words of the Ukrainian president outline what is the position of Kiev in the negotiations for the end of the conflict that has been bleeding the country for 20 days.
"We have heard about open doors for years, but we have also heard that we cannot enter, and we must recognize it," the president said, adding however that Ukraine needs "long-term security guarantees" and therefore "if we cannot enter through these doors, we must cooperate with those who will help us ”.
But this is not enough for Vladimir Putin: "Ukraine does not show a serious desire to find mutually acceptable solutions," said the Russian president in a phone call with EU Council President Charles Michel.
A closure, or a tactical move by the "tsar" to achieve more in the negotiations. What seems evident is that the negotiations remain uphill, despite Zelensky's optimism, according to which the talks between the two delegations, continued today via videoconference, are going "quite well".
Optimism that also transpires from Mykhailo Podolyak, the Ukrainian negotiator: "It is a very difficult and slippery process and there are fundamental contradictions", he said in the evening, "but there is certainly room for compromise".
( HERE the chronicle of the twentieth day of the war, HERE all the news on the Ukrainian crisis).
INTERNATIONAL MEDIATORS AND BIDEN'S MISSION IN EUROPE - As for international mediators, Ankara's new attempt has begun, with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu arriving on a mission in Moscow before heading to Kiev. The premiers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia also arrived in Kiev to reaffirm "the unequivocal support of the entire European Union for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine".
Zelensky expresses doubts about the support of the West: "The sanctions have not stopped the war, we ask you to stop the bombs," he said in a video speech to the Canadian Parliament, addressing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau directly and returning to ask for the no- fly zone.
On the sanctions front, the US is adopting new ones that also directly target Belarusian President Lukashenko, while Putin responds with a flurry of personal measures also against Biden and Trudeau, which provide for the freezing of assets and the ban on entry to Russia for both.
Joe Biden will fly to Europe next week to participate in the extraordinary NATO summit and the European Council on Ukraine with the aim of reaffirming the "iron" commitment of the United States to allies. And the White House is working to organize a phone call between Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the coming days.
According to some sources, Biden could also make a stop in Poland, the European partner where the concern for the escalation of the war is highest, after the attack by the Russians on the military base a few kilometers from its border. As for a possible meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky, the administration is not unbalanced: "There is nothing on the table at the moment," said Jen Psaky, spokesman for the White House.
THE WAR - In all this, the bombings do not stop when we have now reached the twentieth day of the war. The siege of Kiev is becoming more and more dramatic, with the Ukrainian authorities declaring a new total curfew of 36 hours until Thursday morning.
With the columns of Russian armored vehicles getting closer and closer, the fear grows that Moscow is preparing the decisive assault on the capital, on which bombs continue to rain. Last night the city was heavily hit: a raid on a residential building left five dead, while on the road to Irpin two other journalists were killed, Fox's Irish cameraman Pierre Zakrewski and local producer Alexandra Kuvshinova, with correspondent. British Benjamin Hall who was injured.
In the rest of Ukraine, the hottest front remains that of the southern belt between the Donbass and the Crimea, Moscow's strategic objective to weld the territories already under its control. The Russians have claimed the conquest of the port town of Berdiansk, on the Sea of Azov, one hundred thousand inhabitants about eighty kilometers west of Mariupol, which remains under a fierce siege.
After the first evacuations, 350 thousand people remain blocked in Mariupol and the deputy mayor speaks of at least one hundred bombs that have fallen in the past 24 hours. In the regional hospital for intensive care, which ended up in Russian hands, about 400 patients and staff are also being held hostage. Soldiers would shoot inside the hospital, preventing anyone from leaving, and some who tried to escape would be wounded.
(Unioneonline / L)