No breakthrough in Russia-Ukraine talks

MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Wednesday played down hopes of a breakthrough following peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegates in Istanbul a day earlier.

“We cannot state that there was anything too promising or any breakthroughs,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.“There is a lot of work to be done,” Peskov said.

He added that Moscow considered it “positive” that Kyiv had started outlining its demands in writing.“We carefully avoid making statements on the matters” that are discussed at the talks because “we believe that negotiations should take place in silence”, he added.

Moscow’s lead negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, described talks in Istanbul on Monday as “meaningful”.A defence official at the talks said Russia would be significantly reducing its military activity near Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv.

However, Ukrainian authorities said Russian forces had later bombarded the northern city of Chernigiv on Wednesday, despite Moscow’s claims.Medinsky said in a video he posted on Telegram on Wednesday that “Ukraine expressed readiness to fulfil fundamental demands that Russia had insisted on all these past years”.

Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden and President Volodymyr Zelensky discussed “additional capabilities” to help the Ukrainian military, during a telephone call on Wednesday, the White House said in a statement.

Biden also told Zelensky that the United States would provide the Ukrainian government with $500 million in direct aid, as Kyiv battles against invading Russian forces.

“The leaders discussed... continued efforts by the United States with allies and partners to identify additional capabilities to help the Ukrainian military defend its country,” the White House said.

Some 20,000 people are believed to have been killed since the Russian invasion began on February 24, according to Zelensky, though the number of casualties could not be independently verified.

“Just finished an hour-long conversation,” Zelensky tweeted after the call. “Shared assessment of the situation on the battlefield and at the negotiating table.

In a related development, Russian forces struck a Red Cross facility in the besieged and destroyed southern Ukraine port city of Mariupol, Kyiv and the aid group said Wednesday, where officials have warned of a humanitarian disaster.

“In Mariupol, the occupiers aimed at the building of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC),” Ukrainian ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said in a statement on social media.

“Enemy aircraft and artillery fired on a building marked with a red cross on a white background, indicating the presence of wounded people or civilian or humanitarian cargo,” the statement said.

Russian forces have encircled the strategic southern city and their steady indiscriminate shelling has killed at least 5,000 people, officials say, estimating total deaths could be as many as 10,000.

Aid groups have called regularly for access to Mariupol, where the conditions are described as hellish, and Ukrainian officials have accused Russian troops of forcibly deporting residents to Russia.