Ukraine demands ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian forces, as delegates hold talks

Ukraine has demanded nothing but a total ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces, as its delegates and Russian delegations met for direct talks on Monday at the Belarusian border, since Russia’s invasion began on Thursday.

At the meeting, the Ukrainian delegation said they had a simple request from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office which was to demand an immediate ceasefire.

The Ukrainian delegation which included the Minister of Defense Oleksiy Reznikov, the head of Zelenskyy’s parliamentary party, as well as advisors to the president and MPs, said the key issue for the talks was an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops.

On the Russian delegation were officials from the Foreign and Defense ministries, and the presidential administration.

The talks were agreed to on Sunday in a call between Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Belarus’ leader Alexander Lukashenko.

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The talks came five days after Russia, on the orders of President Vladimir Putin, ordered her military to launch an invasion of its ex-Soviet neighbor from multiple directions despite warnings of dire consequences from the United States and the international community.

The invasion of Ukraine last Thursday, followed weeks of tensions in the region, which was escalated by Putin recognizing the independence of two Russia-backed separatist states of Donetsk and Luhansk in the eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Russia also justified its invasion by blaming Ukraine of stoking the crisis when it indicated interest in joining the Northern Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), which it sees as negating its demands to NATO that Ukraine had pledged to never join the transatlantic defense alliance.

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