Jon Henley, Pjotr Sauer and Shaun walker – The Guardian March 30, 2022
Russia has pledged to drastically cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine to help advance peace talks, but experts and western diplomats expressed doubts that the move was more than a ploy to dress up setbacks on the ground.
Russia’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said after talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to “increase mutual trust, create the right conditions for future negotiations and reach the final aim of signing a peace deal with Ukraine”, and that the Kremlin would “radically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv”.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address early on Wednesday: “We can say the signals we are receiving from the talks are positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells.
“The Russian army still has significant potential to continue attacks against our state,” he added. “Therefore we are not reducing our defensive efforts.”
While Moscow presented its move as a goodwill gesture, it came as Russia’s advance appeared to have stalled on several fronts, with the Kremlin’s forces thwarted by stiff Ukrainian resistance, heavy losses and logistical and tactical failings.
Having failed to seize the Ukrainian capital and force an early capitulation, Moscow said last week it was shifting its focus to expanding the territory held by pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Donbas region. The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said hours before the talks the “main goal” was now the “liberation” of Donbas.
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he had not seen anything indicating that talks were progressing in a “constructive way” and suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to “deceive people and deflect attention”.
Speaking on a visit to Morocco, Blinken said that there was “what Russia says, and what Russia does, and we’re focused on the latter. What Russia is doing is the continued brutalisation of Ukraine.”
> Speaking on a visit to Morocco, Blinken said that there was “what Russia says, and what Russia does, and we’re focused on the latter. What Russia is doing is the continued brutalisation of Ukraine.”
Is that the best he could do? Brutalisation? There’s no point even pointing out the hypocrisy of it.
Any reduction in military action around Kiev and Northern Ukraine is just a token concession while the Russians hammer the 60,000 Azov Battalions in the Dombas, that is where this operation will be ended.
human rights defender USA government ?
after vietnam, afganistan, irak, serbia,
lybia, syria etc !
Britain & France only waited two days to declare war on Nazi Germany in 1939. Its been over a month now since Soviet Russia invaded Ukraine & still no declaration of war. Come to think of it, they didn’t declare war on Soviet Russia in 1939 either, even though the USSR invaded Poland too. Oh that’s right, Putin like Stalin is just another weird looking Asiatic Communist agent of the Jewish Overlords..
But…But… Last week the Guardian announced that the Russian army has capitulated unconditionally & that V Zelensky was the President of the Ukrainian Russian Federation & was personally thanking from his Kremlin office, the western media & mostly the Guardian to make his dream to come through …