Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed “ in principle” to UN and International Committee for the Red Cross (ICRC) involvement in the evacuation of civilians from a besieged sword factory in Ukraine’s southern megacity of Mariupol, the United Nations has said.
During a meeting in Moscow, Putin and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres bandied the situation at the huge Azovstal sword factory, where the last Ukrainian protectors of Mariupol are drilled up after months of Russian siege and grim hail.
“ Follow-on conversations will be had with the United Nations Office for the Collaboration of Humanitarian Affairs and the Russian Defence Ministry,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said in a statement after the meeting.
Before Tuesday, Putin told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that there were no military operations underway in Mariupol and that Kyiv should “ take responsibility” for the people in the Azovstal sword factory.
Ukraine on Monday appealed for the UN and the ICRC to be involved in the evacuation of civilians from Azovstal. Guterres is anticipated to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Thursday.
During a news conference with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Guterres said he has proposed a “ Humanitarian Contact Group” of Russia, Ukraine, and UN officers “ to look for openings for the opening of safe corridors, with original cessations of conflict, and to guarantee that they’re actually effective”.
Moscow describes its February 24 irruption of Ukraine as a “ special military operation” and has denied targeting civilians. It has criticized Ukraine for the repeated failure of philanthropic corridors.
On April 21, Russia declared palm in Mariupol although remaining Ukrainian forces held out in a vast underground complex below Azovstal.
Russia said on Monday it would open a philanthropic corridor for civilians to leave the sword factory, but Ukraine said there was no similar agreement and that Russia was still attacking it.
Putin says‘ hopeful over addresses
In televised reflections, Putin told Guterres that he still had a stopgap for accommodations to end the conflict.
Putin noted that Russian and Ukrainian mediators made what he described as a “ serious advance” in their addresses in Istanbul, Turkey, last month.
He claimed, still, that the Ukrainian side latterly walked back on some of the conditional agreements reached in Istanbul.
In particular, Putin said Ukrainian mediators have changed their position on the issue of the status of Crimea and separatist homes in eastern Ukraine, offering to leave it for the countries’ chairpersons to bandy.
The Russian chairman charged that the shift in the Ukrainian stage makes it hard to negotiate an unborn deal.
Putin has demanded that Ukraine honor Russia’s sovereignty over Crimea and honor the independence of separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as part of an unborn agreement on ending the conflict.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that those issues could only be decided by an unborn vote.
Ukraine had proposed a transnational agreement whereby other countries would guarantee its security. In return, Kyiv would not join NATO or host foreign military bases and come into a neutral,non-nuclear state.
