The Kremlin delivers a negotiation offer to Kyiv
- Russia tests a new intercontinental ballistic missile capable of carrying up to 15 nuclear warheads
Russia has delivered its new negotiation proposals in writing to Ukraine and Kyiv has picked up the gauntlet. Despite the disagreements maintained after the short-lived success of the Istanbul meeting at the end of March, the contacts continue with the Donbas offensive in the background. “The Russian side studied our proposals and expressed its position. Now it is our turn to analyze, compare and draw conclusions, including those of a political and legal nature”, President Volodímir Zelenski’s main adviser, Mijaílo Podoliak, told several Ukrainian media.
Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov, had announced this very day the delivery of the documents to Kyiv "with absolutely clear and developed formulations." "The ball is in your court, we are waiting for an answer," added the representative of the Russian president. Also, this Wednesday, the spokeswoman for the Foreign Ministry, María Zajárova, reviewed Moscow's main demands now. "The talks to ensure the neutral status of Ukraine, outside any bloc, and without nuclear weapons, continue," he stressed before mentioning other items on the agenda, including the demilitarization of the country, the restoration of Russian as an official language, and the recognition of Crimea as part of Russia. However, for Donbas, he demanded only his independence.
The Istanbul meeting on March 29 achieved some progress in the negotiations that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations have been holding since the conflict began. At that meeting, Kyiv offered Moscow its definitive renunciation of NATO membership in exchange for obtaining security guarantees on its territory and was open to negotiating the future of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and the region of Donbas, at war since that same year.
Podolak explained that Ukraine sent its proposals after the meeting in the Turkish city, "including those that concern security guarantees that there will be no future aggression against our country," as he stressed on Wednesday, and now it is his turn to assess the counteroffer Russian.
For its part, Moscow has not clarified whether it has given a deadline to receive a response from Kyiv. “That depends on the Ukrainian side,” said Peskov, who once again reiterated the Kremlin's accusations that his rival is deliberately delaying the talks. “We have said it several times, the work dynamics of the Ukrainian side leaves much to be desired; the Ukrainians do not show a great inclination to intensify the dialogue”, criticized Peskov.
The negotiations in Istanbul, considered positive by the Russian delegation at the time, received harsh criticism from the most nationalist sectors of the country. According to his draft, Kyiv would get a guarantee that several countries will arm it within days if it is attacked, although this protection would exclude any conflict in both Crimea and Donbas. The Ukrainian government offered the Kremlin to address the status of the Black Sea peninsula within 15 years, and in other independent meetings the situation in the eastern part of the country.
The Zelensky government received the draft from Moscow two days after the Russian army began what it has called "the second phase of the operation". Putin justified more than a week ago that the withdrawal of troops from other areas, such as Kyiv, was a "concession" for the progress of the negotiations in Istanbul and not for the stagnation of the conflict. Now, these forces have been redirected to the Donbas front, according to Western espionage, where they have joined the offensive for control of eastern Ukraine.
- exchange of accusations
Zajárova has also joined the Kremlin's accusations against the Ukrainian delegation. "We have not trusted these people for a long time," said the representative of the body headed by the head of Russian diplomacy, Sergey Lavrov. According to the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, the negotiations have gone badly from the start. “From there began, as always, a circus in a figurative and direct sense on the part of the Kyiv regime: that they come, that they do not come, that they participate, that they do not participate... Were we ready for that in Moscow? Of course, it is,” she said, referring to the previous failed negotiations for the implementation of the 2014 and 2015 Minsk agreements, a pretext used by Putin to order his troops into Ukraine on February 24 this year.
Lavrov told the Russian news agency TASS this past Tuesday that the offensive now launched in Donbas "will be an important moment." "The operation in eastern Ukraine has as its objective, as was announced at the beginning, the complete liberation of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics," reiterated the Foreign Minister, who cataloged the withdrawal of troops from Chernihiv and Kyiv as "a gesture of goodwill that was not appreciated.”
Both parties have accused each other these weeks of prolonging the talks to reorganize their troops. Vladimir Putin warned on April 12 that his army will not stop until it gains control of the eastern part of Ukraine and "helps the people of Donbas." "That's how it will be, there's no doubt," said the president.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has recorded 2,104 civilian deaths and 2,862 injuries in Ukraine as of April 19, although these figures could be "considerably higher". According to his numbers, 660 civilians have died in Donbas in the area controlled by Kyiv and 79 in the separatist part, although he does not know the reality of some parts where it has been impossible to access due to the fighting, as is the case of the besieged Mariupol.
- The month of fear and darkness of 300 Ukrainians in a basement
- Russian forces forced the residents of the village of Yahidne to remain in the damp basement of the school. eleven elders died
For the 300 Ukrainians forced by Russian soldiers to live for a month in the basement of the school in the Ukrainian village of Yahidne, "there was no morning, noon or night," says Ania Yanko, 26, sent there earlier this month. March with her husband and their children, ages four and seven. “We were all the time in the dark. At first, we lit lamps until someone brought an electric generator that was enough for what it was, ”she recalls in front of the place, where neighbors gather today to receive humanitarian aid.
They were all the inhabitants who remained on March 5, the day on which the Russian forces stationed in Belarus took this town in northern Ukraine, about 120 kilometers north of Kyiv. They were mostly old people, women, and children, since the men were rather in other parts of the country, fighting or organizing defense or supplies. Some 130 slept in one room and, as they did not all fit lying down, some did so leaning on each other's shoulders, or back to back. At least 11 (the most conservative estimate) died in the basement. Their aged bodies gave in to the harsh conditions.
After occupying the town, the Russian military went from house to house forcing residents to move into the basement of the school, five rooms with wooden floors that retain a musty smell, a handful of broken school chairs, and moldy thrown blankets. In one of several rebellious episodes she recounts, Yanko initially refused to move from her house. “We told them to leave us alone, that we had small children. On March 7, several soldiers arrived at night. They were drunk and told us: 'Either you leave right now or we'll kill you. They escorted us there and demanded that I give them the phone's SIM card, which they broke. The next day they wanted the phone too, but I hid it. My husband has boots with a very thick sole and we cut a slot to put him in there without him stepping on it.”
Keeping the cell phone was not only a risky act of symbolic resistance but also a consequence of what was happening around him. “I saw a phone smashed against the corner of the bathroom and someone else found one in the toilet. They were the old ones that the grandparents had. iPhones and smartwatches kept them. A girl next to me was made to sign out of her iCloud profile...so they could use it. They also kept the fitness bracelets, because they said they could be used to contact the enemy. What a coincidence, just the good fitness bracelets! Why did they have to keep my phone? I bought it a month ago, I had to ask for a loan, and I thought the war would end soon," says the woman.
Since it was the school building, there was material upstairs that the soldiers let the children take. The walls are decorated with children's drawings in marker and watercolor, such as a calendar with a cross next to the word "dead". Also the lyrics of the Ukrainian anthem. It was painted by Yulia Semenova, 12, "very happy that this is over." "I was very scared. We were down there for a long time, ”she says today on the surface.
Yahidne's neighbors were not locked up. Especially at the beginning, they could go outside, to a space in front of the school where the tracks of the armored vehicles stationed on both sides can be seen. They also saw daylight when they went to the bathroom in a booth located a few meters away. “We were more or less OK... Until we found ourselves in the middle of the crossfire. A bomb fell next to the building, injuring an elderly man and a child. We decided not to go out again. I used a potty for my children” she assures.
It was the moment of greatest panic, with Ukrainian troops opening fire from the road and Russian tanks responding from their position next to the school, agrees Nina, 68, with a son at the front. “I was afraid that the roof would collapse and we would be buried alive. For two days, the Russians did not allow us to go out even to go to the bathroom. We began to be very afraid. It was very difficult, it was cold and we lacked fresh air. You know, 300 people in one place, the babies crying, the old people moaning... so we decided to do something. The two leaders [unofficial, two older men] looked out and saw that the battle was right there. An hour later there was silence. They came out and told the rest of us. The Russians were no longer there. As I left, I noticed the brightness of the sky. I realized that spring had come and the birds were singing." It was April 3. In the surroundings, there is still a blown-up bridge and completely destroyed armored vehicles, apparently by drone fire or by Javelin, the anti-tank missiles that its Western allies have delivered to Ukraine.
- Help and threats
The relationship between Ukrainian civilians and Russian soldiers was ambivalent, a mixture of gestures of help and seeking conversation with threats and details of contempt. The military seemed to fear the civilians and felt the need to explain to them why they were there.
Nina assures that when they went to the bathroom, they would shoot into the air to scare them, that they were increasingly nervous and that they imposed fear, with threats of immediate execution if they were caught in possession of a cell phone. "We didn't dare to talk about politics even among ourselves," she says. "One day, my children began to sing the Ukrainian anthem and I silenced them," recalls Yanko, who brings up the story that a group of men told them when they returned to the basement. They had gone out, with the permission of the Russian commanders, to dig two graves to bury five bodies. When the bodies had been brought in, "the Russians opened fire in that direction from a Tiger [a Russian military vehicle]." They had to take refuge in the holes where the corpses were. One was injured in the leg. “The Russians used to escort us, but they didn't escort us there,” she says. She also remembers when they asked the Russian military doctor for help for a woman with hypertension: “All she told us is to make a hole in the wall” so that fresh air could enter.
However, the Russian military also let them cook outside and go to the well for water. And they stole the animals, but then they gave them apart after sacrificing them. Some even shared their military rations with them, the remains of which can be seen in the basement (the Russian soldiers were upstairs). They weren't very hungry either. They ate typical porridge from the area or vegetables. The Russian soldiers escorted the two unofficial leaders - who acted as representatives and interlocutors before the commanders - to their homes to collect food and clothing. "They were given 30 minutes," recalls Nina.
The Russian troops had a list with everyone's first and last names. "And they told us that if one of them escaped, the rest would have a lot of problems," says Nina. Without telephones, newspapers, radio, or television, they were ignorant of the course of the war. “We didn't know what was happening in Kyiv, in Chernihiv... They told us that our government was about to fall and our country was in grave danger. And all the time, that Ukraine was poor and they came to liberate it, ”she adds.
The twentysomething and more forward Yanko spoke with them several times when they shared cigarettes or she went to the bathroom. “They boasted of having taken Mariupol, Kyiv, Kherson [only the last one was true]…‘ Chernihiv we almost have it ’, she said. ‘The Azov Battalion has come, but we immediately finished them off too. Your [Volodymyr] Zelensky has left Ukraine and [Vladimir] Putin is coming to rebuild it. They told me that they had nothing against us, that they only wanted to fight against the Azov Battalion, the Nazis, and Stepan Bandera”, a founding father of independent Ukraine and collaborator with Hitlerite Germany who died in 1959. “They spoke of Stepan Bandera as if he were living. I did not understand anything".
