A senior Ukrainian official announced Wednesday evening that his country had proposed to Russia to hold a “special round” of negotiations in the city Mariupol besieged.
“Yes, without any conditions. We are ready for a ‘special round of negotiations’ in Mariupol itself,” Ukraine’s chief negotiator and presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, said in a tweet on Twitter.
For his part, Ukraine’s chief negotiator David Arachamia said on his Telegram channel: “We are ready to come with Mikhailo Podolyak at any time to these negotiations, as soon as we receive confirmation from the Russian side.”
Humanitarian corridor plan ‘did not work’
This comes as Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk revealed earlier that the humanitarian corridor plan to evacuate civilians from the city Mariupol The besieged coastal area in southeastern Ukraine on Wednesday “did not succeed”, accusing the Russians of violating the ceasefire and blocking the road to buses.
Vereshchuk also continued, “Unfortunately, the plan for the Mariupol humanitarian corridor did not work out as planned on Wednesday,” following announcing in the morning a “preliminary” agreement with Russia on this corridor, the first of its kind since Saturday.
Russian soldiers in Mariupol (archive from AFP)
She also considered that “due to the lack of control of their army on the ground, the Russians were unable to secure a proper ceasefire,” adding: “Moreover, due to chaos and neglect, they were unable to provide quick transportation for people to the waiting place of dozens of our buses and ambulances.” “.
“difficult decision”
For his part, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken told the press that the United States is providing assessments to the Ukrainian authorities regarding the possibility of establishing humanitarian corridors, but that establishing them remains a “difficult decision.”
“There were agreements on humanitarian corridors that were established previously, but they failed due to security breaches by the Russian forces,” Blinken added.
Russian soldiers in Mariupol (archive from AFP)
In turn, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of the tragic situation in Mariupol, where Ukrainian fighters are holed up in a besieged and bombed industrial complex, along with “hundreds of wounded” and “regarding a thousand civilians, women and children” who “protect them at the cost of their lives,” as he put it.
important goal
It is noteworthy that no evacuation corridors have been established in Ukraine since Saturday, due to the failure to reach an agreement with the Russians, who have intensified their strikes in eastern Ukraine in recent days.
Since the launch of the Russian military operation on Ukrainian territory on February 24, Mariupol has constituted an important target for Moscow, especially since its control would allow it to link the regions of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea to the south, which were annexed to Russian territory in 2014.
