Russia-Ukraine war latest news: Ukrainians paying for ‘weak’ sanctions with their lives, says Zelenskiy; Erdoğan opens peace talks – The Guardian

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is addressing the delegates before the process starts. I will hope to have some fuller quotes in due course but initially Reuters have a quick snap that he has said he hopes the meeting will be beneficial for the countries involved and the whole region, that Turkey has shown a fair stance on the conflict at every stage, and that a fair peace will not have a loser. He has called for an immediate ceasefire.

Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdoğan addresses Russian and Ukrainian negotiators before their face-to-face talks. Photograph: Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Reuters

Here is a picture of the press scrum which was greeting delegates outside of the venue for the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul today.

Press members are seen during peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine at Dolmabahce office in Istanbul. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

We have some pictures through now from the opening of the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul, hosted by Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdoğan addresses Russian and Ukrainian negotiators before their face-to-face talks. Photograph: Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Reuters

President Erdoğan’s view of the room. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

A view from the back of the room at the Dolmabahce Presidential Office in Istanbul. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Two quick snaps from Reuters here – with contrasting implications. Russia’s defence ministry has claimed it has destroyed a major fuel depot in Ukraine’s Rivne region. The Guardian and Reuters have not independently verified this.

At the same time Gazprom has just announced that gas exports to the rest of Europe via Ukraine remain high. The RIA news agency reported that gas has been flowing at a rate of just over 109m cubic metres per day, which is in line with the Kremlin-owned Gazprom’s contractual obligations.

Peter Forbes Ricketts, retired senior diplomat and the UK’s former permanent representative to Nato in Brussels has also been making media appearances in the UK this morning. He told Sky News:

We’d all love to think that negotiations could produce a breakthrough and a ceasefire, and I’ve absolutely no doubt that President’s Zelenskiy and the Ukrainian side are totally sincere. But I’m really wary of the Russians here. I don’t honestly see that the conditions are there for a meaningful ceasefire.

I think it’s brave of President Zelenskiy to face up to the fact that Ukraine is not going to join Nato anytime soon. He’s interested in security guarantees from the major powers and a neutral status for Ukraine, possibly with the right to join the EU. All these are important, but they’re frankly secondary issues. The key thing is what happens to this territory that Russian forces have occupied.

I do not believe that Putin will be willing to give up places like Mariupol, once they do hold it firmly. That’s on the corridor between the east, which Russia already controls, and the south and the Crimean peninsula. I’m afraid his minimum objective is to hold the territory that he’s now occupied.

That requires Ukraine to accept, effectively, the partition of their country. And I just find it very hard to imagine that any Ukrainian government could do that. So I’m pretty sceptical about the outcome of these talks, although it’s a good thing people are talking.

Ukraine hopes to open three humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians from besieged towns and cities today, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.

Reuters report she said this would include trying to establish a safe corridor for people to leave the encircled southern port city of Mariupol in private vehicles.

A few more of the words of Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the start of these peace talks in Istanbul via Reuters. He has said that Turkey sees both President Vladimir Putin and President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as “valuable friends”. He has also said that progress in the Istanbul talks can pave the way for a meeting between the two leaders of Ukraine and Russia, which Turkey is also willing to host.

The Ukrainian delegation arrives for the peace talks. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is addressing the delegates before the process starts. I will hope to have some fuller quotes in due course but initially Reuters have a quick snap that he has said he hopes the meeting will be beneficial for the countries involved and the whole region, that Turkey has shown a fair stance on the conflict at every stage, and that a fair peace will not have a loser. He has called for an immediate ceasefire.

Turkey’s president Tayyip Erdoğan addresses Russian and Ukrainian negotiators before their face-to-face talks. Photograph: Murat Cetinmuhurdar/PPO/Reuters

Here is a picture of the press scrum which was greeting delegates outside of the venue for the Russia-Ukraine talks in Istanbul today.

Press members are seen during peace talks between delegations from Russia and Ukraine at Dolmabahce office in Istanbul. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

In the UK, education minister Will Quince has been doing the media round for the government, and has been asked several question about Ukraine on Sky News.

He expressed a wish that any peace talks would be successful, saying “as much as there is scepticism globally about whether these peace talks will be successful, I desperately hope that they are, on any terms that are acceptable to the Ukrainian president and Ukrainian people”.

Regarding the allegation of poisoning at a previous round of talks, Quince would not be drawn on the veracity of the claims. He said it was a “worrying development” and that there was “no doubt [the] UK government will be looking to establish the facts there” but that ultimately it was a matter for local authorities.

On criticism of the low numbers of refugees being processed and accepted into the UK, he was defensive of the UK government’s two schemes saying:

On the family scheme we’ve had about 23,000 people accepted on that scheme and about 8,000 of those are children … I know that number will increase.

And then on the other scheme, which is in relation to the homeless Ukrainians, British people have been absolutely incredible. Over 150,000 have expressed an interest.

He could not give a number of successful placements yet but said “many are in progress” and added: “I want to thank from the bottom of my heart everyone who’s reached out, seeing those terrible scenes in Ukraine, who is offering up their home.”

Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has tweeted to call upon states around the world to criminalise the use of the “Z” symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression:

I call on all states to criminalise the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ’Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.

Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba)

I call on all states to criminalize the use of the ‘Z’ symbol as a way to publicly support Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. ’Z’ means Russian war crimes, bombed out cities, thousands of murdered Ukrainians. Public support of this barbarism must be forbidden.

March 29, 2022

• Face-to-face peace talks between Ukraine and Russia are likely to start in Turkey today after negotiators arrived in Istanbul for their first face-to-face talks in more than two weeks. Both sides have played down the chances of a major breakthrough and a senior US official said Vladimir Putin did not appear ready to compromise.
• The UK’s Ministry of Defence released its latest intelligence report on the situation unfolding in Ukraine, claiming Ukrainian forces are continuing to conduct localised counterattacks outside Kyiv.
• Ukraine’s military also released its latest operational report as of 6am this morning and appears to corroborate with British intelligence, claiming its forces carried out successful counterattacks in some directions.
• More than 60 Ukrainian churches and religious buildings have been destroyed and 733 educational institutions damaged by Russian forces since the invasion first began on 24 February, according to Ukraine’s crisis centre (UCMC).
• A total of 144 children have so far been killed and more than 220 injured as a result of Russia’s invasion, Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office has said.
  
• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, urged for sanctions packages to be “effective and substantial” and called for countries to keep supplying weapons to Ukraine. “Ukrainians should not die just because someone cannot find enough courage to hand over the necessary weapons to Ukraine,” he said. “Fear always makes you an accomplice.”
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia feels it is “amongst war” with the west after an array of sanctions were imposed on Russian businesses and individuals. Referencing Russia’s ongoing tension with Nato, Peskov told broadcaster PBS: “For a couple of decades, we were telling the collective west that we are afraid of your Nato’s moving eastwards. We too are afraid of Nato getting closer to our borders with its military infrastructure. Please take care of that. Don’t push us into the corner. No.”
• Peskov added that “no one is thinking about using” or “even about [the] idea of using a nuclear weapon”.
• Video footage purporting to show the torture of Russian prisoners of war is being investigated by the Ukrainian government. The film, which has not been verified, appears to show Ukrainian soldiers removing three hooded Russians from a van before shooting them in the legs.
• Britain’s foreign secretary, Liz Truss, accused Putin’s forces of abducting innocent civilians, describing the move as an “abhorrent tactic” after Ukrainian human rights group, ZMINA, claimed to have identified dozens of individuals who had been abducted, with thousands more deported to Russia.
• The US president, Joe Biden, said he will “make no apologies” after appearing to call for Putin’s removal last week. When asked by a reporter if he regretted saying that Putin should not remain in power, Biden said: “I wasn’t then, nor am I now, articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I felt.”

Peskov added that “no one is thinking about using” or “even about [the] idea of using a nuclear weapon” in an interview with PBS on Monday evening.

Reporter Ryan Chilcote asked Peskov to clear up the confusion surrounding Russia’s position on a possible nuclear attack after the Russian official previously said that Russia would only use nuclear weapons if its very existence were threatened.

“So could you please clarify for us what exactly would amount to an existential threat to Russia?” Chilcote asked.

Peskov replied:

Well, first of all, we have no doubt that all the objectives of our special military operation in Ukraine will be completed. We have no doubt about that.

But any outcome of the operation, of course, is not a reason for usage of a nuclear weapon. We have a security concept that very clearly states that only when there is a threat for existence of the state in our country, we can use and we will actually use nuclear weapons to eliminate the threat or the existence of our country.”

Chilcote pressed: “So, why not just clear this up right now? Why can’t you, on behalf of Russia, rule out the use of nuclear weapons in this conflict, right here?”

Dmitry Peskov replied: “No one is thinking about using, about — even about idea of using a nuclear weapon.”

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