Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia told a local television station that the two leaders could soon meet as draft peace treaty documents reach an advanced stage, Interfax-Ukraine news agency reported. Arahamia said that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan “called us and Vladimir Putin yesterday and seemed to confirm that he was ready to hold a meeting in the near future.” “Neither the date nor the place is known, but we believe that the place with a high degree of probability will be Istanbul or Ankara,” he continued. The announcement came on the same day that Russian forces largely withdrew from the area around Kyiv. Ukraine’s Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said on Saturday that the entire region was now free of the Russian army, stating on Facebook: “Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and the entire Kiev region have been liberated from the invader!” The withdrawal came after Russian troops faced strong opposition from Ukrainian forces determined to retain the capital. After several weeks of failed attempts to occupy the city, Moscow announced last week that its troops would redirect their efforts to the eastern Donbass region of Ukraine. “The initial Russian operation was a failure and one of its main goals – the occupation of Kiev – proved to be impossible for the Russian forces,” Michael Koffman, director of Russian studies at the CNA, a research institute, told the New York Times. in Arlington, Virginia. on Saturday. However, the withdrawal on Saturday highlighted the grim remnants of six weeks of fighting across the city and nearby villages. Photographs and media reports from the area showed the remains of damaged military tanks and buildings, abandoned military positions and scattered corpses of both soldiers and civilians. There were also reports that Russian soldiers looted and looted homes on their way out, stealing valuable electronics and other items either to mail to the house or to sell. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Ukrainians in the city of Mariupol remain trapped with little access to food or water as fighting continues in the southeast. Moscow’s main military targets are likely to now focus on Mariupol and gain further control of the Russian-backed Donetsk and Luhansk breakaway regions, experts recently told Newsweek. “The Russians need at least some achievements,” said Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a former Ukrainian defense minister. Andriy Ryzhenko, a retired naval captain and former deputy chief of staff of the Ukrainian navy, added that troops leaving Kyiv “will now be redeployed and relocated to Donbass.” Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky may meet soon for face-to-face talks in Turkey. Here, Putin is chairing a meeting outside Moscow on March 31, 2022. Mikhail KLIMENTYEV / SPUTNIK / AFP / Getty Images Negotiations between delegates from both nations resumed in Istanbul, Turkey, this week. Putin and Zelensky have not yet spoken in person, and a possible meeting could offer significant progress toward ending the war. Since the Russian invasion began in late February, the United Nations has reported that more than 1,200 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the war, and about 10 percent of the population has been forced to flee the country. Tens of thousands of soldiers have also been killed, and in some places Ukrainian towns and villages have been decimated. Newsweek contacted the Foreign Ministries of both Ukraine and Russia for additional comments, but was not informed of the time for publication.
