REALLY?
It would have appeared that if the two countries could get the grain exports going and done prisoner swaps and the concentrated the conflict to a narrow area that some sort of cease fire deal could be done…..
But?
It appaers that Russian President Putin feels the Ukraine and the West have got the best of him….
The Russian’s want the UN to step in , a place where Putin could try to exert more influence on a deal….
This IS an acknowledgement that the Russian leader feels outflanked by the Ukraine , Europeans and the US…
This IS a BIG plus for Ukraine Leader Zelensky and President Biden…..
But?
The conflict needs to end the bloodletting and destruction…..
The West will only increase military assistance to the Ukraine….
Not cut back so the Russians can make more gains….
Moscow sees no possibility of a diplomatic solution to end the war in Ukraine and expects a long conflict, a senior Russian diplomat has warned, as President Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion reaches the six-month mark this week.
Gennady Gatilov, Russia’s permanent representative to the UN in Geneva, told the Financial Times that the UN should be playing a bigger role in attempts to end the conflict and accused the US and other Nato countries of pressing Ukraine to walk away from negotiations. There would be no direct talks between Putin and Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy, he said.
“Now, I do not see any possibility for diplomatic contacts,” Gatilov said. “And the more the conflict goes on, the more difficult it will be to have a diplomatic solution.” His remarks, which come despite a flurry of shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks, are a blow to negotiators who had hoped that a recent agreement on grain exports from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports could form the basis for a broader deal.
The UN has become mired in “politicisation” because of the war and that has “damaged the authority of the UN and its organisations”, Gatilov said. As a result, it is unable to act effectively as a mediator, he complained.
“We do not have any contacts with the western delegations,” he said of his day-to-day work in Geneva. “On the protocol side we do not see each other . . . Privately we do not have any contacts, unfortunately . . . we simply do not talk to each other.”
Global diplomacy was in the worst state he had experienced in his 50-year career, Gatilov added. “The world has changed and the UN will never be the same as it was before.”
Russia invaded on February 24, in what Putin called a “special military operation” to “denazify” Ukraine. It was condemned by western countries, which imposed crippling sanctions on Moscow and severed ties. An initial attempt to seize Kyiv in a lightning assault was thwarted, forcing Moscow’s army to regroup and focus on an artillery-led campaign in the east.
Bilateral ceasefire negotiations broke down after evidence was discovered of war crimes committed by occupying Russian troops in April. Moscow has denied the allegations.
The failure to restart peace talks, combined with continued western military support for Ukraine, meant it was impossible to forecast how long the conflict could last, Gatilov said: “And so they [Kyiv and its western supporters] will fight until the last Ukrainian.”….