The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine have eye-balled each other across a meeting room in Antalya, Turkey, the most senior officials to hold in-person talks since the war began. “Jaw, jaw” might be better than “war, war”, however there has been no let up in the war. 

Both sides have stuck to their demands in order to call a halt to the fighting. Moscow has said it wants the demilitarisation of Ukraine and the recognition of separatist territories, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has again said he’s willing to consider some compromises, ruling out however ceding any territory and is pushing for security guarantees from the U.S. and Germany, alongside EU membership, all of which could be unacceptable for Russia in terms of Ukrainian “neutrality”. There is likely some wriggle room on the set positions.

The picture above shows Russian foreign minister Lavrov on the far left and Ukrainian foreign minister Kuleba is on the right, in the middle is the host of the tripartite talks, the Turkish foreign minister Cavusoglu. Expectations are low…

UPDATE: Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said after the meeting with Russia’s Lavrov:

“Russia is not in a position at this point to establish a ceasefire. They seek a surrender from Ukraine. This is not what they’re going to get. Ukraine is strong, Ukraine is fighting. Ukraine made Russia’s initial plans fail. We are seeking a diplomatic solution to this war. But we will not surrender. Upon my initiative, we dedicated most of the time addressing humanitarian issues on the ground…to bring relief to people who have suffered. I sincerely hope Mr. Lavrov will follow up with his colleagues in the military to help arrange the safe passage of people from the besieged cities, especially Mariupol, and to allow humanitarian aid to reach Mariupol… It was not easy for me to listen to what [Lavrov] was saying. But I appeared to him several times..”