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New talk of compromise from both Moscow and Kyiv on a status for Ukraine outside of NATO lifted hope on Wednesday for a potential breakthrough after three weeks of war.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said negotiations were becoming “more realistic”, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said there was “some hope for compromise”. The Kremlin said the sides were discussing status for Ukraine similar to that of Austria or Sweden, both members of the European Union that are outside the NATO military alliance. Ukraine’s chief negotiator said it would give Kyiv binding international security guarantees to prevent future attacks.
Though the war still ground on with Ukrainian civilians trapped in cities under Russian bombardment, the signs of compromise sent relief through global financial markets. Shares in Germany - Russia’s biggest energy market - were up 3.4 per cent.
Three weeks into the invasion, Russian troops have been halted at the gates of Kyiv, having taken heavy losses and failed to seize any of Ukraine’s biggest cities in a war Western officials say Moscow thought it would win within days.
“The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a video address overnight.
‘Humanitarian no-fly zone’
President Volodymyr Zelensky called for a humanitarian no-fly zone over Ukraine in a virtual address to the US Congress as Russian forces inch toward Kyiv as fighting intensified around the capital.
He offered alternatives in case this request could not be fulfilled.
“To create a no-fly zone over Ukraine, to save people, is this too much to ask? Humanitarian, no-fly zone — something that Russia would not be able to [use to] terrorise our free cities. If this is too much to ask, we offer an alternative. You know what kind of defense systems we need, as 300 and similar other systems. You know how much depends on the battlefield, on the ability to use aircraft. Powerful, strong aviation to protect our people, our freedom, our land,” he told the US lawmakers.
The US and its NATO allies are already sending several surface-to-air missiles systems to Ukraine to aid in its defense. According to a senior US official, these additional systems include the Soviet-era SA-8, SA-10, SA-12 and SA-14 mobile air defense systems.
Meanwhile, the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution condemning Russia and Putin over war in Ukraine. The resolution also expresses support for probes into Russian war crimes in Ukraine in the International Criminal Court.
President Joe Biden is expected to unveil a new $800 million assistance package for Ukraine.
Russia was due to pay $117 million in interest on dollar-denominated sovereign bonds, but could be forced to pay in roubles instead, amounting to its first default on foreign debt since the Bolshevik revolution. Moscow said it has the money, and Washington would be to blame if it cannot pay.
US to ‘significantly expand’ sanctions
The Biden administration is continuing to impose sanctions targeting top Russian officials and those in President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle, according to multiple US officials, reports CNN.
The process has been ongoing and has taken into account specific suggestions of targets provided by top Ukrainian officials, including President Zelensky, the officials said. In a call with US President Joe Biden last week, Zelensky laid out a more specific range of targets for individual sanctions, one of the officials said. The administration is currently working to address those requested targets.
Zelensky, in virtual remarks to Congress, went further today when he requested the US impose sanctions on all Russian politicians who continue to support the government.
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the US has slapped sanctions on dozens of top Russian officials and oligarchs. The UK on Tuesday added over 370 more prominent Russians and entities to its sanctions list and hiked tariffs on a swathe of imports from vodka to steel, and banned exports of luxury goods in retaliation for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ukraine shifts
On Tuesday, Zelenskiy said Ukraine could accept international security guarantees that stopped short of its longstanding aim to join NATO, seen as a major shift.
Keeping Ukraine out of the Western military alliance was one of Russia’s main demands in the months before it launched what it calls a “special operation” to disarm and “denazify” Ukraine.
“The negotiations are not easy for obvious reasons,” Russia’s Lavrov told media outlet RBC news. “But nevertheless, there is some hope of reaching a compromise.”
“Neutral status is now being seriously discussed along, of course, with security guarantees,” Lavrov said. “There are absolutely specific formulations which in my view are close to agreement.”
Both sides painted only broad outlines in public of a proposed compromise.
Hope
Ukraine’s staunch resistance on the battlefield and Western sanctions that have isolated Russia from the world economy have raised Kyiv’s hopes that Moscow would make concessions.
Though Russia has long been calling for Ukraine to be kept out of NATO, Kyiv and its allies have said Moscow’s true aim was to overthrow the pro-Western, elected leaders of a country President Vladimir Putin dismisses as an artificial state.
Podlolyak tweeted before Wednesday’s talks that Ukrainian military counteroffensives had “radically changed the parties’ dispositions”.
3m refugees
Europe’s biggest invasion since World War Two has sent more than 3 million refugees fleeing abroad.
The streets of the capital Kyiv were largely empty on Wednesday after authorities imposed a curfew overnight. Several buildings in a residential area were badly damaged after what appeared to be a Russian missile was shot down in the early hours of Wednesday, residents and emergency workers said.
