Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba has confirmed his plans to meet with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov on March 10 amid the escalating conflict between the two countries. According to CNN, Kuleba said if Lavrov is ready for a serious substantive conversation then he is ready as well. Kuleba also said that he would talk to anyone so that peace could be established between Russia and Ukraine. The statement comes after the failure of the third round of peace talks between the two countries held in Belarus on Monday.
Expressing Russia’s discontent with the third round of talks with Ukraine, the head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky said, “To be honest, our expectations from the talks were not met. But we hope that next time we will be able to take a more significant step forward.”
Last week, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and offered his country’s service for mediation between Russia and Ukraine. On his way back to Israel, Bennett also held a telephone conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelinsky. Zelensky had earlier asked the Israeli PM to help broker peace between Ukraine and Russia.
Meanwhile, India has repeatedly urged both countries in the UN to resort to diplomacy to resolve the conflict. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has talked twice to both the Russian and Ukraine Presidents since Russia’s recognition of the independence of Luhansk and Donetsk.
