By Linus Aleke
History is replete with stories of how great and violent wars including the first and second world wars ended on the dialogue table rather than war field or theatre of operations as it is referred to in marshal parlance.

Regrettably, there is no end sight in the ongoing war between the Russian Federation and the Republic of Ukraine with both leaders making inflammatory statements, as well as accusing each other of undermining UN protocol.

However, peace talks between Russia and Ukraine after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, took place on 28 February, 3 March, and 7 March 2022, on the Belarus–Ukraine border, in an undisclosed location in the Gomel region.

Documenting the outcome of the negotiations thus far, an online knowledge reservoir, Wikipedia said the first round of talks began on 28 February, near the Belarusian border.

It nevertheless, quoted the Ukrainian President’s office as saying that the main goal of the negotiation was to call for an immediate ceasefire and withdraw Russian troops from Ukraine.

The first round of peace talks ended with no immediate agreements.

Meanwhile, on March 3, the second round of peace talks began. Both sides agreed to open humanitarian corridors for evacuating civilians.

Russia’s demands were Ukraine’s recognition of Russian-occupied Crimea, independence for separatist-controlled Luhansk and Donetsk, and “de-militarisation” and “de-Nazification”.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated that while his country was ready for talks to resume, Russia’s demands had not changed.

The online data bank further disclosed that the third round of negotiations began on 7 March, amidst ongoing fighting and bombing.

“Although a deal had not been reached yet, Ukrainian negotiator and advisor to the president, Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that ‘there were some small positive shifts regarding logistics of humanitarian corridors.
“On 10, March 2022, Foreign Ministers Sergey Lavrov and Dmytro Kuleba met for talks in Antalya, Turkey with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as a mediator in the first high-level contact between the two sides since the beginning of the invasion. Ukraine had attempted to negotiate a 24-hour ceasefire to provide aid and evacuation to civilians, especially in Mariupol. After two hours of talks, no agreement was made. Airstrikes on the port city continued”.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky on Saturday made inflammatory comments capable of escalating the crisis when he posited:

“They hoped to occupy our country in three to four days, but unless they bring millions of Russians here to die, you cannot occupy Ukraine. You can lay siege to our cities, you can pepper Ukraine with the bodies of Russian soldiers, but you cannot occupy the minds of our people”.

Containing in the vituperation Zelensky said: “If they carry out carpet bombings and wipe off the historic memory of the entire region, the history of Kyivan Rus, the history of Europe, they could enter Kyiv.”
On the ongoing peace talk with Russia, he said: “Our diplomats are discussing details with Russia, and I hope that we will have a real peace process to end the war, but first there should be a ceasefire. This will allow us to open humanitarian processes, evacuation of people, and the delivery of water, food, and medicines.

“We’re waiting for this process, we’re discussing processes to end this war. I’m happy in principle that we have received a signal from Russia”.

President Zelensky who spoke during a press conference on Saturday said Ukrainian and Russian negotiating teams had started discussing concrete topics rather than exchanging ultimatums.

The President also welcomed efforts by Israel to attempt to broker peace.

Zelensky also used the platform of the social media giant, Twitter to announce that he had spoken to Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Naftali Bennett, and talked about Russian aggression and the prospects for peace talks, adding “We must stop repressions against civilians.”

Israel has been engaged in diplomatic efforts to try to end the war in Ukraine. Bennett has held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and spoken by phone with the Ukrainian president.
Zelensky said: “We have a positive stance on the mediation effort. We believe that he can play an important role, because Israel is a special country with a lot of history and a lot of parallels, and Israel also underwent a large wave of migration of Jews from Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and all of Europe.

Israel has a large diaspora of Ukrainians and Russians. Ukrainian Jews were among Israel’s founding fathers. I believe it’s not right to meet in Belarus, Russia, or Ukraine, these are not places where we can find any understanding to stop the war. Maybe Israel could be such a country, especially Jerusalem”.

Interestingly, Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday announced “positive shifts” in the Russia-Ukraine peace talks at a meeting with his Belarusian counterpart Alexander Lukashenko in Moscow.

He said, “I will inform you about the situation in Ukraine, first of all about how the talks are going on, which are being held now almost on the daily basis. There are some positive shifts there as the negotiators from our side reported to me, I will tell you all this in detail”.

President Putin however, said Russia is experiencing problems connected to economic sanctions, adding that attempts have always been taken to deter Russia’s development, which is now done at a large scale.
“I am sure we will go through these difficulties, will get more competencies, more possibilities to feel independent, and autonomous. In the end, it will be for the good as it was in previous years,” he said.

On his part, Mr. Lukashenko said if Russia had not struck “a pre-emptive strike,” Kyiv would have attacked the Russian-Belarusian troops that were holding military exercises.

“They were going not only to attack Donbas but also took a position to attack Belarus,” Lukashenko said.

President Lukashenko, said the foreign mercenaries are moving along the Belarusian border to the Chernobyl zone to strike the Russian troops in the back, to attack the Russian-Belarusian troops to distract them from the western borders and to implement some plans in Chernobyl that are at the moment unclear but do not promise any good.

Earlier, Russia had accused Ukraine and the US at the UN security council of a plot to use migratory birds and bats to spread pathogens.

The Russian permanent representative to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, delivered a lengthy account of the alleged biological weapons plot and said the birds, bats, and insects supposedly intended to spread disease would cross Ukraine’s western border.

“We call upon you to think about a very real biological danger to the people in European countries, which can result from an uncontrolled spread of bioagents from Ukraine,” Nebenzya said.

He further posited that if there is such a scenario then all of Europe will be covered.
“The risk of this is very real given the interests of the radical nationalist groups in Ukraine are showing towards the work with dangerous pathogens conducted together with the ministry of defence of the United States”.

Members of the UN Security Council except China dismissed the allegation.

Abba Kyari and the tale of two criminal jurisdictions

The United Nations high representative for disarmament, Izumi Nakamitsu, said the UN was “not aware of any biological weapons programmes” in Ukraine, and pointed out there was an official channel for governments to raise any concerns about violations of the biological and toxin weapons convention banning their use.

Nakamitsu said both Ukraine and Russia are state parties to the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC), an international treaty that prohibits such weapons.

“Biological weapons have been outlawed since the BWC entered into force in 1975,” she said.