KYIV/MOSCOW — Talks between Russian and Ukrainian officials began on the Belarusian border on Monday (Feb 28), as Russia faced deepening economic isolation four days after invading Ukraine in the biggest assault on a European state since World War Two. Russian forces seized two small cities in southeastern Ukraine and the area around a nuclear power plant, the Interfax news agency said on Monday, but ran into stiff resistance elsewhere.
Talks began with the aim of an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces, the Ukrainian president's office said, after a Russian advance that has gone more slowly than some expected. Russia has been cagier about the talks, with the Kremlin declining to comment on Moscow's aim.
It was not clear whether any progress could be achieved after President Vladimir Putin on Thursday launched the assault and put Russia's nuclear deterrent on high alert on Sunday. The talks are being held on the border with strong Russian ally Belarus, where a referendum on Sunday approved a new constitution ditching the country's non-nuclear status at a time when the former Soviet republic has become a launch pad for Russian troops invading Ukraine.
"Dear friends, the President of Belarus has asked me to welcome you & facilitate your work as much as possible. As it was agreed with the Presidents (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy and Putin, you can feel completely secure," Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Makei said at the start, according to the foreign ministry's translation on Twitter.Russian businessman Roman Abramovich, who owns English football Premier League club Chelsea, has accepted a Ukrainian request to help negotiate an end to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, his spokeswoman said.
The Western-led response to the invasion has been sweeping, with sanctions that effectively cut off Moscow's major financial institutions from successive Western markets sending Russia's rouble currency down 30 per cent against the dollar on Monday. Countries also stepped up weapons supplies to Ukraine. Blasts were heard before dawn on Monday in the capital of Kyiv and in the major eastern city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian authorities said. But Russian ground forces' attempts to capture major urban centres had been repelled, they added.
Russia's defence ministry, however, said its forces had taken over the towns of Berdyansk and Enerhodar in Ukraine's southeastern Zaporizhzhya region as well as the area around the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, Interfax reported. The plant's operations continued normally, it said. Ukraine denied that the nuclear plant had fallen into Russian hands, according to the news agency. Dozens of people were killed in Russian rocket strikes on Kharkiv on Monday, Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Anton Herashchenko said.