Talks between negotiators from Kyiv and Moscow have resumed amid stalled attempts to deliver aid and evacuate civilians from the besieged southern port city of Mariupol while Ukrainian forces continued to push back Russian troops around Kyiv and Chernihiv.
“We are continuing talks by video conference,” Russia’s chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on Telegram.
“Our positions on Crimea and the Donbas have not changed,” he added.
The fresh round of talks comes after Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held face-to-face talks in Istanbul on March 28.
Ahead of the start of the talks, Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said Turkey and Germany had offered to serve as security guarantors in any eventual agreement between the two sides.
Live Briefing: Russia Invades Ukraine
RFE/RL’s Live Briefing gives you all of the major developments on Russia’s invasion, how Kyiv is fighting back, the plight of civilians, and Western reaction. For all of RFE/RL’s coverage of the war, click here.
In Mariupol, a local official said that Russia continued to block aid from getting into the city on April 1 despite a pledge to open a humanitarian corridor to allow civilians to escape heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Ukrainian officials had said a convoy of 45 buses was headed to Mariupol to deliver aid and leave with residents who have been trapped for weeks in the city with little food, water, and other supplies.
Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor, said in a post on Facebook that the city remained closed on April 1 to an aid convoy trying to get badly needed supplies into the city.
“The city remains closed to entry and very dangerous to exit by private transport,” Andryushchenko said.
In the north, Ukrainian forces have retaken the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka near the northern city of Chernihiv and located along main supply routes between the city and Kyiv, British military intelligence said on April 1.
“Ukraine has also continued to make successful but limited counterattacks to the east and north east of Kyiv,” Britain’s Ministry of Defense said.
Chernihiv and Kyiv have been subjected to continued air and missile strikes despite Russian claims of reducing activity in these areas, the ministry added in a statement.
The Ukrainian military said in its daily update on April 1 that some Russian forces from northern Kyiv were withdrawing toward the border with Belarus.
The Russian columns include buses, trucks and vans, which were stolen by Russian forces, the Ukrainian military said, adding that Russian forces also took looted property with them.
In a new development, a fuel depot in the Russian city of Belgorod near the border with Ukraine was on fire and the regional governor claimed it had been hit by two Ukrainian military helicopters.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he could not confirm or deny Ukraine’s alleged involvement in the fuel depot fire because he was not privy to all military information.
If confirmed, it would be the first Ukrainian air strike on Russian soil.
The Kremlin said the reported strike was not conducive to talks between the two sides.
“Certainly, this is not something that can be perceived as creating comfortable conditions for the continuation of the talks.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on April 1.
Ukrainan President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised his troops’ advances in his daily video address late on March 31, but warned of “battles ahead” in the Donbas and Mariupol.
Zelenskiy also said he was stripping two generals of their ranks for unspecified offenses.
“Right now I don’t have time to deal with all the traitors, but gradually all of them will be punished,” he said.
Across the continent, European buyers of Russian gas faced an April 1 deadline to start paying in rubles after Russian President Vladimir Putin threatened to halt gas contracts unless the countries pay in the Russian currency — a demand several European countries have rejected.
But despite the standoff, Russian state-owned energy giant Gazprom said pipelines were still sending gas westwards on April 1.
There will be 104.4 million cubic meters of gas pumped to Europe on April 1, said Gazprom spokesperson Sergei Kupriyanov, in comments reported by the Interfax news agency. That is almost the maximum daily amount allowed under current contracts.
The announcement indicates that shipments continue despite the Kremlin threats to shut off the taps unless payments for gas start coming in rubles.
European governments have said they would study a mechanism that Putin put forth allowing customers to send foreign currency to a designated account at Russia’s Gazprombank, which would then return rubles for the gas purchases.
Several European governments say Putin’s demand for ruble payments would be a breach of the contracts.
As the gas payment issue headed for a showdown in Europe, U.S. President Joe Biden launched the largest release ever from the U.S. oil reserve — 1 million barrels per day — to provide Americans with some relief when filling up their tanks.
Oil prices tumbled after Biden made the announcement, which he said was aimed at fighting soaring gas prices sparked by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, announced on April 1 that he will lead a support and assistance mission to Ukraine’s Chernobyl nuclear power plant “as soon as possible.”
“It will be the first in a series of such nuclear safety and security missions to #Ukraine,” Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said in a tweet on April 1.
Previously, Grossi had said he was “extremely concerned” after Russian forces took control of several of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, including Chernobyl, where of one of the world’s worst nuclear accidents occurred in 1986.
Grossi is expected to hold a news conference later on April 1 upon his return to Vienna.
