Berliner Boersenzeitung - Moscow and Kyiv call for talks amid intense shellfire

EUR -
AED 4.26841
AFN 80.362394
ALL 97.542216
AMD 446.735356
ANG 2.080099
AOA 1065.794205
ARS 1494.414015
AUD 1.776887
AWG 2.092071
AZN 1.980459
BAM 1.954642
BBD 2.348809
BDT 141.226338
BGN 1.956132
BHD 0.43854
BIF 3466.946195
BMD 1.162261
BND 1.493215
BOB 8.038238
BRL 6.486005
BSD 1.163311
BTN 100.147673
BWP 15.618748
BYN 3.807045
BYR 22780.325028
BZD 2.336716
CAD 1.596076
CDF 3354.287055
CHF 0.932807
CLF 0.029182
CLP 1120.296341
CNY 8.342655
CNH 8.346165
COP 4674.330945
CRC 587.052233
CUC 1.162261
CUP 30.799929
CVE 110.199718
CZK 24.634179
DJF 206.947405
DKK 7.463699
DOP 70.258379
DZD 151.514244
EGP 57.439973
ERN 17.433922
ETB 161.636047
FJD 2.620788
FKP 0.864949
GBP 0.866519
GEL 3.150183
GGP 0.864949
GHS 12.127816
GIP 0.864949
GMD 83.106172
GNF 10094.020343
GTQ 8.931709
GYD 243.385819
HKD 9.121487
HNL 30.445964
HRK 7.532663
HTG 152.739518
HUF 398.923459
IDR 18977.696027
ILS 3.908598
IMP 0.864949
INR 100.127437
IQD 1523.897249
IRR 48945.741055
ISK 142.354235
JEP 0.864949
JMD 186.029797
JOD 0.824089
JPY 172.932309
KES 150.300962
KGS 101.640213
KHR 4662.238109
KMF 491.989694
KPW 1046.046309
KRW 1616.942576
KWD 0.355234
KYD 0.969426
KZT 620.152624
LAK 25087.138481
LBP 104232.653
LKR 350.972086
LRD 233.241828
LSL 20.596898
LTL 3.431856
LVL 0.703041
LYD 6.327252
MAD 10.519168
MDL 19.788278
MGA 5176.933206
MKD 61.523554
MMK 2439.678938
MNT 4168.013035
MOP 9.404829
MRU 46.275587
MUR 53.119698
MVR 17.903172
MWK 2017.205016
MXN 21.777182
MYR 4.935007
MZN 74.338683
NAD 20.596898
NGN 1779.387897
NIO 42.814637
NOK 11.838157
NPR 160.236077
NZD 1.94976
OMR 0.446894
PAB 1.163311
PEN 4.140847
PGK 4.817146
PHP 66.377189
PKR 331.310933
PLN 4.244785
PYG 9003.666265
QAR 4.229694
RON 5.072695
RSD 117.080642
RUB 91.265035
RWF 1681.00418
SAR 4.36165
SBD 9.64543
SCR 17.082281
SDG 697.942292
SEK 11.245095
SGD 1.492813
SHP 0.913355
SLE 26.62005
SLL 24372.046713
SOS 664.806172
SRD 43.245469
STD 24056.466061
STN 24.485495
SVC 10.17897
SYP 15112.803405
SZL 20.592801
THB 37.628259
TJS 11.196867
TMT 4.079538
TND 3.419874
TOP 2.722137
TRY 46.947496
TTD 7.897322
TWD 34.181766
TZS 3030.404801
UAH 48.58252
UGX 4168.530579
USD 1.162261
UYU 46.882227
UZS 14725.276806
VES 135.943958
VND 30404.760344
VUV 138.92149
WST 3.080055
XAF 655.568644
XAG 0.030448
XAU 0.000347
XCD 3.14107
XCG 2.096558
XDR 0.815317
XOF 655.568644
XPF 119.331742
YER 280.163552
ZAR 20.586499
ZMK 10461.752209
ZMW 26.785133
ZWL 374.247723
  • CMSC

    0.0900

    22.314

    +0.4%

  • CMSD

    0.0250

    22.285

    +0.11%

  • RBGPF

    0.0000

    69.04

    0%

  • SCS

    0.0400

    10.74

    +0.37%

  • RELX

    0.0300

    53

    +0.06%

  • RIO

    -0.1400

    59.33

    -0.24%

  • GSK

    0.1300

    41.45

    +0.31%

  • NGG

    0.2700

    71.48

    +0.38%

  • BP

    0.1750

    30.4

    +0.58%

  • BTI

    0.7150

    48.215

    +1.48%

  • BCC

    0.7900

    91.02

    +0.87%

  • JRI

    0.0200

    13.13

    +0.15%

  • VOD

    0.0100

    9.85

    +0.1%

  • BCE

    -0.0600

    22.445

    -0.27%

  • RYCEF

    0.1000

    12

    +0.83%

  • AZN

    -0.1200

    73.71

    -0.16%

Advertisement Image
Moscow and Kyiv call for talks amid intense shellfire
Moscow and Kyiv call for talks amid intense shellfire

Moscow and Kyiv call for talks amid intense shellfire

Ukraine and Russia both called Sunday for intensified diplomatic efforts to avert all-out war, but blamed each other for a sharp escalation in shelling on Kyiv's frontline with Moscow-backed separatists.

Advertisement Image

Text size:

After separate calls with France's President Emmanuel Macron, both Russian leader Vladimir Putin and Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky pressed for more talks.

Washington is warning a Russian invasion of Ukraine is imminent, and Macron's office had dubbed the calls "the last possible and necessary efforts to avoid a major conflict in Ukraine".

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia remained "on the brink" of invading Ukraine, but promised that President Joe Biden was ready to talk to Putin and that Washington would seek a diplomatic solution until Russian "tanks are actually rolling".

During his 105-minute discussion with Macron, Putin said "the cause of the escalation is provocations carried out by the Ukrainian security forces," according to a Kremlin account.

Putin repeated a call for "the United States and NATO to take Russian demands for security guarantees seriously".

But he added that the two leaders "believe it is important to intensify efforts to find solutions through diplomatic means".

Macron's office also said the two had agreed on "the need to favour a diplomatic solution to the ongoing crisis and to do everything to achieve one", adding that both countries' foreign ministers would meet "in the coming days".

Moscow has demanded that the NATO alliance permanently rule out Ukraine's bid for membership and the withdrawal of Western forces that deployed in eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War.

Zelensky called for an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of talks under the Trilateral Contact Group of Russia, Ukraine and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

"We stand for intensifying the peace process," he tweeted, adding that he had informed Macron about "new provocative shelling" on the frontline between Ukrainian forces and Russian-backed rebels.

Earlier, fears of escalation mounted after Belarus announced that Russian forces would remain on its soil after Sunday's scheduled end to joint drills.

Moscow had previously said the 30,000 troops it has in Belarus were carrying out readiness drills with its ally, to be finished by February 20, allowing the Russians to head back to their bases.

- Screws tighten -

But the Belarus defence ministry said Putin and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko had decided to "continue inspections", citing increased military activity on their shared borders and an alleged "escalation" in east Ukraine.

Amid fears that Russia could use Belarus as a launch-pad for a lightning assault on Kyiv, exiled Belarus opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya said their extended stay was also a threat to the sovereignty of her own country.

The extended drills will be seen as a further tightening of the screws on Ukraine, already facing increased shelling from Russian-backed separatist rebels and a force of what Western capitals says is more than 150,000 Russian personnel on its borders.

More bombardments were heard by AFP reporters overnight close to the frontline between government forces and the Moscow-backed rebels who hold parts of the districts of Lugansk and Donetsk.

In Zolote, a frontline village in the Lugansk region, an AFP reporter found residents hiding from the shelling in a shelter under a housing block, an earth-floored cellar roughly furnished when the separatist conflict erupted in 2014.

"These weeks they started shelling harder. Now they are shelling again. This shelter, of course, is not equipped, but it saved people in 2014. There is no water here, people bring it with them," said 33-year-old handyman Oleksiy Kovalenko.

Natalya Zibrova, a 48-year-old teacher, remained in her flat with her daughters, despite the shelling.

"We are all people. We all want to live normally. I want to get up in the morning and think about how I will spend the day. And not to think about whether I and my children will have time to escape," she said, as shellfire rang out.

- Occupied enclave -

The Moscow-backed separatists have accused Ukraine of planning an offensive into their enclave, despite the huge Russian military build-up on the frontier.

Kyiv and Western capitals ridicule this idea, and accuse Moscow of attempting to provoke Ukraine and of plotting to fabricate incidents to provide a pretext for a Russian intervention.

"Russian military personnel and special services are planning to commit acts of terror in temporarily-occupied Donetsk and Lugansk, killing civilians," alleged Ukraine's top general Valeriy Zaluzhniy.

"Our enemy wants to use this as an excuse to blame Ukraine and move in regular soldiers of the Russian armed forces, under the guise of 'peacekeepers'," the military chief of staff said.

The rebel regions have made similar claims about Ukraine's forces and have ordered a general mobilisation, while staging an evacuation of civilians into neighbouring Russian territory.

Putin has also stepped up his rhetoric, reiterating demands for written guarantees that NATO roll back deployments in eastern Europe to positions from decades ago.

The volatile front line between Ukraine's army and the Russian-backed separatists has seen a "dramatic increase" in ceasefire violations, monitors from the OSCE have said.

Hundreds of artillery and mortar attacks were reported in recent days, in a conflict that has rumbled on for eight years and claimed more than 14,000 lives.

burs-dc/mm/kjm

(K.Lüdke--BBZ)

Advertisement Image