MOSCOW, March 2. /TASS/. A new round of negotiations between the delegations of Ukraine and Russia is expected on Wednesday. According to information obtained by TASS, the talks are to be held on the territory of Belarus, in its western area of Bialowieza Forest.

However, there is still no certainty about the event, as was the case with the February 28 talks in the Gomel Region of Belarus.

First round

Since the very start of the special military operation in Ukraine, a number of countries offered to provide a venue for the negotiations, and Belarus was among the first to do so. However, efforts to agree on the date and venue of the meeting took quite a while.

The Russian delegation arrived to the Belarusian city of Gomel for talks, but Ukrainian diplomats refused to meet in Belarus and insisting on meeting in a different country. The issue was resolved after a phone conversation between the presidents of Belarus and Ukraine. Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Zelensky. However, the venue was moved practically to the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, to the Pripyat River area. The start of the talks was delayed several times.

Eventually, the talks began and lasted five hours. The Russian delegation included Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko and chairman of the international committee of the Russian State Duma, or lower parliament house, Leonid Slutsky. It was led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky.

The Ukrainian side was represented by Defense Minister Alexey Reznikov, presidential office adviser Mikhail Podolyak, leader of the Servant of the People faction David Arakhamia, first deputy head of Ukraine’s delegation to the Contact Group on the settlement in Donbass Andrey Kostin, lawmaker Rustem Umerov, and Deputy Foreign Minister Nikolay Tochitsky.

According to the head of the Russian delegation, the Russian and Ukrainian sides found some points, on which common positions can be expected. "Over this time, we discussed the issues of the agenda in detail and found some points, on which common positions can be expected. The main thing is that we agreed to continue the negotiating process," he said.

New round

Shortly after the first round of negotiations was over, it became known that another meeting is scheduled for March 2. However, statements made by Kiev officials on Tuesday put the possibility of the talks in question.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitry Kuleba said his country was analyzing the results of the meeting with the Russian delegation and will be ready for a new round if necessary. However, he ruled out talks if Moscow starts to "make ultimatums."

In turn, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky said that Kiev’s talks with Moscow failed to achieve the intended result and said he applied for EU membership on Monday.

Meanwhile, a Russian source said the next round will take place on March 2, as was planned.

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko expressed cautious optimism, saying earlier that he did not rule out the possibility of a meeting between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine in the event of success of peace talks. However, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS it was too early to talk about a potential meeting between Putin and Zelensky.

On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation based on a request from the heads of the Donbass republics. The Russian leader stressed that Moscow had no plans to occupy Ukrainian territories and the goal was to demilitarize and denazify the country. Russia’s Defense Ministry reported later that the Russian Armed Forces were not delivering strikes against Ukrainian cities. The ministry emphasized that the Ukrainian military infrastructure was being destroyed by precision weapons and there was no threat to civilians.