ANKARA, March 28. /TASS/. Talks between the Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul will begin at 10:30 am Moscow time on March 29, the Turkish presidential office said on Monday.
"Talks between the delegations will begin at 10:30 am tomorrow. They will be held at the Dolmabahce presidential office. The meeting will be held behind closed doors," it said.
Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who leads the Russian delegation to the talks with Ukraine, wrote on his Telegram channel on Sunday that a regular round on online talks with Ukraine was held on Sunday. The sides, in his words, agreed to meet offline on March 29-30. Later, the Turkish presidential office said after a telephone call between Turkish and Russian Presidents, Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Vladimir Putin that the two leaders had agreed that the Russian and Ukrainian delegations would meet in Istanbul.
The first round of Russian-Ukrainian talks was held in Belarus’ Gomel region on February 28. The talks lasted for five hours. The second round of talks was held on March 3 in Belovezhskaya Pushcha, in Belarus. The delegations met for the third round of talks on March 7, in the Brest region, also in Belarus. More rounds were held in the online format.
On February 24, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a special military operation in response to a request for help by the heads of the Donbass republics. He stressed that Moscow had no plans of occupying Ukrainian territories, but aimed to demilitarize and denazify the country, and to defeat nationalist armed units, which are directly responsible for genocide in Donbass.