When Volodymyr Zelensky said he was ready to negotiate with Vladimir Putin in order to end the war, it wasn’t the first time Ukraine’s leader announced his readiness to talk to Moscow. In fact, the two sides already tried to negotiate in the early days of the war.
On 28 February 2022, four days into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian forces had already occupied some towns on the Azov Sea coast, got close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and the city of Mariupol, and were pushing towards Kyiv.
While millions of people across the country were sheltering from relentless missile and drone attacks, Ukrainian and Russian officials sat down for the first attempted negotiations to put an end to the war.
The delegations met on the border with Moscow’s key ally, Belarus, following the call between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his counterpart in Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko.
“We agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet with the Russian delegation without preconditions on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border, near the Pripyat River,” Zelenskyy said, as Ukraine called for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces. Moscow didn’t reveal its aim in the negotiation.