Ukraine delegation has arrived for peace talks with Russia at the Belarus border.
Russia and Ukraine were preparing Monday for their first talks since Moscow’s invasion, as fighting raged and Western-led sanctions started to bite with the ruble collapsing.
Ukraine said Sunday it had agreed to send a delegation to meet Russian representatives on the border with Belarus, which would be the foes’ first public contact since war erupted.
Belarus announced Monday that the venue for the talks had been prepared and they would start as soon as the delegations arrived.
However, with his government reporting hundreds of civilian deaths and Russian troops besieging key cities, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was sceptical about the talks.
“As always: I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try,” he said.
Russia invaded on Thursday and quickly announced it had neutralised key military facilities, but fierce fighting has since raged and Ukraine forces are reporting some success.
“The Russian occupiers have reduced the pace of the offensive,” the general staff of the Ukraine armed forces said.
The United States has also said that Ukraine forces, backed by Western arms, are stymieing the advance of Russian troops.
Putin on Sunday ordered Russia’s nuclear forces onto high alert in response to what he called “unfriendly” steps by the West. Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons and a huge cache of ballistic missiles.
The United States, the world’s second largest nuclear power, slammed Putin’s order as “totally unacceptable”.
Germany said Putin’s nuclear order was because his offensive had “halted” and was not going to plan.
– Economic pressure –
The campaign by the United States and its allies to build economic pressure on Russia also showed more signs on Monday of having an impact.
Russia’s central bank announced Monday it was more than doubling its key interest rate to 20 percent because the Russian economy’s situation had “drastically changed”.
The value of the ruble also continued to collapse against the dollar and the euro on the Moscow Stock Exchange on Monday.
And the European Central Bank warned Monday that the European subsidiary of the Russian state-owned Sberbank was facing bankruptcy.
The Kremlin has brushed off sanctions, including those targeting Putin personally, as a sign of Western impotence.
Among the sanctions, the West has said it would remove some Russian banks from the SWIFT bank messaging system, and freeze central bank assets.
The United States and its allies are seeking to continue building the diplomatic and military pressure, as well as economic.
EU member states closed their airspace to Russian planes and many pledged arms for Ukraine — but stressed they would not themselves intervene militarily.
Brussels announced it would provide 450 million euros ($500 million) for Ukraine to buy weapons and ban Russian central bank transactions, as well as restricting two Moscow-run media outlets.
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