Russia's military operation in Ukraine to defend the Donbass will be suspended only if Ukrainian forces cease hostilities and agree to implement Moscow's demands on demilitarisation, President Vladimir Putin has told his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
"The readiness of the Russian side for dialogue with Ukrainian authorities and with foreign partners to resolve the conflict was confirmed," the Kremlin said in a readout Sunday.
"Hope was expressed that during the plannned next round of talks, representatives of Ukraine will show a more constructive approach that fully takes into account emerging realities," the statement added.
Putin was said to have drawn Erdogan's attention to the "futility" of efforts by Kiev to stall the negotiations process, and to have "emphasized that the suspension of the special operation is possible only if Kiev ceases hostilities and fulfills Russia's well-known requirements," i.e. the so-called "demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine," and justice against those responsible for "bloody crimes against civilians" in the Donbass over the past 8 years, as Putin has previously characterized them.
Putin also told his Turkish counterpart that Russian forces were "doing everything possible to ensure the safety of civilians," with Russia's "pinpoint strikes" said to be "inflicted exclusively on military infrastructure." Erdogan was informed of the operations of nationalist and neo-Nazi formations, including the continued shelling of Donbass settlements and the use of Ukrainian civilians and foreigners as "human shields" in the cities and towns they control. Putin assured Erdogan that Russia would assist measures to evacuate Turkish nationals from areas where fighting is taking place.
In its own statement Sunday, the Turkish presidency said that Erdogan informed Putin of Turkey's continued readiness to contribute to a peaceful resolution of the Ukraine crisis. Erdogan urged for an "urgent general ceasefire" to be implemented, saying this would ease the humanitarian situation.
Turkey has presented itself as a possible mediator in the Ukraine crisis, citing its good relations with both Kiev and Moscow. At the same time, Ankara has closed the Bosphorus and Dardanelles Straits to warships of all states, including Russia, and continued the shipment of its Bayraktar drones to Ukraine.
The current cataclysm in Ukraine is the culmination of a security crisis which began in 2014, when the country's unpopular but democratically elected government was overthrown in a Western-backed coup and replaced by forces seeking to pull Kiev into the European Union and NATO. The coup prompted Crimea to break off from Ukraine and rejoin Russia. In eastern Ukraine, independence movements popped up, prompting Kiev to send troops to crush the resistance and sparking a years-long civil conflict. A Russian, French and German-backed effort to end the conflict via the 2015 Minsk Agreements failed to bear fruit, with successive governments in Kiev refusing to provide the Donbass with constitutionally mandated autonomy in exchange for its peaceful reintegration into Ukraine.
Russia began a large-scale military operation in Ukraine on 24 February after a formal request for assistance from the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics, which faced weeks of escalating Ukrainian attacks, including hundreds of violations of the ceasefire by both sides recorded by Organization for Security Co-operation in Europe observers. Moscow recognized the republics as independent states on 21 February.