Following a request by six countries including the UK, US, France, Albania, Ireland, and Norway, an emergency meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has been called at 3:00 PM ET (7:30 PM IST) on Thursday to discuss the humanitarian situation in Ukraine.
"The UK and [Albania, France, Ireland, Norway, and the United States] have called for a Security Council meeting on #Ukraine. Russia is committing war crimes and targeting civilians. Russia's illegal war on Ukraine is a threat to us all," the UK's permanent mission to the UN had said on its Twitter page.
The development comes amidst the continued efforts by Russia and Ukraine to reach a negotiated settlement through the talks being held in Belarus.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier today that the negotiations towards peace between Russia and Ukraine are in progress but fairly difficult, Sputnik News Agency reported.
"The negotiations are still in progress. The negotiations are fairly difficult, and the current conditions of negotiation, I would say it continues," Zelenskyy said on Wednesday when asked about the status of the peace talks.
While the fourth round of talks continued on Wednesday, a few details emerged suggesting that talks might be reaching some headway with a Ukrainian delegation member saying that the two sides are now willing to reach a compromise.
"The positions of the parties were very different and we have only now begun to reach some kind of compromise," Ukrainian delegation member Mykhailo Podolyak told the Ukraina 24 broadcaster, he added that Kyiv and Moscow will reach a peace agreement sooner or later, Sputnik News Agency reported.
Podolyak also later tweeted that a draft peace plan circulating in the media calling for severe concessions from Ukraine was actually just a draft of the Russian side's request.
"Briefly. FT published a draft, which represents the requesting position of the Russian side. Nothing more. The side has its own positions. The only thing we confirm at this stage is a ceasefire, withdrawal of Russian troops, and security guarantees from a number of countries," the tweet said.
Earlier in the day, the head of the Russian delegation, presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, said that the preservation and development of Ukraine's neutral status, the country's demilitarization, as well as issues related to the size of the Ukrainian army, had been discussed at the talks. The Ukrainian side proposed "the Austrian, Swedish version of a neutral demilitarized state, yet a state with its own armed forces and navy," he said. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said later today that this option "can be seen as a real compromise," Sputnik further reported.
"[Ukraine's] neutral status is now being seriously discussed in conjunction with security guarantees, of course," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
A businesslike spirit at the talks gives hope that it will be possible to agree on the issue of the neutral status of Ukraine, the minister added.
( With inputs from ANI )
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