REUTERS, AP
Continuing his push for an upgraded, mediating role for Turkey in the Ukrainian crisis, Tayyip Erdogan was in Lviv, eastern Ukraine, yesterday, where he met with the country's president Volodymyr Zelensky, before participating in a tripartite meeting, which also included the general UN Secretary Antonio Guterres. It was the Turkish president's first visit to Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion and followed two consecutive meetings with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in July and August.
Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Lviv, a city far from the theaters of the ongoing war, traveling by road through Poland, and met with Zelensky at the presidential palace. The two leaders were flanked by multi-member ministerial delegations and at the center of their talks was the implementation of the July 22 agreement on grain exports from Ukrainian Black Sea ports, which was reached after Turkish mediation. So far, dozens of cargo ships have transported grain across the Dardanelles, benefiting many countries, mostly poor ones, worried about the severe food crisis.
According to Turkish media, Erdogan and Zelensky discussed ways to end the war, with the Turkish president returning to his proposal for direct talks between his host and Putin. Earlier, CNN Turk had reported, citing a Russian network, that in his last meeting on August 5 with Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin had left open the possibility of such a meeting. From yesterday's reports by the Turkish media, however, there does not seem to have been any encouraging development on the matter. Meanwhile, the Hurriyet newspaper reported that the two men discussed the possibility of starting the production of Turkish drones, which are supplied to the Ukrainian army, on Ukrainian soil.
In the tripartite meeting between Zelenskiy - Erdogan - Guterres, in addition to the issue of grain and the search for ways to end the war, the dangerous situation created at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhia nuclear power plant was discussed. The two warring parties accuse each other of nuclear blackmail of the international community, as the Ukrainians claim the Russian military is using the station as a nuclear shield to launch attacks, while the Russians say Ukrainian troops have already repeatedly bombed its facilities.
After the end of the meeting, Volodymyr Zelensky stressed that "the United Nations must guarantee the security of this strategic installation, its demilitarization and its complete removal of Russian troops." A proposal that had already been rejected by the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through the representative of Ivan Nechaev, characterizing as "unacceptable" any thought of creating a demilitarized zone in Zaporizhia, which Guterres had proposed.
Earlier, the head of the service of the Russian armed forces for countering attacks with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons, Igor Kirillov, warned that if there was an accident at the Zaporizhia plant due to Ukrainian attacks, the radioactive cloud that would be released would threaten Germany, Poland and Slovakia. At the same time, the Russian Ministry of Defense argued that there is a risk of provocation from the Ukrainian side as long as Guterres' visit lasts, in order to cause an international outcry against Russia. Ukrainian military intelligence later responded that it had information about Russian provocation at the nuclear plant.
The fronts of war
On the operational front, at least 15 people were killed and 40 injured in the Kharkiv region following Russian shelling overnight Wednesday-Thursday. Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said his country's troops had repelled Russian attacks in the Kherson and Mikolayev region and that the situation on the battlefield had fallen into a "strategic standstill" with no significant changes in recent weeks.
Tension in the Baltic
Finland's defense ministry said two Russian MiG-31 fighter jets violated Finnish airspace on Thursday morning near the coastal town of Porvoo in the Gulf of Finland before being intercepted by Finnish jets. According to the same source, the Russian aircraft were pushed to a depth of one kilometer inside the Finnish territory, while it was not known how they were intercepted. For its part, the Russian Interfax news agency, citing Defense Ministry sources, reported that Russia has transferred to Kaliningrad, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, three MiG-31E fighter jets, which are equipped with Russian Kinzhai missiles. Kaliningrad is a Russian enclave between Poland and Lithuania and represents the Russian Federation's only outlet to the Baltic after Petersburg. The Russians rushed to strengthen Kaliningrad's defenses after cutting off its rail supply from Lithuania.