INTERNATIONAL: Russia and Ukraine will hold a new round of face-to-face peace talks, their fifth, this week in Turkey, official sources from both sides have annolunced on Sunday, March 27.
Head of the Russian delegation Vladimir Medinsky has said in a social media post on Sunday that the two sides had agreed at a virtual meeting to hold in-person negotiations on March 29-30, but without saying where the talks will be held.
Meanwhile, David Arakhamia, leader of the ruling party Servant of the People faction of Ukraine and a member of the Ukrainian delegation, said Sunday that the next round of face-to-face talks between Ukraine and Russia will take place in Turkey on March 28-30.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin had a phone conversation on the latest situation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and peace talks on Sunday, according to Turkish media.
The two leaders agreed that the new round of Russia-Ukraine negotiations will be carried out in Istanbul, Turkey, but without mentioning exactly when the talks will be held.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations have held three rounds of negotiations in-person in Belarus since February 28, and the fourth one started on March 14 as a video conference.
The Russian army has launched several rounds of high-precision weapon attacks on multiple military targets across Ukraine, according to footage released by the country's Ministry of Defense on Saturday.
Gunfire is still being heard in urban Mariupol of Donetsk, and the Sumy region in Ukraine's northeast, but the Russian offensive has generally slowed, the Ukrainian side has claimed on Saturday.
Russian troops struck 117 military facilities across Ukraine on Saturday, spokesman for the Ministry of Defense Igor Konashenkov has said on the day.
The Russians have taken control of Slavutych, a small town located 120 kilometers to Kiev and close to Belarus, according to an official in Kiev. Staff of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant live in this town.
Russia and Ukraine have reached an agreement on opening two new humanitarian corridors in eastern areas of Ukraine, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk has said on Sunday.
One of the corridors will be set up between Mariupol in Donetsk and Zaporozhye, and the other will link Rubizhne in Luhansk to Bakhmut in Donetsk.
