It is, but bombs are still falling in Kiev. Putin's diktat: "Ukraine neutral and demilitarized, Crimea Russian territory"

It is a truce, but the bombings continue. The delegations of Russia and Ukraine ( HERE the names of the people who participated in the negotiations) sat around a table for six hours to look for a way out of the war.

Negotiations that start uphill, as was expected, so much so that they are unable even to wrest a momentary ceasefire to address the alarming humanitarian emergency, among hundreds of deaths and hundreds of thousands of displaced persons.

THE NEGOTIATIONS AND THE PUTIN-MACRON PHONE CALL - Advisor to the Ukrainian presidency Mykhailo Podolyak spoke of "difficult" talks, describing the Russian position as "extremely biased".

Yet, both delegations confirm, "in the next few days" there will be a "second round", this time on the border between Poland and Belarus, after returning to their respective capitals for consultations. "We have found some points on which it is possible to find common ground", said the key figure of the negotiating delegation sent by the Kremlin, the tycoon Vladimir Medinsky.

In short, the door is not closed. There is a little light of hope and it must be kept on as much as possible. But while the negotiators sat at the negotiating table on the Belarusian border, in a location kept secret on the banks of the Pripyat River, called the "fisherman's house", Vladimir Putin in a phone call with Macron dictated his essential conditions for ending the conflict.

The Russian president has called for the "demilitarization and de-Nazification" of Kiev, which will have to assume "a neutral status". No more weapons from the West, while NATO membership remains "the red line". It doesn't end there: Moscow wants international recognition as a Russian territory of Crimea, annexed in 2014.

Macron, for his part, asked for the offensive to be stopped and the civilian population protected. Putin, reports the Elysée, has pledged to "suspend all attacks on civilians and homes". Attacks that the Kremlin denies, accusing Ukrainian "nationalists" of using civilians as human shields.

Kiev at the negotiating table called for the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from Ukraine.

THE FIGHTING - The start of negotiations did not stop the bombing. During the night and in the morning a hail of missiles hit the city of Kharkiv, which fiercely resisted the Russian attack. "They bombed residential areas, we fear dozens of deaths," regional governor Oleg Sinegoubov denounced.

People continue to die in Kiev as well, several explosions resumed to shatter the capital immediately after the end of the first round of negotiations, accompanied by the sound of alarm sirens. In the capital, a curfew has started again.

Russian forces in the evening launched missile attacks on three urban settlements south of Kiev. This was reported by local media, citing the state emergency services, according to which the affected centers are Vasylkiv, Bila Tserkva and Kalynivka. In the raids, it is added, "a dormitory and two houses were destroyed". Moscow, on the other hand, denounces bombing in the separatist areas of Donbass. The latest UN report speaks of 102 civilians dead, including seven children, but the Ukrainian figures are even more dramatic, with at least 352 civilians killed, including 14 children, and nearly 1,700 injured.

THE INTERNATIONAL BATTLE - In this context, the resistance of Kiev is strengthened by the creation of an international battalion, for which, according to the government of Volodymyr Zelensky, thousands of requests for membership have already arrived, including that of an Italian.

PUTIN ISOLATED - Russia's international isolation is getting heavier. Turkey has banned the transit of all military ships through the straits of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, which lead to the Black Sea.

In the emergency meeting of the UN General Assembly the sentences followed one another, the definitive resolution is still awaited.

The United Nations also expelled 12 Russian diplomats who, this is the reason, "have abused their residence privileges in the US by engaging in espionage activities that are contrary to our national security".

Several countries, including Italy , are sending weapons to Ukraine and today Moscow responded to the closure of western airspace with a reciprocal measure, closing its skies to 36 countries.

All pressures which, together with the tightening of sanctions (which Switzerland also joined today with a historic decision), are inflicting heavy damage on the Russian economy, which experienced a black Monday between the collapse of the ruble and the flight of investors.

(Unioneonline / L)