<Anchor>
The two delegations from Russia and Ukraine held talks for five hours.
The outcome of this meeting has not been made public, but it appears that catastrophe has been avoided given that a second meeting is scheduled to be held soon.
Reporter Jeong Ban-seok reports.
<Reporter> The
Russian and Ukrainian delegations decided to hold a second round of talks soon to continue negotiations.
Contrary to concerns as a result of the first meeting between the two sides, catastrophe was avoided.
[Vladimir Medinsky/Russian delegation: The most important thing is that we have agreed to continue the negotiation process.
The next meeting will be held in a few days at the Polish-Belarusian border.]
Before the meeting, the mood on both sides was not good.
Ukrainian President Zelensky did not show high expectations, saying that he was only going to hear what Russia wanted to say, and
[Zelensky/President of Ukraine: To be honest, as always, I do not trust the outcome of this meeting, but let's try...
.]
Russian President Vladimir Putin gave orders to strengthen the posture of the nuclear weapons unit on the eve of the summit.
[Putin/Russian President: The reason I gave the order to strengthen the posture to the nuclear weapons unit is because of sanctions from the West and hostile attitude toward us.]
The talks were held for 5 hours in Gomel, southeastern Belarus.
The Ukrainian side is known to have demanded an immediate halt to the Russian attack and the withdrawal of its troops.
[Mikhail Podolyak
/Ukrainian delegation: Today, the delegations of Ukraine and Russia conducted the first round of negotiations with the main goals of ending hostilities on the territory of Ukraine and discussing a ceasefire.]
The direction of the negotiations is still in the fog, with the Ukraine delegation criticizing "Russia is extremely biased".