Russian Foreign Minister arrives in Turkey for talks with his Ukrainian counterpart

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov arrived in Turkey on Wednesday, where he will hold talks with his Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba.

On Thursday, Turkey will host the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers, in their first meeting since the start of Moscow's attack on Ukraine.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will receive his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts in Antalya, a popular tourist destination for Russian tourists in the south of the country.

"Turkey can talk to both Ukraine and Russia," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has intensified mediation efforts since the start of the crisis, said on Wednesday, "We are working to prevent the crisis from turning into a tragedy."

On Wednesday, the two sides agreed to a 12-hour ceasefire around a set of humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians.

Also Wednesday, Kuleba confirmed in a Facebook video that he would do everything to make the "talks as effective as possible" while noting that his "expectations are limited".

"I don't have high hopes, but we will do our best to make the most of them," he said. "Everything will depend on the instructions that Lavrov receives before these talks."

There is concern that the atmosphere will be tense, as the Ukrainian minister recently described his Russian counterpart, via CNN, as a "modern Ribbentrop" in reference to Hitler's minister during World War II.

And Antalya's trip is the first for Lavrov outside Russia, which has been increasingly isolated from the world due to Western sanctions targeting it since the start of its war on Ukraine on February 24.

Turkey, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), is an ally of Ukraine that has provided it with military drones, but at the same time it is keen to maintain its relations with Russia, on which it relies heavily for tourism, wheat and energy supplies.

Also, Erdogan held a phone call on Sunday with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, to demand a ceasefire.

The Antalya talks come as Russia announced on Wednesday "progress" in its talks with Ukraine on the Belarus border, according to a spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, who confirmed that Russia is not seeking to "overthrow the government" of Ukraine.

But analysts remain cautious, as the war has caused more than two million Ukrainians to leave their country.

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