Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with UN Secretary-General António Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday in Lviv, western Ukraine.
The subject of the talks was the critical situation at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine, which was occupied by Russian troops, the export of Ukrainian grain and, according to a previous announcement by the Turkish Presidential Office, steps "to end the war between Ukraine and Russia through diplomatic channels".
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Frederick Smith
Political correspondent for Russia and the CIS in Moscow.
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After the meeting with Erdogan, Zelenskyy said that questions of defense cooperation had also been touched upon.
It could have been about the construction of a factory in which the Turkish combat drone Bayraktar TB-2 is to be produced from next year.
The contract for this was signed at the beginning of February 2022, i.e. before the start of the Russian attack.
In June, the manufacturer Bayraktar, which is run by a son-in-law of Erdogan, donated three TB2 drones to Ukraine.
Through the mediation of Turkey and the United Nations, an agreement was reached in July on the transport of Ukrainian grain from the Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, which had been blocked by Russia because of the war.
Since then, according to the Turkish Defense Ministry, 25 ships with more than 622,000 tons of grain and other agricultural products have left Ukrainian ports.
After the meetings in Lviv, Guterres wanted to travel to the port city of Odessa and Istanbul to find out about the implementation of the agreement.
The UN and Turkey apparently hope that this successful mediation could lead to further agreements between Ukraine and the attacker.
End the "active phase" of the war by winter
After meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi on August 5, Turkish President Erdogan offered to organize a meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy in Turkey.
According to information from the Turkish media, the Russian President had previously categorically rejected an encounter with Erdogan in conversations with Erdogan.
At the beginning of the war, Zelenskyi had repeatedly asked Putin to meet face-to-face, but Moscow had bluntly rejected this.
In Ukraine, it is suspected that Russia is currently interested in a temporary ceasefire given the limited progress made by its troops.
The Ukrainian news portal "Novoye Vremya" quoted an unnamed source close to Zelenskyy as saying that the West was currently willing to talk about Ukraine.
The chairman of the foreign policy committee of the Ukrainian parliament Olexandr Mereshko speculated to the portal that the Russian leadership hopes in view of the upcoming heating season that the Europeans could agree to a ceasefire with conditions favorable to Russia.
However, the Ukrainian leadership does not currently see the conditions for renewed talks in place.
Zelenskyy's adviser Andriy Yermak recently said that it was "vital" to end the "active phase" of the war before winter.
According to Yermak's colleague Mykhailo Podoliak, talks can only begin once the Russian troops have left southern Ukraine.
Polls in Ukraine suggest that an overwhelming majority of Ukrainians are currently categorically opposed to compromises with the attacker.
In Ukraine, the escalation of the situation around the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant, which was occupied by Russian troops in March, is understood as an attempt by Russia to persuade the West to make concessions at Ukraine's expense for fear of a nuclear catastrophe.
On Thursday, a spokesman for Russia's foreign ministry declared a proposal by UN Secretary-General Guterres for a demilitarized zone around the power plant to be unacceptable.
He justified this with the risk of provocations by Ukraine.
The Russian Defense Ministry had previously claimed on Thursday that the “Kiev regime” was preparing a “provocation” at the Zaporizhia nuclear power plant this Friday.
The aim is to accuse Russia of having caused a "technological catastrophe" during UN Secretary-General António Guterres' trip to Ukraine.
According to the Moscow account, the plan is to shell the Nikopol nuclear power plant with artillery.
The city is on the other side of the Dnieper River, opposite the nuclear power plant - and according to Ukrainian sources, it is regularly shot at from there.
Moscow rejects this and in turn complains about the Ukrainian shelling of the nuclear power plant.
But pictures of the remains of a bullet stuck in the ground, which are now supposed to prove these allegations on Russian state television, had already been used earlier.
The Ministry of Defense also accused not only Ukraine, but also "its curators from the USA" of trying to blame Russia for an "in their view insignificant accident" at the nuclear power plant.
It gives the impression that they have forgotten the consequences of the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, said Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov.
On the state broadcaster Perwij Kanal, a man in military uniform said that "NATO soldiers" were to advance to the area of the nuclear power plant under the guise of "blue helmets" in the event of demilitarization.