‘We always have hope,’ Ukrainian negotiator says despite stalled talks with Russia

Rustem Umerov told Global News that Ukraine is still willing to keep negotiating despite continued broken promises by the Russian side.

A member of the Ukrainian delegation negotiating an end to the ongoing war with Russia says the talks have been extremely hard, physically and emotionally, but he believes they remain necessary to try and save as many lives as possible.

Rustem Umerov, a member of Ukraine’s national parliament, told Global News that Ukraine is willing to keep negotiating despite continued broken promises by the Russian side to open humanitarian corridors for evacuating citizens from besieged cities like Mariupol.

To walk away now, Umerov said, would be devastating for the Ukrainian people and lead to more deaths.

“We assume that we are wartime peace envoys,” he said Wednesday from an undisclosed location.

Though the outcome of the war will be decided primarily on the battlefield, he said he and his colleagues have to take the negotiations seriously and consider it their job.

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators have held several rounds of talks, including high-profile summits in Belarus and Turkey, since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered troops to invade Ukraine on Feb. 24.

In the nine weeks since the war began, there is no sign of peace. As Ukraine defends itself — helped by the increase in lethal weapons being sent by other countries — it is holding firm against Russia’s demands to demilitarize and hand over control of some parts of the country, including the eastern Donbas region.

Peace talks further soured over Ukrainian accusations that Russian troops carried out atrocities in the town of Bucha, where dead bodies were found in the streets after Russian forces withdrew from the area.