BEIJING, March 17 (Xinhua) -- The Russia-Ukraine conflict continues on Thursday as relevant parties are working to broker a peaceful solution. Following are the latest developments of the situation:
Following a new round of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday that Moscow is prepared to continue high-level trilateral negotiations with Ukraine mediated by Turkey.
"If such initiatives appear, we would only be happy to continue communicating in this format," Lavrov said at a press conference following his talks with Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Moscow.
He explained that Moscow would only be interested in talks with Ukraine if these would lead to concrete results and solve existing problems.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has listed six priorities during peace talks with Russia, said his press service.
"My priorities in the negotiations are absolutely clear: the end of the war, security guarantees, sovereignty, restoration of territorial integrity, real guarantees for our country, real protection for our country," Zelensky said while addressing the nation on Thursday.
Earlier Wednesday, Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky said Russia and Ukraine have achieved some progress on a number of issues during the new round of talks, "but not all."
"The preservation and development of Ukraine's neutral status, Ukraine's demilitarization along with a whole range of issues related to the size of the Ukrainian army are being discussed," Medinsky said.
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Sanctions, which cause considerable damage, are "unlikely" to succeed in achieving political aims, a renowned U.S. economist has said.
"The United States and the EU are very energetic in the imposition of sanctions, trade barriers, technology barriers, and financial barriers towards Russia ... I do not agree with this," Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University and a senior United Nations advisor, has told Xinhua.
Perceiving sanctions as Washington's widely used instrument, Sachs said, "the rampant use of extra-territorial sanctions and secondary sanctions is unlikely to succeed in their political aims (of the U.S. government), but do cause considerable damage."
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Provoking Russia and neutralizing Europe are the "two pillars" of the U.S. strategy in Europe in a bid to consolidate U.S. spheres of influence, which has partly resulted in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a Portuguese expert has said.
The United States "seeks to consolidate zones of influence at all costs, which guarantees trade facilities for its companies and access to raw materials," sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos said in a recent article in the Portuguese newspaper Publico.
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The world is now paying for the West's attempts to maintain its elusive dominance by any means possible, Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
"They are using economic, financial, trade and other sanctions against Russia as weapons, but these sanctions have backfired in Europe and in the United States where prices of gasoline, energy and food have shot up, and jobs in the industries associated with the Russian market have been cut," Putin said on Wednesday during a meeting on providing socioeconomic support for the country's regions, according to the Kremlin.
The policy of containing and weakening Russia, including through economic isolation, or a blockade, is a premeditated long-term strategy, he added.
"Imposing sanctions is the logical continuation and the distillation of the irresponsible and short-sighted policy of the U.S. and EU countries' governments and central banks," he said, adding that they have driven up global inflation in recent years and caused rising global poverty and greater inequality across the world.
Putin reiterated that the movement of Russian forces against Kiev and other cities is not aimed at occupying Ukraine.
"We had no alternative for self-defence, for ensuring Russia's security, to this special military operation. We will certainly ensure the security of Russia and our people and will never allow Ukraine to be a bridgehead for aggressive actions against our country," Putin said. ■
