Putin says Russia ready for talk with Ukraine

Putin says Russia ready for talk with Ukraine

Subject :International Relations

Context:

• Russian President Putin in a recent interview said that Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks.

More about the news:

• Russia’s February 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered the most deadly conflict in Europe since World War II and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
• Russian President Putin in a recent interview said that Russia is ready to negotiate with all parties involved in the war in Ukraine but Kyiv and its Western backers have refused to engage in talks.
• Mr. Putin has used the concept of “historical Russia” to argue that Ukrainians and Russians are one people while undermining Kyiv’s sovereignty and justifying his 10-month offensive in Ukraine.

Major cities of Ukraine affected in war:

• Kyiv:It is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine and seventh most populous in Europe.It lies in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. It is located on the border of the Polesia woodland ecological zone, a part of the European mixed woods area, and the East European forest steppe biome.It is the only city that has double jurisdiction. The Head of City State Administration i.e the city’s governor is appointed by the president of Ukraine, while the Head of the City Council i.e the mayor of Kyiv is elected by local popular vote.
• Kharkiv:-It is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.It is located in the northeast of the country.It is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion.It is a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine.It is located at the banks of the Kharkiv, Lopan, and Udy rivers, which further  flow into the Seversky Donets watershed in the north-eastern region of Ukraine.
• Donetsk:- It is the fifth-largest city of Ukraine and is situated in the eastern part of Ukraine on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast.It is an industrial hub.
• Odesa:-It is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. It is a warm-water port. The city of Odesa hosts both the Port of Odesa and Port Pivdennyi, a significant oil terminal situated in the city’s suburbs.
• Dnipro:-It is the fourth-largest city of Ukraine. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of Kyiv on the Dnieper River.
• Zaporizhzhya:-It is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper river. There are many small rivers in the city, which enter the Dnieper like Sukha and Mokra Moskovka, Kushuhum, and Verkhnia Khortytsia.It has the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which is the largest nuclear power station in Europe.
• Lviv: It is the sixth-largest city in Ukraine situated in the western part  around 70 kilometers from the border with Poland. It is situated on the edge of the Roztochia Upland.It is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine.
• Mykolaiv:-It is situated in southern Ukraine and is  located on the Southern Bug River with access to the Black Sea.The city  is one of the main shipbuilding centers of the Black Sea.
• Sebastopol:-It is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea.It is located at the southwestern tip of the Crimean peninsula in a headland known as Heracles peninsula.
• Luhansk:-It is the easternmost province of Ukraine.The region is located in the valley of the Siversky Donets river.All of the oblast is under the occupation of Russia, which claims the oblast as the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), a self-declared state turned Russian federal subject. 
• Chernihiv:-It is a city situated in the northern part of Ukraine on the Desna River.
• Sumy:- It is situated in northeastern Ukraine on the banks of the Psel River.
• Kherson:-It is a port city of Ukraine situated on the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River.
• Chernobyl:It is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the Vyshhorod Raion of northern Kyiv Oblast.The city is famous for the Chernobyl disaster that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,
• Mariupol:- It is a city on the north coast of the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the Kalmius river, in the Pryazovia region of Ukraine.It was the tenth-largest city in Ukraine and the second-largest in Donetsk Oblast before the Russian invasion.