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Talks, arms and an EU bid: 28 February 2022
Summary
A look back at a day when negotiations began, Kyiv applied to join the European Union and Western capitals weighed what help to give.
What did diplomacy look like on the fifth day of a war? On 28 February 2022, it ran on several tracks at once: a first round of talks, a membership application, arms pledges and a refusal to widen the conflict in the air.
Talks begin
Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak announced that peace talks had begun as part of an effort to end the war. In them, Ukraine called for a ceasefire.
The venue had been settled the day before. On 27 February, Kremlin Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said a Russian delegation had arrived in Gomel, Belarus. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejected Belarus as a location, since the country was not a neutral party in the conflict. The two sides then agreed to hold negotiations on the Belarus–Ukraine border near the Pripyat river, with the Ukrainian delegation travelling via Poland for safety reasons.
Elsewhere, the office of French President Emmanuel Macron said that during a phone call, Putin confirmed his willingness to make commitments to stop attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure and to secure major roadways.
A step towards Brussels
On the same day, Zelenskyy signed an application for Ukraine to join the European Union. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that Ukraine should eventually join the EU, describing it as one of us and a country the Union wanted to see in the European family.
Arms, and a line drawn
Sweden's Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson, announced that the country would send military equipment, including anti-tank launchers, to Ukraine. The decision broke with a doctrine of not sending arms to countries engaged in active conflict.
Ukrainian Air Force pilots began arriving in Poland to take control of fighter aircraft donated by European Union countries. The Ukrainian government said the EU was handing over 70 fighter jets, including 28 MiG-29s from Poland, 12 from Slovakia, 16 from Bulgaria and 14 Sukhoi Su-25s from Bulgaria. Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov said he had rejected the request. EU security chief Josep Borrell later clarified that any donations were made bilaterally by individual member states, not by the EU itself.
There was one request that went unmet. Zelenskyy called on US President Joe Biden and NATO to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg stated that NATO and the US had ruled it out.
Pressure and escalation
On 27 February, Putin ordered Russia's nuclear forces placed on high alert, in response to what he considered aggressive statements by NATO members. Turkey's foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, also triggered the wartime clause of the Montreux Convention, limiting the movement of military vessels whose bases are not on the Black Sea coast.
On 28 February, Putin ordered a ban on transferring hard currency, such as US dollars and euros, abroad, including by servicing foreign debt. Whether this amounted to a debt default was unclear.
The shape of the day
Taken together, the events of 28 February 2022 showed a conflict being handled through negotiation, membership politics, weapons deliveries and financial measures, while Western governments declined to take the step of a no-fly zone.
