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Diplomacy and decrees: Europe on 7 March 2022
Summary
A look back at a day of announced talks in Ankara, a Hungarian decree and the diplomatic activity that preceded them.
What did diplomacy look like on 7 March 2022, the twelfth day of the invasion, as fighting continued? The picture was one of tentative openings, with mediators active and the main parties still trading warnings.
A meeting announced for Ankara
On 7 March 2022 it was announced that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba would hold a tripartite meeting with Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Ankara on Thursday. It would be the first Cabinet-level meeting between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion began.
The announcement followed a series of contacts over the preceding days. On 6 March, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to declare a ceasefire. Putin told him that he was ready for dialogue to end the war, but warned that any attempt to draw out negotiations could fail. He also called on Ukraine to cease fighting so that the military campaign could end.
Other mediation efforts
Turkey was not the only government offering to help. On 5 March, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Putin in Moscow to discuss the invasion and a potential ceasefire. He was the first world leader to meet Putin in person since the invasion began. The next day, Bennett said Israel would try to mediate a ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia even if the attempts were not successful. Kyrgyzstan's Foreign Minister Ruslan Kazakbayev also voiced support, on 5 March, for any efforts to mediate a ceasefire.
On 6 March, Putin spoke by phone with French President Emmanuel Macron. He said Russia would no longer attack nuclear power plants and was open to a trilateral meeting between Russia, Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Hungary's decree
Also on 7 March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signed a decree allowing the deployment of NATO troops in western Hungary and the transfer of lethal weapons across its territory to other NATO member states. The decree did not, however, allow weapons shipments across Hungarian territory to Ukraine.
Warnings and continued strikes
The diplomatic overtures came alongside hard rhetoric. On 5 March, Putin said Western sanctions on Russia were akin to a declaration of war, and warned that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine could lead to catastrophic consequences for the world. He also said that around 13,000 to 14,000 people had been killed in Donbas since 2014.
The same day, he signed a decree authorising settlement of sovereign and corporate debts owed to creditors from what it called unfriendly countries in roubles rather than foreign currencies, at the exchange rate set by the Central Bank of Russia. The list of those countries was to be determined within two days.
The military campaign continued. On 6 March, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Havryshivka Vinnytsia International Airport in Vinnytsia Oblast had been completely destroyed after being hit by eight Russian ballistic missiles.
What the day showed
By 7 March 2022, the first direct ministerial encounter between the two sides had been scheduled, with Turkey as host. Meanwhile, a NATO member bordering Ukraine had drawn a line between allied military movements and arms deliveries to Ukraine itself.
