Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine have resumed virtually on Friday.
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, published a photograph of the talks. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office confirmed to The Associated Press that the negotiations had resumed.
Friday's talks came three days after the last meeting in Turkey in which Russia had announced scaling back of operations near Ukraine's capital Kyiv and northern city of Chernihiv.
However, within hours of the announcement, Ukrainian officials reported Russian shelling hitting homes, stores, libraries, and other civilian sites in and around Chernihiv and on the outskirts of Kyiv. NATO also said that the Russians are not reducing their military operations but are repositioning to the Donbas region in the country's East.
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Medinsky, the Russian lead negotiator, said “our positions on Crimea and the Donbas are unchanged.”
Russia annexed the Crimean Peninsula in southern Ukraine in 2014. The Donbas is the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial region where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.
With AP inputs
