Mar 16, 2022: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that peace talks with Russia appear to be “more realistic” but that more time is needed to ensure that the outcome of the talks is in Kyiv’s favor.

Zelenskyy’s comments came early Wednesday as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine approached its three-week mark and Russian forces continued to bomb Ukrainian cities, including the capital Kyiv and the southern port city of Mariupol.

Hinting at a compromise, the president had earlier said his country should accept that it may not become a member of the US-led NATO military alliance, a key Russian concern that it used to justify its invasion.

“Ukraine is not a member of NATO… We have heard for years that the doors were open, but we also heard that we could not join. It’s a truth and it must be recognised,” Zelenskyy told the UK-led Joint Expeditionary Force on Tuesday.

“I am glad that our people are beginning to understand this and rely on themselves and the partners who are helping us,” Zelenskyy said, while renewing his appeal for a no-fly zone to protect Ukraine from Russian air raids.

NATO which does not recognize countries with unresolved territorial disputes and has previously ruled out a no-fly zone, saying such a move could lead to a direct conflict with nuclear-armed Russia.

But Western nations have stepped up Ukraine’s arms supplies, and imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia, including President Vladimir Putin, and Russia has stepped in to curb energy imports. The supply of Western weapons has been instrumental in enabling the Ukrainian people to fight far more effectively and efficiently than the invading Russian forces that most Western intelligence agencies have come to expect.

Even as talks enter a more meaningful stage, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, says Russian warships fired missiles and artillery at the Ukrainian coast near Tuzla, to the south of Odesa, at about midnight.

“They fired a huge amount of ammunition from a great distance,” he said on Facebook, adding that Russia wanted to test Ukraine’s coastal defence system. He said there was no attempt to land troops but did not say if any of the shelling hit anything.

In the latest attempts to revive talks, negotiators from the two countries have been meeting via video link since Monday, with the Ukrainian delegation pressing for a ceasefire, troop withdrawals and security guarantees.

“The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

“But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine,” he added.

An adviser to Zelenskyy and member of the Ukrainian delegation, Mykhailo Podolyak, has described the negotiations as “very difficult and viscous”.

With the talks to continue on Wednesday, Podolyak said there were “fundamental contradictions” between the two sides, but said “there is certainly room for compromise”.

On the other hand, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, however, said it was too early to predict progress in the talks. “The work is difficult, and in the current situation the very fact that (the talks) are continuing is probably positive,” he said.

Meanwhile, Russia is yet to capture any of Ukraine’s 10 biggest cities, and officials in Kyiv have raised hopes the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May. They say Moscow may be coming to terms with its failure to impose a new government by force and is running out of fresh troops.