MOSCOW — A Kremlin spokesman says a Russian delegation will be ready on Wednesday evening to resume talks with Ukrainian officials about the war in Ukraine.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that “in the second half of the day, closer to evening, our delegation will be in place to await Ukrainian negotiators.”
He did not indicate where the talks could take place.
There was no immediate word from Ukrainian authorities about their plans.
The first round of talks on resolving the Russia-Ukraine war were held near the Belarus-Ukraine border last Sunday.
They produced no breakthrough, though the two sides agreed to meet again.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to force him into concessions by continuing to press its invasion.
In another development, Zelenskyy appealed to Jews around the world to protest the Russian invasion, in which significant Jewish sites have been hit.
He made the appeal on Wednesday, a day after a Russian missile strike damaged the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial on the outskirts of Kyiv, where Nazi occupiers killed more than 33,000 Jews over two days in 1941.
Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, said: “I appeal now to all the Jews of the world — don’t you see what is happening? Therefore, it is very important that millions of Jews around the world do not remain silent now.”
Earlier, shelling hit the town of Uman, a significant pilgrimage site for Hasidic Jews.
Meanwhile, Russia claims its military has taken control of the area around Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant. That’s according to the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
It said it had received a letter from Russia saying personnel at the Zaporizhzhia plant continued their “work on providing nuclear safety and monitoring radiation in normal mode of operation.”
The letter added: “The radiation levels remain normal.”
Zaporizhzhia is the largest of Ukraine’s nuclear sites, with six out of the country’s 15 reactors.
Already, Russia has seized control of the decommissioned Chernobyl nuclear power plant, scene of the world’s worst nuclear disaster in 1986.
The IAEA says that it has received a request from Ukraine to “provide immediate assistance in coordinating activities in relation to the safety” of Chernobyl and other sites.
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