Diplomacy gathered pace on 7 March 2022 as talks were announced
A look back at a day when a first Russia–Ukraine ministerial meeting was announced and Hungary set limits on weapons transit.
What did diplomacy look like on 7 March 2022, the twelfth day of Russia's invasion? It was announced that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba would meet Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu in Ankara on the Thursday of that week. It would be the first Cabinet-level meeting between Russia and Ukraine since the invasion began.
The announcement followed a run of contacts in the preceding days. On 5 March 2022, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the invasion and a possible ceasefire, becoming the first world leader to meet the Russian president in person since the invasion began. On 6 March, Bennett said Israel would try to mediate even if the attempts failed. Kyrgyzstan's foreign minister, Ruslan Kazakbayev, had voiced support for mediation efforts on 5 March.
On 6 March, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan urged Putin to declare a ceasefire. Putin replied that he was ready for dialogue, but warned that any attempt to draw out negotiations could fail, and called on Ukraine to stop fighting. In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron the same day, Putin said Russia would no longer attack nuclear power plants and was open to a trilateral meeting with Ukraine and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Fighting continued alongside the talk. On 6 March, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Vinnytsia's airport had been completely destroyed by eight Russian ballistic missiles.
On 7 March, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán signed a decree permitting NATO troops to deploy in western Hungary and lethal weapons to cross its territory to other NATO members. The decree did not permit weapons shipments across Hungary to Ukraine.
