ANKARA

Turkiye is hosting on Thursday a critical tripartite meeting with the foreign ministers of Ukraine and Russia to facilitate a cease-fire as the war enters day 15.

Turkiye's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu will welcome Ukraine's Dmytro Kuleba and Russia's Sergey Lavrov in the southern province of Antalya, where also the international Antalya Diplomacy Forum is taking place.

Cavusoglu earlier expressed hope that the meeting "will be a turning point" and "important step" towards peace and stability and that Ankara would "continue to make efforts for a lasting peace."

Russia's war on Ukraine has been met with outrage from the international community, with the European Union, the UK, and the US, among others, imposing a range of economic sanctions on Moscow.

At least 516 civilians have been killed and 908 others injured in Ukraine since Russia launched the war against its neighbor, according to UN figures, with the real toll feared to be higher.

More than 2.1 million people have fled Ukraine to neighboring countries, according to the UN Refugee Agency.

Positions on both sides

Moscow has various conditions to end the war in Ukraine.

It wants Ukraine to amend its Constitution to state unequivocally that Kyiv will not join any alliance and that Crimea is Russian territory.

In February 2019, Ukraine's parliament approved amendments to the Constitution that enshrine Ukraine's desire to join NATO.

Kyiv wants the war on its territory to end and Russian troops to completely withdraw from Ukrainian soil, including Crimea and Donbas.