LVIV, March 4 — Ukraine plans to hold a third round of talks this weekend with Russian officials to try to end the fighting triggered by Moscow’s invasion, one of Kyiv’s negotiators said today.

"The third leg could take place tomorrow or the day after, we are in constant contact,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said, on the eighth day of the war.

Podolyak, speaking in the Western city of Lviv, said Kyiv was just waiting for a response from President Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin to confirm the timing of the talks.

But in Berlin, Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s office said the German leader had spoken to Putin on a call and had been assured that the negotiations would resume over the weekend.

Two previous meetings held on the Belarus-Ukraine border failed to halt the fighting, but the sides have agreed in principle to at least allow humanitarian corridors for civilians to escape. — AFP