Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres shake hands after their meeting in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Local resident stands in a building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) Ukrainian women hug in front of a building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) Firefighters dig through the rubble of the building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) A bloodied bathroom is pictured in building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) Firefighters dig through the rubble of a building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) Ukrainian woman sits in her flat at a building destroyed during a missile strike in Kharkiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Andrii Marienko) In this handout photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, right, and U.N. Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, sit as Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu, top left, and Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, top right, exchange documents during a signing ceremony at Dolmabahce Palace in Istanbul, Turkey, Friday, July 22, 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022 is set to host his Turkish counterpart and the U.N. chief for talks about the implementation of a deal to resume Ukraine grain exports, the volatile situation at a Russia-occupied nuclear power plant and diplomatic efforts to help end the war. (Vadim Savitsky, Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP, File) The Sierra Leone-flagged cargo ship Razoni sails under Yavuz Sultan Selim Bridge after being inspected by Russian, Ukrainian, Turkish and U.N. officials at the entrance of the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, Aug. 3, 2022. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022 is set to host his Turkish counterpart and the U.N. chief for talks about the implementation of a deal to resume Ukraine grain exports, the volatile situation at a Russia-occupied nuclear power plant and diplomatic efforts to help end the war. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel, File) The car carrying Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan passes by as he arrives ahead of meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres in downtown Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug, 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Russian rockets launch against Ukraine from Russia's Belgorod region are seen at dawn in Kharkiv, Ukraine, early Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Belikov) Relatives of soldiers from the Azov Regiment and protesters hold banners against Russia in Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday, Aug, 18, 2022. A small group of anti-Russian protesters gathered on a street corner along a route where visiting leaders will travel to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader is due to meet United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the city which is near Ukraine's border with Poland. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Relatives of soldier from the Azov Regiment and protesters hold banners agains Russia in downtown of Lviv, Ukraine, on Thursday, Aug, 18, 2022. A small group of anti-Russian protesters gathered on a street corner along a route where visiting leaders will travel to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The Ukrainian leader is due to meet United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the city which is near Ukraine's border with Poland. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres, second left, visits Ivan Franko National University, Ukraine's oldest university, in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug, 18, 2022. Antonio Guterres is due to meet later Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the city which is near Ukraine's border with Poland. On his visit, Guterres praised the role of academic institutions in building democratic institutions in a brief statement to reporters. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka) Ferry Lavrenty, arrived from Russian Yeysk, is moored in the port of Mariupol, in an area controlled by Russian-backed separatist forces, eastern Ukraine, Wednesday, Aug. 17, 2022. The ferry will start regular cargo and passenger trips from Russia to Mariupol. (AP Photo) In this photo provided by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres hold a press conference in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (Saviano Abreu, OCHA via AP) A view of buildings of local resort destroyed following recent Russian missile attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Nina Lyashonok) A man passes by buildings of local resort destroyed following recent Russian missile attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Nina Lyashonok) Men walk near buildings of local resort destroyed following recent Russian missile attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Nina Lyashonok) A view of buildings of local resort destroyed following recent Russian missile attacks in Odesa region, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Nina Lyashonok) Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, watches as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres shake hands after their meeting in Lviv, Ukraine, Thursday, Aug. 18, 2022. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
LVIV, Ukraine (AP) — Turkey's leader and the U.N. chief met in Ukraine with President Volodymr Zelenskyy on Thursday in a high-powered bid to ratchet down a war raging for nearly six months. But little immediate progress was reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he would follow up with Russian President Vladimir Putin, given that most of the matters discussed would require the Kremlin's agreement.
With the meetings held at such a high level — it was the first visit to Ukraine by Erdogan since the war began, and the second by U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres — some had hoped for breakthroughs, if not toward an overall peace, then at least on specific issues. But none was apparent.
Meeting in the western city of Lviv, far from the front lines, the leaders discussed expanding exchanges of prisoners of war and arranging for U.N. atomic energy experts to visit and help secure Europe's biggest nuclear power plant, which is in the middle of fierce fighting that has raised fears of catastrophe.
Erdogan has positioned himself as a go-between in efforts to stop the fighting. While Turkey is a member of NATO, its wobbly economy is reliant on Russia for trade, and it has tried to steer a middle course between the two combatants.
The Turkish president urged the international community after the talks not to abandon diplomatic efforts to end the war that has killed tens of thousands and forced more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes.
He repeated that Turkey is willing to act as “mediator and facilitator” and added, “I remain convinced that the war will end at the negotiating table.”
In March, Turkey hosted talks in Istanbul between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators that failed to end the hostilities.
On the battlefield, meanwhile, at least 17 people were killed overnight in heavy Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Ukrainian authorities said Thursday.
Russia's military claimed that it struck a base for foreign mercenaries in Kharkiv, killing 90. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainian side.
In the latest incident on Russian soil near the border with Ukraine, an ammunition dump caught fire in a village in the Belgorod region, the regional governor said. No casualties were reported. Video posted online, whose authenticity couldn’t be verified, showed orange flames and black smoke, with the sound of multiple explosions.
Elsewhere, Russian officials reported that anti-aircraft defenses shot down drones in the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula at Kerch and near the Belbek airfield in the Black Sea port of Sevastopol. Explosions in recent weeks on the peninsula have destroyed warplanes and caused other damage at military airfields.
Heightening international tensions, Russia deployed warplanes carrying state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to its Kaliningrad region, an enclave surrounded by NATO members Lithuania and Poland.
One major topic at the talks in Lviv was the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine. Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of shelling the complex.
Condemning the Kremlin for what he called "nuclear blackmail,” Zelenskyy demanded that Russian troops leave the plant and that a team from the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency be allowed in.
“The area needs to be demilitarized, and we must tell it as it is: Any potential damage in Zaporizhzhia is suicide,” Guterres said at a news conference.
Erdogan likewise expressed concern over the fighting around the plant, saying, “We don’t want to experience another Chernobyl" — a reference to the world’s worst nuclear accident, in Ukraine in 1986.
Zelenskyy and the U.N. chief agreed Thursday on arrangements for an IAEA mission to the plant, according to the president's website. But it was not immediately clear whether the Kremlin would consent to the terms. As for a pullout of troops, a Russian Foreign Ministry official said earlier that that would leave the plant “vulnerable."
Fears mounted Thursday when Russian and Ukrainian authorities accused each other of plotting to attack the site and then blame the other side. Late Thursday, multiple rounds of Ukrainian shelling struck the city in which the power plant is located, a Russian official reported.
Guterres used the talks in Lviv to name Gen. Carlos dos Santos Cruz of Brazil to lead a previously announced U.N. fact-finding mission to the Olenivka prison where 53 Ukrainian POWs were killed in an explosion in July. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the blast.
Also on the agenda Thursday: an increase in grain exports. Earlier this summer, the U.N. and Turkey brokered an agreement clearing the way for Ukraine to export 22 million tons of corn and other grain stuck in its Black Sea ports since the Russian invasion.
The blockage has worsened world food shortages, driven up prices and heightened fears of famine, especially in Africa. Yet even with the deal, only a trickle of Ukrainian grain has made it out — some 600,000 tons by Turkey's estimate.
Zelenskyy said Thursday that he proposed expanding the shipments. Guterres, for his part, touted the operation's success but added, “There is a long way to go before this will be translated into the daily life of people at their local bakery and in their markets.”
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Suzan Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Robert Badendieck contributed from Istanbul.
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Follow the AP’s coverage of the war at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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