'Point Of No Return': Why Kyiv Won't Sit Down With The Kremlin

A man walks looks at the Soviet hammer and sickle emblem after it was removed from the 62-metre Motherland Monument in Kyiv (Credit: AFP)

When delegations from Moscow and Kyiv met in Belarus for secretive peace talks weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, it took Ukraine's lead negotiator less than an hour to lose hope.

To end the war, Russia had dispatched a former culture minister -- infamous for a PhD plagiarism scandal -- and a firebrand nationalist who had recently faced down sexual harassment allegations.