KYIV, Ukraine
A 40-mile convoy of Russian
tanks and other vehicles threatened Ukraine’s capital Tuesday as an intense
shelling attack targeted the country’s second-largest city, and both sides
looked to resume talks in the coming days aimed at stopping the fighting.
The country’s embattled
president said he believed the stepped-up shelling was designed to force him
into concessions.
“I believe Russia is trying to
put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He
did not offer details of hourslong talks that took place Monday, but he said
Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting another
with rocket artillery.”
The developments came as
Russia finds itself increasingly isolated as a result of international
condemnation and potentially backbreaking economic sanctions. Five days into
the invasion, the Russian military’s movements have been stalled by fierce resistance
on the ground and a surprising inability to dominate the airspace.
The Kremlin has twice in as many days raised the
specter of nuclear war and put on high alert an arsenal including
intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range bombers. Stepping up his
rhetoric, President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S. and its allies as an
“empire of lies.”
Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify
its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely
symbolic move for now, but one that is unlikely to sit well with Putin, who has
long accused the U.S. of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.
A top Putin aide and head of the Russian
delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the first talks held between the two
sides since the invasion lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys “found
certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.” He said they
agreed to continue the discussions in the days ahead.
As the talks along the Belarusian border wrapped
up, several blasts could be heard in Kyiv, and Russian troops advanced on the
city of nearly 3 million. The vast convoy of armored vehicles, tanks, artillery
and support vehicles was 17 miles (25 kilometers) from the center of the city
and stretched for about 40 miles, according to satellite imagery from Maxar
Technologies.
People in Kyiv lined up for groceries after the end
of a weekend curfew, standing beneath a building with a gaping hole blown in
its side. Kyiv remained “a key goal” for the Russians, Zelenskyy said, noting
that it was hit by three missile strikes on Monday and that hundreds of
saboteurs were roaming the city.
“They want to break our nationhood, that’s why the
capital is constantly under threat,” Zelenskyy said.
Messages aimed at the advancing Russian soldiers
popped up on billboards, bus stops and electronic traffic signs across the
capital. Some used profanity to encourage Russians to leave. Others appealed to
their humanity.
“Russian soldier — Stop! Remember your family. Go
home with a clean conscience,” one read.
Video from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city,
with a population of about 1.5 million, showed residential areas being shelled,
with apartment buildings shaken by repeated, powerful blasts.
Authorities in Kharkiv said at least seven people
had been killed and dozens injured. They warned that casualties could be far
higher.
“They wanted to have a blitzkrieg, but it failed,
so they act this way,” said 83-year-old Valentin Petrovich, who watched the
shelling from his downtown apartment. He gave just his first name and his
patronymic, a middle name derived from his father’s name, out of fear for his
safety.
The Russian military has denied targeting
residential areas despite abundant evidence of shelling of homes, schools and
hospitals.
Fighting raged in other towns and cities across the
country. The strategic port city of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, is “hanging
on,” said Zelenskyy adviser Oleksiy Arestovich. An oil depot was reported
bombed in the eastern city of Sumy.
Russian artillery hit a military base in Okhtyrka,
a city between Kharkiv and Kyiv, and more than 70 Ukrainian soldiers were
killed, the head of the region wrote on Telegram. Dmytro Zhyvytskyy posted photographs
of the charred shell of a four-story building and rescuers searching rubble.
In a later Facebook post, he said many Russian
soldiers and some local residents also were killed during the fighting on
Sunday. The report could not immediately be confirmed.
Despite its vast military strength, Russia
still lacked
control of Ukrainian airspace, a surprise that may help explain how Ukraine
has so far prevented a rout.
In the seaside resort town of Berdyansk, dozens of
protesters chanted angrily in the main square against Russian occupiers,
yelling at them to go home and singing the Ukrainian national anthem. They
described the soldiers as exhausted young conscripts.
“Frightened kids, frightened looks. They want to
eat,” Konstantin Maloletka, who runs a small shop, said by telephone. He said
the soldiers went into a supermarket and grabbed canned meat, vodka and
cigarettes.
“They ate right in the store,” he said. “It looked
like they haven’t been fed in recent days.”
Across Ukraine, terrified families huddled
overnight in shelters, basements or corridors.
“I sit and pray for these negotiations to end
successfully, so that they reach an agreement to end the slaughter,” said
Alexandra Mikhailova, weeping as she clutched her cat in a shelter in Mariupol.
Around her, parents tried to console children and keep them warm.
For many, Russia’s announcement of a nuclear high
alert stirred fears that the West could be drawn into direct conflict with
Russia. But a senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said the United States had yet to see any appreciable change in Russia’s
nuclear posture.
As far-reaching Western sanctions on Russian banks
and other institutions took hold, the ruble plummeted, and Russia’s Central
Bank scrambled to shore it up, as did Putin, signing a decree restricting
foreign currency.
But that did little to calm Russian fears. In
Moscow, people lined up to withdraw cash as the sanctions threatened to drive
up prices and reduce the standard of living for millions of ordinary Russians.
In yet another blow to Russia’s economy, oil giant
Shell said it was pulling out of the country because of the invasion. It
announced it will withdraw from its joint ventures with state-owned gas company
Gazprom and other entities and end its involvement in the Nord Stream 2
pipeline project between Russia and Europe.
The economic sanctions, ordered by the U.S. and
other allies, were just one contributor to Russia’s growing status as a pariah
country.
Russian airliners are banned from European
airspace, Russian media is restricted in some countries, and some high-tech
products can no longer be exported to the country. On Monday, in a major blow
to a soccer-mad nation, Russian teams were suspended from all international
soccer.
In other developments:
— Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced
that his country would provide Ukraine with $50 million in missiles, ammunition
and other military hardware.
— The chief prosecutor of the International
Criminal Court said he will open an investigation soon into possible war crimes
and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.
— Cyberattacks
hit Ukrainian embassies around the world, and Russian media outlets.
— The United States announced it is expelling 12
members of Russia’s U.N. mission, accusing them of spying.
— The 193-nation U.N. General Assembly opened its
first emergency session in decades, with Assembly President Abdulla Shahid
calling for an immediate cease-fire and “a full return to diplomacy and
dialogue.”
The U.N. human rights chief said at least 102
civilians have been killed and hundreds wounded — warning that figure is
probably a vast undercount — and Ukraine’s president said at least 16 children
were among the dead.
More than a half-million people have
fled the country since the invasion, another U.N. official said, many
of them going to Poland, Romania and Hungary.
Among the refugees in Hungary was Maria Pavlushko,
24, an information technology project manager from a city west of Kyiv. She
said her father stayed behind to fight the Russians.
“I am proud about him,” she said, adding that many
of her friends were planning to fight too. - AP
