KYIV, Ukraine
Loud blasts thundered through Kyiv on Tuesday as Russian forces escalated their bombardment on the Ukrainian capital, deepening the humanitarian crisis as the war grinds into its third week. Officials from both countries agreed to more talks, despite the failures of diplomacy so far.
The figures tell the story of
a devastating human toll. The number of Ukrainians forced to flee their country
since the invasion has now surpassed 3 million, the United Nations said, the
vast majority women and children. Thousands of soldiers and civilians are dead.
Food and water are running out in besieged Mariupol.
During pre-dawn Russian
strikes on Tuesday, a projectile slammed into a 15-story apartment building,
killing at least one person.
“Ukraine is on fire,” United
Nations chief Antonio
Guterres warned. “The impact on civilians is reaching terrifying
proportions.”
As the offensive pressed
closer to central Kyiv, the leaders of three European Union countries headed to
the battered Ukrainian capital on a surprise visit to show support
Fighting
for Kyiv has intensified, with artillery fire echoing through the city and
Russia launching a flurry of strikes that early Tuesday blew out windows and
ignited a huge fire in an apartment in western Kyiv. At least one person was
killed as rescue efforts continued.
Explosions around the city
caused significant structural damage, with shockwaves from a blast tearing
through the entrance of a downtown subway station that has been used as a bomb
shelter and another igniting a fire in Kyiv’s northern Podilsky district.
The day before, Russian
rockets destroyed a television tower in the western city of Rivne, where
authorities said the death toll had risen to 19. At
least four people were killed and more wounded when Russian strikes on
Kyiv slammed into Ukraine’s largest aircraft factory and a nine-story apartment
building.
Elsewhere in the country, Russian forces unleashed scores of new artillery strikes on downtown Kharkiv in the country’s east.
As the sun rose, rescuers
pulled bodies from the rubble after attacks on residential buildings in the
city’s historical center and a major thoroughfare, a local official said.
Thousands were trying to flee on evacuation trains amid the chaos and
destruction.
After days of relentless
Russian shelling on encircled
Mariupol, 150 cars carrying hundreds of civilians managed to escape the
besieged city.
But hundreds of thousands of
people remain trapped in without heat, food or clean water as Russia renewed
its offensive on Mariupol.
Escalating bombardment again thwarted
a convoy of vehicles trying to bring food, water and medicine to desperate
residents of the Azov Sea port city. Aid
groups warn large numbers of people could face starvation. Bodies are
now being buried in mass graves.
Turkish officials, however,
expressed hope for imminent evacuations as work to open humanitarian corridors
gains urgency.
Flames gutted an apartment
building in the Svyatoshynskyi district of western Kyiv as emergency workers
rushed to rescue people from ladders and douse the blaze.
Thick, dark smoke choked the
air. A firefighter at the scene confirmed one person had died and that several
have been rescued alive — but more remained trapped inside. A young woman
sobbed outside the charred building, where shocked residents assessed the
damage.
“People are dying, and the
worst thing is that children are dying,” said Andriy, a firefighter at the
scene who would only give his first name, before heading back into the burning
building.
The war’s burden has continued
to fall heaviest on the most vulnerable. Over one million children have fled
the country, and many more have been internally displaced.
Pasha Bychkov, 10, said his
family escaped the nation’s second-largest city of Kharkiv after a bomb struck
their apartment building.
“We don’t want to go back
there,” Pasha said from the city of Lviv, where he resumed school on Monday.
Although Russian and Ukrainian
officials have struck a positive note about ongoing talks, there have been no
breakthroughs at the negotiating table.
Ukrainian negotiators were set
to meet their Russian counterparts again on Tuesday after a brief pause.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the previous round as “good,”
without offering details.
Russian President Vladimir
Putin’s spokesman later described negotiations as “difficult.”
A flurry of diplomatic
activity drew in leaders around the world.
The leaders of Poland, the
Czech Republic and Slovenia were traveling Tuesday to Kyiv on a European Union
mission on a mission of solidarity.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali
Bennett continued
his mediation efforts in calls with both Putin and Zelenskyy on
Monday.
The U.S. said Russia would
have to show signs of de-escalation to demonstrate good faith. Putin’s invasion
has sparked talk in the American security establishment of building up U.S.
military power in Europe on a scale not seen since the Cold War.
World powers have continued
their efforts to punish Moscow.
Britain said it would ban the
export of luxury goods to Russia, including high-end fashion and works of art, while
hitting Russian products like vodka with boosted tariffs in its latest round of
sanctions designed to hamper Moscow’s war effort.
Japan’s government said it is
freezing the assets of 17 more Russian politicians, tycoons and their relatives
to pressure Moscow to end its invasion, bringing the total number of Japan’s
asset freezes to 61.
The European Union announced
that the 27-nation bloc has approved a
fourth set of sanctions to further isolate Russia and drain its
resources.
France said the EU also
approved a declaration to the World Trade Organization to suspend the
most-favored-nation clause for Russia that would withdraw its special treatment
throughout the bloc.
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