The humanitarian crisis in Ukraine deepened on Monday as Russian forces intensified their shelling and food, water, heat and medicine became increasingly scarce, with the country denouncing it as a medieval-style siege by Moscow for submission.
A third round of talks between the two sides ended with a top Ukrainian official saying minor, unspecified progress had been made towards establishing safe corridors that would allow civilians to avoid fighting. Russia’s chief negotiator said he expects those corridors to start operating on Tuesday.
But it remains to be seen, given the failure of previous efforts to relocate civilians to safety in the midst of the largest ground war in Europe since World War II.
In the second week of the offensive, Russian troops made significant progress in southern Ukraine, but some stayed in other areas, a top US official said, adding that several countries were discussing whether to launch a warplane for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Go. be made available.
The army of Russian President Vladimir Putin continued to hit the cities with rockets, and fierce fighting broke out in places.
In the besieged southern port of Mariupol, one of the most desperate cities, an estimated 200,000 people _ about half the population of 430,000 were expected to flee, and Red Cross officials waited to hear when a corridor was established. . will go
The city lacks water, food and electricity, and cellphone networks are down. Shops have been looted as residents searched for essential goods.
Police roamed the city advising people to stay in shelters until they heard an official message being broadcast over loudspeakers to evacuate.
Mariupol’s hospitals are facing acute shortages of antibiotics and painkillers, and doctors performed few emergency procedures without them.
The lack of phone service left worried citizens asking strangers if they knew relatives living in other parts of the city and whether they were safe.
In the capital Kyiv, soldiers and volunteers have built hundreds of checkpoints to protect the city of about 4 million, often using sandbags, stacked tires and spiked cables. Some barricades looked significant, with heavy concrete slabs and sandbags more than two storeys high, while others appeared more disorganized, with hundreds of books weighing down piles of tyres.
“Every house, every street, every outpost, if need be, we will fight to the death,” said Mayor Vitaly Klitschko.
Apartment buildings were heavily shelled in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city with 1.4 million people.
“I think it hit the fourth floor below us,” said Dmitry Sedorenko from his Kharkiv hospital bed. “Immediately, everything began to burn and disintegrate.” When the floor fell under him, he crawled out through the third story, passing the bodies of some of his neighbors.
Klitschko reported that fierce fighting continues in the Kyiv region, especially around Buka, Hostomel, Vorzel and Irpin.
In the Irpin area, which has been cut off from electricity, water and heat for three days, eyewitnesses saw at least three tanks and said Russian soldiers were seizing homes and cars.
A few miles away, in the small town of Horenka, where shelling turned an area to ash and pieces of glass, rescuers and residents picked up through the ruins as chickens pecked around them.
“what are they doing?” Rescue worker Vasil Oksak asked the Russian attackers. “Two small children and two elders lived here. Come in and see what they did.” In the south, Russian forces also continued their offensive at Mykolaiv, setting fire to a half-million-person Black Sea shipbuilding center, according to the Ukrainian military. Rescuers said they were living in The fires caused by rocket attacks in the areas are under control.
In The Hague, Netherlands, Ukraine urged the International Court of Justice to halt Russia’s aggression, saying Moscow was committing widespread war crimes.
Jonathan Gimblett, a member of Ukraine’s legal team, said Russia was resorting to “medieval siege warfare, besieging cities, cutting off escape routes and mobilizing civilian populations with heavy weapons”.
Russia turned down court proceedings, leaving its seats in the Great Hall of Justice vacant.
Efforts to establish safe passage for civilians failed over the weekend amid Russian shelling. Ahead of Monday’s talks, Russia announced a new plan that would allow citizens to leave Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Sumy.
Later, Russia’s UN ambassador, Vasily Nebenzia, told the UN Security Council that Russia would suspend the ceasefire on Tuesday morning and open humanitarian corridors leading away from Kyiv, Mariupol, Sumy and Chernigov.
Zelensky expressed doubts about the sincerity of the gestures, insisting in his daily video address that instead of an agreement on humanitarian corridors, Ukraine received “Russian tanks, Russian Grad rockets, Russian mines” on Monday. Several routes of evacuation took Russia or its ally Belarus, which has served as a launch pad for the invasion. Ukraine instead proposed eight routes, allowing civilians to travel to the western regions of the country without shelling.
Under Secretary-General Martin Griffiths, the UN’s humanitarian chief, addressed the Security Council and urged people to take a safe path “in the direction they choose”. The battle is significant for Mariupol because its capture could allow Moscow to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.
The fighting has raised energy prices and dwindling stocks around the world, and threatens the food supplies and livelihoods of people around the world who depend on crops cultivated in the fertile Black Sea region.
The UN Human Rights Office confirmed the deaths of 406 civilians but said the actual number was much higher. The invasion has also sent 1.7 million people fleeing Ukraine.
On Monday, Moscow again announced a series of demands to stop the invasion, including that Ukraine recognize Crimea as part of Russia and the eastern regions controlled by Moscow-backed separatist militias as independent. It also insisted that Ukraine amend its constitution to guarantee that it would not join international bodies such as NATO and the European Union. Ukraine has already rejected those demands.
He has called for more punitive measures against Russia, including a global boycott of its oil exports, which are critical to its economy.
“If (Russia) does not want to follow civilized rules, they should not receive goods and services from civilisation,” he said in a video address.
He has also demanded more war planes. Deputy US Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said officials are “trying to see if this is possible and feasible.” While the West is participating in an arms race in Ukraine in the form of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, some officials fear that the warplanes could be sent as a direct participation by Moscow in the war.
One possible scenario under discussion: former Soviet bloc nations that are now members of NATO could send their Soviet-era MiGs to Ukraine, which are trained to fly Ukrainian pilots, and then the US to fly those countries’ planes. Will send Will be replaced by the American-made F-16. ,
The Russian invasion has terrified the surrounding countries that the war might spread to them.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken began an electric tour of the Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, former Soviet republics that are members of NATO. Blinken hoped to reassure him of the coalition’s security.
NATO has shown no interest in sending troops to the country and has rejected Zelensky’s pleas for establishing a no-fly zone for fear of starting a wider war.