Russia and Ukraine met Monday for a fourth round of peace talks following another bloody weekend that saw airstrikes decimate a military base 11 miles from the border with Poland, where NATO forces are stationed and on high alert.
Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor, which began on Feb. 24, showed no signs of letting up as Russian troops expanded the targets of their military offensive and the humanitarian crisis deepened.
In south Ukraine, Russian naval forces have established a “distant blockade” of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, according to the British Ministry of Defense, which warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warships are continuing attacks from the sea.
RUSSIAN NAVY ESTABLISHES BLOCKADE OF UKRAINE’S BLACK SEA COAST
In Kyiv’s northern Obolonskyi district, an early-morning airstrike severely damaged a nine-story apartment building. Fires spread across multiple floors, and the building appeared to suffer significant damage. Firefighters could be seen helping older residents from the badly burned building, which is about 100 yards from a secondary school, the New York Times reported. Two people died.
Ukrainian authorities said two more people died and seven were injured when Russian forces struck an airplane factory in Kyiv. The Antonov factory is Ukraine’s largest aircraft manufacturing plant and is best known for producing many of the world’s largest cargo planes.
Over the weekend, U.S. journalist Brent Renaud was shot and killed while reporting from a Kyiv suburb. His reporting partner was also shot but is alive.
Air raid alerts blared in cities across Ukraine overnight, from near the Russian border in eastern Ukraine to the Carpathian Mountains in the west, accompanied by heavy shelling in several Kyiv suburbs. A town councilor in Brovary, east of Kyiv, was killed. Three other Kyiv suburbs, Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel, also saw a ramped-up Russian offensive. Airstrikes were also reported in the southern city of Mykolaiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, where residents were left with no heat or electricity.
In Kharkiv, firefighters worked to put out a fire in a four-story residential building on a crowded street full of apartments, buildings, and retail shops. It is unclear if there were any fatalities.
In Mariupol, which has been bombarded by Russian shelling for days, armed forces surrounded the southern port city, not allowing residents seeking safety to leave, despite early talks on creating air or evacuation convoys. The International Committee of the Red Cross called the suffering in Mariupol “simply immense” and said hundreds of thousands of people were on the brink of starvation and had little to no access to clean water or medicine.
“Dead bodies, of civilians and combatants, remain trapped under the rubble or lying in the open where they fell,” the Red Cross said in a statement.
NEGOTIATORS HINT AT PROGRESS BEFORE FOURTH ROUND OF UKRAINE-RUSSIA PEACE TALKS
A convoy led by a Ukrainian Orthodox priest was headed toward Mariupol carrying 100 tons of medicine and food, but the 50 miles of road they had to cross were laced with landmines and fierce fighting. Every attempt to deliver aid to Mariupol since the invasion began on Feb. 24 has failed.
“But we will try again,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said during a speech overnight.
The brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine appears likely to rage on. Since the start of the Ukraine crisis, more than 2.8 million refugees have fled the country, according to the United Nations. Most refugees, about 1.7 million, have made their way west to Poland. Hungary has taken in more than 255,000 refugees, while Slovakia has admitted 200,000, Moldova 107,000, and Romania 85,000.
Monday’s talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations come on the heels of reports that Moscow asked China for help economically and militarily with the Ukraine invasion.
The alleged request was made ahead of U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan’s meeting with his Chinese counterpart, Yang Jiechi, in Rome as part of a follow-up on a conversation between President Joe Biden and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping during a virtual meeting five months ago.
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“We are also watching closely to see the extent to which China actually does provide any form of support, material support or economic support, to Russia,” Sullivan said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union. “It is a concern of ours. And we have communicated to Beijing that we will not stand by and allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses from the economic sanctions.”
Russia has denied asking for China’s help. Beijing’s foreign ministry accused the U.S. of spreading disinformation.
