Russian and Ukrainian delegations are due to resume their talks on Tuesday, as Russian strikes increase in kyiv itself and the Russian army widens its offensive across the country, on the 20th day of its invasion of Ukraine.
Two people were removed dead and 27 others were rescued safe and sound from a building in a western district of the capital, Svyatoshin. The 15-storey building burst into flames on Tuesday after being hit by a strike, according to Ukrainian emergency services.
“At 4:20 a.m., everything was shaking very hard. I got up, my daughter came running and asked me, “Are you alive?”. But in one of the rooms, we couldn’t free my son-in-law and my grandson, so we broke down the doors, they were able to get out,” Lioubov Goura, 73, who lived in the 11th floor, told AFP. floor, just after paramedics brought her to the ground.
In front of a house, a corpse wrapped in a black plastic bag was lying on the ground.
Another nine-storey building was hit in the northwest district of Podil, closer to the city center. One person was taken care of and hospitalized, according to the emergency services.
This explosion blew the windows of several buildings, AFP noted. In the early morning, several people were throwing debris from the windows of the building’s ravaged apartments.
The city’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, declared a curfew for 36 hours starting at 8 p.m. Tuesday (2 p.m. EDT).
kyiv, which Russian forces are trying to encircle, has been emptied of at least half of its approximately three million inhabitants since the start of the conflict on February 24.
But it was to welcome the Polish, Czech and Slovenian Prime Ministers on Tuesday, who left by train to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Chmygal, according to a press release from the Polish presidency.
The purpose of this visit is “to reaffirm the unequivocal support of the whole of the European Union for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine, and to present a comprehensive package of measures in support of the state and Ukrainian society”.
Visit to Kyiv
This visit, the first announced by foreign leaders in kyiv since the beginning of the war, comes as Russian-Ukrainian talks are due to resume on Tuesday, interrupted the day before. The Kremlin said it made “no predictions” as to their outcome.
The discussions are taking place by videoconference after three face-to-face rounds in neighboring Belarus and then a meeting Thursday in Turkey of the heads of Russian and Ukrainian diplomats.
During the night, President Volodymyr Zelensky assured him that the Russians have “begun to understand that they will not achieve anything through war”.
“I was told that (the talks in progress) were quite good,” said the head of state, after talking on Saturday about a new, “fundamentally different” approach from Moscow in the negotiations. “But let’s wait and see.”
His Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin also spoke on Friday of “advances” in the discussions.
But Russia has also extended its offensive to the whole country.
The Kremlin even mentioned on Monday “the possibility of taking under total control (the) large cities which are already surrounded”.
Since Friday, the fighting has spread to the west of the country. A strike Monday against a television tower near Rivne (northwest) left 19 dead and nine injured, according to local authorities.
And the large city of Dnipro (east), which has remained relatively unscathed so far, saw its airport bombarded on Tuesday, with “massive destruction”, according to its mayor, who did not mention any immediate victims.
In the south of the country, the Russians are still trying to take Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov, besieged for days.
But according to the Ukrainian general staff, they would have lost 150 soldiers in the offensive and “beaten a retreat”. Unverifiable information from an independent source.
A humanitarian aid convoy, which has been trying to reach the city for days, was again blocked on Monday by Russian soldiers in Berdyansk, 85 km from Mariupol, according to Ukrainian authorities. Some 160 cars were nevertheless able to leave the city, where thousands of inhabitants live holed up in cellars, deprived of water, electricity, heating and food.
More than 2.8 million people have fled Ukraine since the start of the invasion, according to a UN count on Monday, which also lists around 2 million internally displaced people.
TV breakout
In Russia, in a rare moment of public protest, a woman, identified by the NGO OVD-Info as Marina Ovsiannikova, burst onto the set of a major Russian television channel on Monday night with a sign criticizing the offensive in Ukraine.
“No to war. Don’t believe the propaganda. You are being lied to here,” read his sign.
Video of the incident has gone viral on social media, with many netizens hailing “extraordinary courage”.
The use of the word “war” by the media or individuals to describe the Russian intervention in Ukraine is now liable to prosecution and heavy penalties. The Russian authorities speak of a “special military operation”.
The protester was arrested. The Kremlin denounced an act of “hooliganism”
yacht blocked
Finally, a fourth set of European Union sanctions was to come into force, including measures against access to markets, exports of luxury goods or membership of international financial institutions.
A Russian oligarch’s yacht worth nearly 128 million euros was also immobilized on Monday in Barcelona (Spain) as part of these sanctions, according to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez. “And more are to come,” he warned.
According to the Spanish daily El Pais, it is the ship Valérie, linked to Sergei Chemezov, boss of the Russian defense industry conglomerate Rostec, and ally of Mr. Putin.
Previous Western sanctions packages have already frozen some $300 billion in Russian reserves abroad, which could prevent Russia from meeting several foreign currency debt payment deadlines in March-April.
Russia on Monday accused the West of wanting to provoke an “artificial” default through its sanctions.
Oil prices, which had soared since the start of the Russian invasion, have started falling again.
On Monday, the small hope raised by the talks had pushed them down. On Tuesday, the barrel of WTI crude – the benchmark for American oil – even fell back below the 100 dollar mark, this time against a backdrop of concerns about a slowdown in the Chinese economy due to the drastic measures announced by Beijing in the face of a resurgence of Covid-19 cases in the country.