More Than 1M People Leave Ukraine As Russians Besiege Kyiv

More than 1 million people have fled Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, the United Nations (UN) said Thursday, as Russians bombarded the country’s second-biggest city, Kharkiv, and laid siege to two strategic seaports, Jim Heintz, Yuras Karmanau, Vladimir Isachenkov, and Dasha Litvinova reported for the Associated Press (AP).

Photo Insert: A station of the Kyiv Metro converted into an air-raid shelter

Russia reported its military casualties for the first time in the war, saying nearly 500 of its troops have been killed and almost 1,600 wounded. Ukraine did not disclose its own military losses but said more than 2,000 civilians have died, a figure that could not be independently verified.

Ukraine’s military general staff said in a Facebook post that Russia’s forces had suffered some 9,000 casualties in the fighting. It also said Russia has lost 217 tanks and about 30 each of warplanes and helicopters. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Meanwhile, a senior US defense official said an immense Russian column of hundreds of tanks and other vehicles appeared to be stalled roughly 25 kilometers (16 miles) from Kyiv and had made no real progress in the last couple of days.

The convoy, which earlier in the week had seemed poised to launch an assault on the capital, has been plagued with fuel and food shortages, the official said.

In a videotaped address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on Ukrainians to keep up the resistance. He vowed that the invaders would have “not one quiet moment” and described Russian soldiers as “confused children who have been used.”

Moscow’s isolation deepened when most of the world lined up against it at the United Nations to demand it withdraw from Ukraine. And the prosecutor for the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into possible war crimes.

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