Russia Steps Up Attacks While Talking To Ukraine

Russia and Ukraine kept a fragile diplomatic path open with a new round of talks Monday, even as Moscow’s forces pounded away at Kyiv and other cities in a bombardment that the Red Cross said has created “nothing short of a nightmare” for civilians, Yuras Karmanau reported for the Associated Press (AP.)

Photo Insert: Mykhailo Podolyak, adviser to the President of Ukraine

Meanwhile, a convoy of 160 civilian cars left the encircled port city of Mariupol along a designated humanitarian route, the city council reported, in a rare glimmer of hope a week and a half into the lethal siege that has pulverized homes and other buildings and left people desperate for food, water, heat, and medicine.

The latest negotiations, which were held via video conference, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first in a week.

The talks ended without a breakthrough after several hours, with an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the negotiators took “a technical pause” and planned to meet again Tuesday.

The two sides had expressed some optimism in the past few days. Mykhailo Podolyak, the aide to Zelenskyy, said over the weekend that Russia was “listening carefully to our proposals.” He tweeted Monday that the negotiators would discuss “peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees.”

Previous discussions, held in person in Belarus, produced no lasting humanitarian routes or agreements to end the fighting.

Overall, nearly all of the Russian offensives remained stalled on Monday after making little progress over the weekend, according to a senior US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon’s assessment. Russian troops were still about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the center of Kyiv, the official said.

The official said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces have launched more than 900 missiles but that Ukraine’s airspace is still contested, with Russia not achieving total air superiority.

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