Residents flee from Irpin, north of Kyiv, March 10, 2022. (AFP/Aris Messinis) #
Russian tanks arrived at the northeast gates of Kyiv on Thursday, continuing to maneuver around the encirclement, while the first high-level direct talks between the warring parties since the invasion of Ukraine began failed to produce a ceasefire.
On the same day, the US and its European allies were considering additional sanctions against Russia in response to the “escalation” of atrocities against civilians since the conflict began on February 24. President Vladimir Putin announced that he would keep all of his hydrocarbon supplies.
On the battlefield, the AFP team saw plumes of smoke rising over the village of Skibin, a few hundred meters from the last shelling by Ukrainian forces in front of the entrance to the capital in the northeast.
Russian tanks have already arrived in its northern and western outskirts.
Late in the morning, the desert village of Velikaya Dymerka, about five kilometers from Kyiv, was rained down by Russian Grad missiles, some of which landed about twenty meters from the AFP team.
According to the Ukrainian General Staff, Russian troops, continuing the “offensive operation” to encircle the capital, strike on other fronts, in the east of the city of Izyum, Petrivske, Hrushevakha, Sumy and Akhtyrka, or in the Donetsk and Zaporozhye regions.
– No global ceasefire in sight –
For their part, Foreign Ministers of Russia and Ukraine Sergey Lavrov and Dmitry Kuleba remained adamant during the talks under the auspices of their Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Antalya, a popular tourist resort in southern Turkey.
“We talked about a ceasefire, but there is no progress in this direction,” Kuleba told reporters, adding, however, that he “hopes” to continue discussions with his colleague.
The head of Ukrainian diplomacy said that Sergey Lavrov assured him that Russia “will continue (its) aggression until we accept its request for surrender.”
But “Ukraine did not give up, does not give up and will not give up,” he said.
The Russian minister, according to whom Russia “does not plan to attack other countries” and “did not attack Ukraine”, spoke in favor of continuing the dialogue with Ukraine, but primarily through representatives of the two camps in Belarus, therefore, at a lower level.
Since the beginning of the invasion, this allied state with Moscow has already held three sessions of negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, which resulted in several local ceasefires and the opening of humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of civilians from the besieged cities.
But the Russians have been repeatedly accused of violating these agreements.
The head of Turkish diplomacy, seated between his two colleagues at the end of a large U-shaped table, said he hoped to arrange a summit meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A map of Ukraine showing locations where explosions, strikes, and fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces have been recorded, as well as Russian advances claimed by Russians, Russian attacks or operations without control of territory, and claimed Ukrainian counter-offensives prior to 10 March. at 7:00 GMT (AFP / )
At the same time, the leaders of France and Germany, Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, in a telephone interview with Putin, “insisted that any solution to this crisis should go through negotiations between Ukraine and Russia” and demanded an “immediate ceasefire.”
– Mass evacuations –
A Ukrainian soldier at a checkpoint near Velyka Dymerka, east of Kyiv, March 9, 2022. (AFP/Aris Messinis) #
At present, the Russian army continues its siege of major cities and bombardment, similar to that carried out on Wednesday, on a facility that houses a children’s hospital and a maternity hospital in Mariupol, a strategic port on the Sea of Azov (southeast) has been besieged by Russian troops for nine days.
Three people died there, including a girl, according to a new report on Thursday by the mayor’s office, which reported 17 injured the day before. A fourth person was killed in a raid in the city on Thursday morning.
A “heinous war crime” for the European Union, a “barbaric” use of force against civilians for the White House, an “immoral” act for British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, or even an “undignified act of war” for Emmanuel Macron: this attack has sparked a wave of international condemnation.
According to a representative of the Ukrainian military administration in the region, the women were giving birth in one of the buildings at the time of the strike.
“The Russian Air Force did not carry out the tasks of destroying targets in the Mariupol region,” the Defense Ministry objected. “The alleged airstrike is an all-out staging for provocative purposes aimed at inciting anti-Russian agitation among Western audiences,” he added.
Residents of Irpen, north of Kyiv, wait to be evacuated to escape Russian shelling March 10, 2022. (AFP/Aris Messinis)
In total, since the beginning of the invasion in Ukraine, 71 children have died and more than 100 have been injured, Lyudmila Denisova, Commissioner for Human Rights in the Verkhovna Rada, said on Telegram on Tuesday.
Half of the population of the Kiev agglomeration fled in two weeks, its mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said, claiming that now there are “a little less than two million inhabitants.”
A Ukrainian soldier and resident of an underground shelter in Irpen, north of Kyiv, March 10, 2022. (AFP/Aris Messinis) #
Humanitarian corridors were reopened on Thursday to allow the evacuation of civilians from areas heavily affected by the fighting, forcing residents of several major cities to stay, sometimes for several days, hiding in basements.
More than 60,000 Ukrainians were evacuated on Wednesday from besieged cities, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video on Thursday.
– “One hundred billion” dollars of damage –
The damage caused by the war to Ukraine is currently estimated at $100 billion, according to Oleg Ustenko, economic adviser to the President of Ukraine.
Faced with this situation, the Americans and their allies are trying to help Ukraine by avoiding direct military intervention by NATO member states.
From Warsaw, US Vice President Kamala Harris believed that this crisis made NATO “stronger” and Russia “weaker.”
“Vladimir Putin has made a big mistake and will lose this war he started,” said Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
In Turkey, Mr. Lavrov called “dangerous” Western arms sales to Ukraine, condemning in particular the supply of man-portable air defense systems.
From the European Union side, the heads of state and government of the 27 member states were to consider on Thursday and Friday in Versailles, near Paris, the economic and security challenges created by the war in Ukraine in Europe.
While Poland, France and Germany have set up “unofficial headquarters” of their interior ministers to manage the European response to the challenge posed by the large wave of refugees.
The European Central Bank is “exploring” the possibility of using monetary “instruments” to support Ukraine, in particular, to facilitate its access to the euro money markets, its President Christine Lagarde said.
After a two-week conflict, Western sanctions continue to rain down on Russia, including a freeze in the United Kingdom of the assets of seven Russian oligarchs, including Roman Abramovich, a decision to suspend the sale of Chelsea Football Club.
The list of foreign companies that have completely or partially cut off their ties with Russia is getting longer and longer. The last one is the American investment bank Goldman Sachs, which will leave this country.
To deal with this, Moscow has banned the export of some previously imported goods and equipment.
“We are fulfilling all our energy supply obligations,” Vladimir Putin promised nonetheless, while warning that sanctions risk causing global food prices to rise because Russia can no longer export enough fertilizer.