Kyiv and Moscow hold talks as Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks

The talks on the fifth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine came after Russian forces struggled to advance into much of the country, and so far failed to take any of Ukraine’s major cities as they faced fierce resistance. . Russia was pouring large reinforcement convoys across the border on Monday in what could be a preparation for a renewed push on Kyiv and an attempt to encircle it.

Russia, facing difficulties on the battlefield and under mounting economic sanctions, is preparing for a possible escalation of its war on Ukraine, even as diplomatic contacts aim to stop fighting. went.

In a sign that Moscow may be shifting to a more destructive approach targeting civilian areas, the northern neighborhood of Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv was shelled by multiple-rocket launchers on Monday, according to witnesses and video footage from the area. According to . Ukrainian officials said civilian casualties were not immediately known, but there were casualties.

The chances of a ceasefire agreed at Monday’s talks were uncertain. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for a complete Russian withdrawal and restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

As additional Russian forces entered Ukraine, Kyiv continued to strengthen its army by mobilizing 100,000 new troops and equipping its units with sophisticated new weapons that flowed in from the west.

Authorities in Kyiv, which had been under curfew since Saturday afternoon while Ukrainian forces engaged in shelling several neighborhoods with units of Russian infiltrators wearing civilian clothes or Ukrainian uniforms, allowed residents to move around on Monday morning. Long lines formed around grocery stores and pharmacies as Kyiv people patiently waited for their turn.

Outside a supermarket on Kyiv’s western edge, the wait time to enter was about two hours, even though many residents of the neighborhood fled the city to the relative safety of western Ukraine. “We’re not going anywhere. I was born in Kyiv and I’ll die here,” said Valeria Voytenko, a 23-year-old post office worker whose husband is fighting on Kharkiv’s front lines.

“If they had given us weapons, I would have gone to shoot them and defend our house too,” shouted at her friend Yana Kamun, a 20-year-old manicurist. “We will fight to the last. And we believe that Ukraine will win.”

The city was calm, with no looting or violence, as regular soldiers and volunteers stationed checkpoints with yellow stripes on major squares. The Kyiv authorities warned that any robber would be shot on sight. In some areas, signs of intense fighting were visible: broken glass, a car with a bullet hole in its windshield, fragments of shells and grenades.

One of the volunteer soldiers, Taras Oleksandovich, 30, joined the new Territorial Defense Force on Sunday after a gunfight with Russian infiltrators in his neighborhood of high-rise buildings on Kyiv’s western edge. “The neighbors gave us all this – old washing machines, tyres, roofs, anything they could throw out of their windows – to make this barricade,” he said. “We will protest.”

Myroslav Malinovsky, a construction worker, said he had moved his family to western Ukraine as soon as the war broke out, but has now returned to Kyiv to help the military. When a Ukrainian T-64 tank broke down on the western edge of town, he drove to the city center to find a welder to fix it, and brought camping gear, food, and warm clothing for the tank’s crew.

Sturdy tank traps, concrete blocks and orange garbage trucks blocked major roads. Electronic billboards that once advertised nightclubs, holidays and sushi restaurants in the Dominican Republic carried black-and-white messages to the enemy. “Russian soldier, go f- yourself,” said one in central Kyiv.

On the front lines on the northern and western sides of the city, soldiers were buoyed by recent victories. “The famous Russian special forces came here, and ran so fast that they left us three vehicles as trophies,” said a Ukrainian soldier, ready to go on a mission with a squad armed with sniper rifles.

In a sign that Russia no longer has control of the skies, convoys carrying Ukrainian troops roamed broad daylight through the city, including several long-range artillery pieces and truckloads of shells.

“On the fifth day of the full-scale Russian war against the people of Ukraine, we stand firmly,” Mr. Zelensky said on Monday. “Every crime the occupiers have committed against us brings us closer and closer to each other. Russia never thought it would face such solidarity.”

Air raid sirens were sounding in the early hours of Monday, but the intensity of Russian air strikes was much less than the previous nights.

Russian President Vladimir Putin refused to take a call from Mr Zelensky on the eve of Thursday’s invasion, which he said seeks to overthrow the Ukrainian government and “demonetise” the country.

Shortly after the start of the war, Russian officials said they would speak to Kyiv only after Ukrainian troops had laid down their arms. Mr Putin later urged the Ukrainian military to stage a coup against the country’s democratically elected president. The fact that Moscow now wants unconditional talks was celebrated by the Ukrainian authorities as an achievement for Ukraine and its armed forces.

Russia sent a delegation to the southern Belarusian city of Gomel on Sunday, but Mr Zelensky initially said he refused to meet in a country that has become a launchpad for Russia’s attacks.

However, Mr Zelensky spoke to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko by phone later on Sunday, and said he agreed to meet his envoys along with the Russian delegation on the Pripyat River along the Ukrainian-Belarusian border. Mr Lukashenko pledged during the talks, for the first time in two years, that there would be no Russian military activity from Belarus in the meantime, Zelensky said.

Talks on the Belarusian side of the border with Ukraine began shortly before 2 p.m. local time. “You can feel completely safe, it is our sacred duty,” Belarusian Foreign Minister Vladimir Meki told the Russian and Ukrainian delegations sitting next to each other. Ways can be found to resolve the issues, and all Belarusians pray for that.”

Due to the continuing fighting, the team sent by Mr. Zelensky had to travel a negotiated route through Poland. The group includes the Ukrainian Defense Minister, Oleksey Reznikov, and the majority leader in the Ukrainian parliament, David Arkhamia.

The Russian delegation includes the president’s aide Vladimir Medinsky; Deputy Minister of Defense and Foreign Affairs of Russia; head of the International Committee of the State Duma of Russia Leonid Slutsky; And Boris Gryzlov, Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Mr Medinsky told Russian state news agency RIA that Russia’s representatives are ready to negotiate at any time. “For us every hour is a life saved,” the agency quoted him as saying.

In the five days of the offensive, Russia has so far not seized any major Ukrainian cities, and dozens of Russian soldiers have been taken captive, with videos of them posted on social media to let their families in Russia know. May his luck go. Russia’s military admitted for the first time on Sunday that its forces in Ukraine had suffered fatal casualties.

Video footage broadcast by Ukrainian media showed dozens of residents protesting outside city hall, which now houses Russian occupation officers, in the Azov Sea city of Berdyansk, one of a handful currently controlled by the Russian military. “Putin is ad-major,” he said, waving Ukrainian flags, and chanting “Glory to Ukraine.”