The second round of talks to seek truce in Ukraine, scheduled today in Belarus, is in doubt: Russia says it is still ready for the meeting, Ukraine says it is ready to sit at a table but will not accept ultimatums. The reason for so much uncertainty is that Putin’s offensive does not stop but intensifies. Russian airborne troops land in Kharkiv and attack a hospital and university. In what is the second largest city in Ukraine, the last 24 hours of attacks have resulted in at least 25 deaths and 112 injuries. On the sixth day of the war, missiles and bombs still rain. Moscow does not seem to compromise: bomb Kharkiv, Mariupol, Zhytomir and Kherson. The latter city, according to reports from both Russian forces and the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, has fallen into the hands of the occupiers.
The offensive “will go on until the objectives are achieved”, underlines Moscow, who through the foreign minister Lavrov accuses Ukraine of wanting to delay the negotiations by order of the United States. Meanwhile, the convoy of armored vehicles of over 60 kilometers continues its march on Kiev, where on Tuesday afternoon a rocket hit the TV Tower causing five deaths. The Cathedral of Saint Sophia in Kiev, a Unesco heritage site, is also in the sights. Attached is a monument to the Babi Yar memorial which commemorates the extermination of 30 thousand Jews by the Nazis. “The enemy is amassing troops ever closer to the capital,” said the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, quoted by local media. According to the military command in Kiev, the Russian occupying forces are advancing on all fronts but will encounter Ukrainian resistance which is inflicting numerous losses on them.
UN: at least 136 civilians killed including 13 children
At least 136 civilians have been killed so far since the Russian invasion of Ukraine which began last Thursday. The United Nations said so, according to reports from the BBC, specifying that 13 children should be among the dead. But according to a spokesman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Liz Throssell, the actual dead should be many more. In Mariupol, the mayor reports more than 100 civilians injured. More than 450,000 people have so far entered Poland from Ukraine since the invasion began, according to Polish Deputy Interior Minister Pawel Szefernaker.
Zelensky: 6 thousand Russians killed
As Biden announces the US intention to close the airspace to Russia, Ukrainian President Zelensky returns to his voice: almost 6,000 Russian soldiers have been in Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, now on its seventh day, the Ukrainian president said. in the last video message. The Ukrainian leader continued to insist that Russia cannot win this war with “bombs, attacks and rockets” which have rained down on Ukrainian cities in recent days. Moscow “aims to wipe out Ukraine, the country, its history,” added Zelensky, after Babyn Yar’s Holocaust memorial in Kiev was hit by a Russian missile.
“Yanukovych in Minsk, Moscow wants him president”
While confusion remains about whether and when talks in Belarus will resume, Ukrayinska Pravda, citing Kiev intelligence sources, argues that Viktor Yanukovych, the former pro-Russian Ukrainian president ousted from the 2014 revolution and now in exile in Russia, is currently in Minsk: “The Kremlin is preparing a special operation for him”. The goal is to declare him “president of Ukraine”, preparing for his return to Ukraine from Belarus, once Kiev has been conquered. Among the hypotheses also the publication of an appeal by Yanukovych to the Ukrainian population, adds the website of the Ukrainian newspaper.