Shooting near Kyiv and evacuations in the besieged city of Mariupol

Previous talks, held face-to-face in Belarus, did not result in sustainable humanitarian routes or agreements to end the fighting.

Russian military forces on Monday continued their punitive campaign to capture the Ukrainian capital with fighting and artillery fire on the outskirts of Kyiv, after an airstrike on a military base near the Polish border brought war dangerously closer. NATO gates.

Air raid alerts sounded in towns and villages across the country overnight, from near the Russian border in the east to the Carpathian Mountains in the west, as fighting continued on the outskirts of Kyiv. Ukrainian officials said Russian forces shelled several suburbs of the capital, a major political and strategic target for their invasion.

Ukrainian authorities said two people died and seven others were injured after Russian forces hit an aircraft factory in Kyiv, causing a major fire. The Antonov factory is Ukraine’s largest aircraft manufacturing plant and is best known for producing many of the largest cargo planes in the world.

Russian artillery fire also hit a nine-story building in the city’s northern Obolonskyi district, killing two other people, authorities said. Firefighters worked to save survivors, laboriously carrying an injured woman on a stretcher away from the blackened and still smoking building.

A councilman from Brovary, east of Kyiv, was killed in fighting there, officials said. Shells also fell on the suburbs of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel, which saw some of the worst fighting in Russia’s so far unsuccessful attempt to take the capital, local officials said.

Airstrikes were reported across the country, including in the southern city of Mykolaiv and the northern city of Chernihiv, where heating was cut in most of the city. Explosions also sounded overnight around the Russian-occupied port of Kherson on the Black Sea.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, firefighters hosed down the remains of a four-story residential building on a street of apartments and shops. Ukrainian emergency services said a building had been bombed, leaving piles of smoldering wood and metal. It was unclear if there were any casualties.

In the beleaguered southern city of Mariupol, where the war has produced some of the worst human suffering, the city council did not say how many people were in the convoy heading west to Zaporizhzhia. But he said the ceasefire in the humanitarian corridor appeared to be holding.

Earlier attempts to escort civilians out of town and deliver humanitarian aid had failed amid continued shelling.

Robert Mardini, director general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the war had become “nothing short of a nightmare” for people living in besieged towns, and called for safe passages for the displacement of civilians and sending humanitarian aid.

A pregnant woman who became a symbol of Ukraine’s suffering when she was photographed being carried out of a bombed-out maternity hospital in Mariupol has died with her baby, the Associated Press has learned. Images of the woman being rushed into an ambulance on a stretcher had been seen around the world, epitomizing the horror of an attack on humanity’s most innocent.

Ukraine on Monday announced plans for new humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors, though ongoing bombings have thwarted similar efforts in the past week, including on Sunday.

The UN has recorded at least 596 civilian deaths since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, although it believes the true toll is much higher. Millions more have fled their homes, and more than 2.8 million have fled to Poland and other neighboring countries in what the UN refugee agency has called Europe’s biggest refugee crisis. since World War II.

Since launching its invasion of Ukraine, Moscow has been attacking on several fronts. Russia’s military is larger and better equipped than Ukraine’s, but its troops have faced stronger-than-expected resistance, bolstered by Western weaponry support that has frustrated Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Faced with a slowed advance in several areas, they pounded several towns with incessant shelling, hitting two dozen medical facilities and a large number of apartment buildings.

The war escalated on Sunday when Russian missiles pounded a military training base in western Ukraine that previously served as a crucial hub for Ukraine-NATO cooperation.

The attack killed 35 people, Ukrainian officials said, and the base’s proximity to the borders of Poland and other NATO members raised fears the Western military alliance could be drawn into the most major land conflict in Europe since the Second World War.

Speaking on Sunday evening, President Volodymyr Zelensky called it a “dark day” and again urged NATO leaders to establish a no-fly zone over his country, a move the West rejected for fear of triggering a direct and potentially nuclear confrontation with Russia.

“If you don’t close our skies, it’s only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory, on NATO territory, on the homes of citizens of NATO countries” , warned Mr. Zelenskyy.

Ukraine said Moscow’s troops nevertheless failed to make any major advances between Sunday and Monday. The Russian Defense Ministry gave a different assessment, saying its forces had advanced 11 kilometers and reached five towns north of Mariupol, the capture of which could help Russia establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it has seized from Ukraine in 2014.

The United States claims that Russia asked China for military equipment to use in Ukraine after the West imposed harsh economic sanctions to hamper the Russian economy.

The request has heightened tensions over the ongoing war ahead of a Monday meeting in Rome between top aides to the US and Chinese governments. US President Joe Biden is sending his national security adviser to Rome to meet with a Chinese official, fearing Beijing is amplifying Russian disinformation and helping Moscow evade Western economic sanctions.

The Russian cruise missile strike on the military base in western Ukraine also has international significance. The International Center for Peacekeeping and Security near Yavoriv has long been used to train Ukrainian soldiers, often with instructors from the United States and other NATO members. In addition to the 35 dead, 134 people were injured in the attack, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said.

The base is less than 25 kilometers from the Polish border and has hosted NATO training exercises, making it a powerful symbol of Russia’s long-standing fears that the Alliance could adopt new members and threaten its safety.

NATO said Sunday that it currently has no personnel in Ukraine, although the United States has increased the number of American troops deployed in Poland, which is a NATO member. The White House has warned that the West will react if Russian strikes travel outside Ukraine and hit any NATO member, even accidentally.

by The Canadian Press

Shooting near Kyiv and evacuations in the besieged city of Mariupol

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