Kyiv, Ukraine — Russia’s flag carrier airline is suspending all international flights except Belarus due to military sanctions against Ukraine.
THIS IS A BIG NEWS UPDATE. The earlier history of the AP follows below.
What looked like a breakthrough in a ceasefire to evacuate residents from two cities in Ukraine quickly fell apart on Saturday when Ukrainian officials said work to evacuate civilians was halted amid shelling after Russia announced the deal .
The Russian Defense Ministry previously said it had agreed with Ukrainian forces on evacuation routes for Mariupol, a strategic port in the southeast, and the city of Volnovakha in the east. The vague statement did not specify how long the routes would remain open.
“The Russian side does not observe the ceasefire and continues to shell Mariupol itself and its environs,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Office of President Volodymyr Zelensky. “Negotiations with the Russian Federation are ongoing regarding the establishment of a ceasefire and the provision of a safe humanitarian corridor.”
Russia violated the deal on Volnovakha, Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told reporters. “We call on the Russian side to stop firing,” she said. Meanwhile, the Russian edition of RIA Novosti published a statement from the Russian Ministry of Defense that the shooting was carried out from inside both settlements at Russian positions.
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The fight to maintain the ceasefire has shown the fragility of efforts to end hostilities across Ukraine as people continue to flee the country by the thousands.
“We are doing everything on our part to make the agreement work,” Zelensky said. “This is one of the main tasks for today. Let’s see if we can move forward in the negotiation process.”
Mariupol has been the scene of mounting suffering amid days of shelling that cut off electricity and most telephone service and increased the likelihood of food and water shortages for hundreds of thousands of people in freezing weather. Pharmacies have run out of medicines, Doctors Without Borders said.
A senior official in Mariupol said the evacuation was scheduled to begin at 11:00 (9:00 GMT) and the ceasefire would last until 16:00 (14:00 GMT). Pavel Kirilenko, head of the Donetsk military-civilian administration, which includes the city, said the humanitarian corridor would extend to Zaporozhye, 226 kilometers (140 miles) away.
MAP: Locations of known Russian military strikes and ground attacks
The head of the Security Council of Ukraine, Oleksiy Danilov, called on Russia to create humanitarian corridors so that children, women and the elderly can flee the fighting, calling it “issue #1.”
Diplomatic efforts continued when US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Poland for a meeting with the prime minister and foreign minister, a day after attending a NATO meeting in Brussels where the alliance pledged to increase support for members of the eastern flank. Blinken will visit the border post to meet with the refugees later in the day.
As Russian forces attack strategic targets elsewhere, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has lashed out at NATO for refusing to impose a no-fly zone over his country, warning that “all the people who die from this day will also die because of you.” “.
NATO has said the no-fly zone could spark a full-scale war in Europe with nuclear-armed Russia. But as the US and other NATO members send weapons to Kyiv and more than 1 million refugees spread across the continent, the conflict is already being drawn into countries far beyond Ukraine.
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Russia continues to crack down on independent media reporting on the war, as well as blocking Facebook and Twitter, and more media outlets say they are suspending their operations domestically.
And, warning of a coming hunger crisis, the UN World Food Program says that millions of people in Ukraine, the world’s largest supplier of wheat, will need food aid “immediately.”
On Saturday, the President of Ukraine held a video conference call with US senators as Congress considers a request for $10 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian and security needs.
In a bitter and emotional speech late Friday, Zelenskiy criticized NATO for not having a no-fly zone, warning that “the history of Europe will remember this forever.”
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The no-fly zone will prevent all unauthorized aircraft from flying over Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg ruled out such a possibility. “The only way to create a no-fly zone is to send NATO fighters into Ukrainian airspace and then enter that no-fly zone by shooting down Russian planes,” he said.
In a separate video message to anti-war demonstrators in several European cities, Zelenskiy asked for help. “If we fall, you fall too,” he said.
The UN Security Council scheduled an open meeting for Monday on the deteriorating humanitarian situation. The UN estimates that 12 million people in Ukraine and 4 million fleeing to neighboring countries will need humanitarian assistance in the coming months.
Friday’s Russian attack on Ukraine’s largest nuclear power plant in Zaporozhye sparked global alarm, but Russian forces have made little headway in an offensive to cut off Ukraine’s access to the Black and Azov Seas, which would deal a severe blow to the country’s economy.
The massive Russian armored column threatening the Ukrainian capital has halted outside Kyiv, but the Russian military has launched hundreds of rocket and artillery strikes on cities and other targets across the country.
When houses in the northern city of Chernihiv burned in what locals described as Russian shelling, one resident accused Europe of just looking at them. “We wanted to join NATO and the EU, and this is the price we pay, and NATO cannot protect us,” she said.
At least 331 civilians have been confirmed dead since the fighting began, but the real number is likely much higher, the UN Human Rights Office said.
Kyiv’s central railway station is still crowded with people desperate to join the more than 1.4 million people who have fled Ukraine. “People just want to live,” said one woman, Xenia.
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