Fighting for Ukraine’s cities is thundering in their suburbs, with Ukrainian military retaking a key neighborhood near Kyiv and invading Russian forces stepping up airstrikes that have claimed scores of lives and forced more than 3.5 million people to flee .
Ukraine’s military said early Tuesday it had driven Russian troops out of a strategically important Kyiv suburb. However, Russian forces managed to partially capture three northwestern suburbs where fighting has been going on for weeks.
Civilians making the perilous escape from the embattled southern port city of Mariupol described their escape through firefights from street to street and past unburied bodies, while a steady Russian bombardment tried to subdue the city. There were no immediate signs of a diplomatic breakthrough that might bring even temporary relief.
Here are some important things to know about the conflict:
WHY DO SUBURBS BECOME BATTLEFIELDS?
The suburbs could be an obstacle to Ukraine’s cities or a gateway to Russian troops, with the capital Kyiv seen as Moscow’s top military target in Vladimir Putin’s war.
Outside devastated Mariupol, the Kremlin’s ground offensive has slowly advanced, repelled by deadly hit-and-run attacks by Ukrainians.
The regained suburb of Kyiv allowed Ukrainian forces to regain control of a key westbound highway and prevent Russian troops from encircling the capital from the north-west.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces advancing on Kyiv were able to partially take the northwestern suburbs of Bucha, Hostomel and Irpin, some of which had been under attack almost since Russian military invasion on February 24.
Nonetheless, Putin’s forces are increasingly concentrating their air force and artillery on Ukraine’s cities and the civilian population living there.
A senior US defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the military’s assessment, said Russia has ramped up air sorties in recent days, conducting as many as 300 over the weekend.
WHAT’S THE LATEST ABOUT MARIUPOL?
The Russian attack has turned life in Mariupol into a struggle for survival.
Electricity, water and food supplies were cut off, as were communications with the outside world. It is unclear how many remain of the city with a pre-war population of 430,000. About a quarter are believed to have fled early in the war, and tens of thousands more have fled via humanitarian corridors in the past week. Mariupol City Council says several thousand residents were taken to Russia against their will.
Other escape attempts were foiled by Russian attempts to force Mariupol into submission. The British Ministry of Defense announced in a social media post on Tuesday that Moscow had failed to do this. But Russia for now controls the land corridor from Crimea, the peninsula it annexed in 2014, and blocks Ukraine’s access to the Sea of Azov.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees said on Tuesday that more than 3.5 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia invaded.
Those who made it out of Mariupol described a devastated landscape.
“There are no more buildings there,” said 77-year-old Maria Fiodorova, who crossed the border into Poland on Monday after a five-day journey.
WHAT DID THE AP DIRECTLY OBSERVE OR CONFIRM?
In the Russian-held southern city of Kherson on Monday, Russian forces shot into the air and fired stun grenades at protesters who were shouting “Go home!” Earlier this month, Kherson became the first major city to fall victim to the Russian offensive.
In Kyiv, a shopping mall in the densely populated Podil district near the city center remained a smoking ruin after it was hit by shelling late Sunday that killed eight, emergency services said. The attack shattered every window in a neighboring high-rise building.
WHERE’S THE WHEAT?
Russia’s war in Ukraine has threatened grain supplies from a region known as the “granary of the world,” forcing farmers and governments to reconsider crop planning to offset losses from conflict, drought and soaring fuel prices.
Ukraine and Russia account for a third of global wheat and barley exports, which countries in Asia, Africa and the Middle East depend on to feed millions of people in need. About half of the grain the World Food Program buys to feed 125 million people worldwide comes from Ukraine. The double whammy of soaring food prices and depressed wheat exports from the war is a recipe for “disaster not just in Ukraine but potentially worldwide,” the UN food agency chief warned.
Big grain producers like the United States, Canada, France, Australia and Argentina are being closely watched to see if they can quickly ramp up production to fill the gaps caused by lost Ukrainian and Russian supplies.
WHAT ABOUT DIPLOMACY?
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday he was ready to discuss a pledge by Ukraine not to seek NATO membership in exchange for a ceasefire, the withdrawal of Russian troops and a guarantee of Ukraine’s security.
“It’s a compromise for everyone: for the West, which doesn’t know what to do with us in relation to NATO, for Ukraine, which wants security guarantees, and for Russia, which doesn’t want any further NATO expansion,” Zelensky said.
He also reiterated his call for direct talks with Putin. Without a meeting with the Russian president, it is impossible to understand whether Russia wants to end the war at all, Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy also said Kyiv will be ready to discuss the status of Crimea and the eastern Donbass region held by Russian-backed separatists following a ceasefire and steps to provide security guarantees.
The Kremlin calls on Ukraine to disarm and declare itself neutral.
US President Joe Biden is traveling to Europe this week, where he will attend a summit with NATO leaders who are looking at ways to bolster the bloc’s own deterrence and defenses to deal with the now openly confrontational Putin.
The Kremlin was annoyed by statements made by the Americans. Russia’s foreign ministry has warned that relations with the US are “on the verge of a rupture” and summoned the US ambassador.
Biden has visited Poland during his trip and visited a key Ukraine ally that has taken in more than 2 million Ukrainian refugees.
TAKE MY NOBEL
Russian journalist Dmitry Muratov plans to auction his 2021 Nobel Peace Prize medal to raise funds for Ukrainian refugees.
Muratov called on Tuesday in the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta, which he publishes, to “share with refugees, the wounded and children who urgently need treatment”. Last year he said he was giving away his share of the Nobel Prize money to charities including independent media, a Moscow hospice and caring for children with spinal problems.
WHAT ABOUT THE SUPPORT TO RUSSIA?
A Serbian government minister said Belgrade will never impose sanctions or join Western “hysteria” against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, mirroring Moscow’s pro-war propaganda.
“Serbia will never be part of the anti-Russian hysteria stealing the property of Russian citizens and the property of the Russian Federation,” Interior Minister Aleksandar Vulin said on Tuesday.
Serbia, Russia’s traditional Balkan ally, has voted in favor of a UN General Assembly resolution condemning the invasion of Ukraine, but it is the only European nation to refuse to join international sanctions against the Kremlin.
HOW DOES PUTIN DEAL WITH THE FLOW OF NEWS?
International news channel Euronews says Russian authorities have blocked broadcasts in Russia.
The channel condemned the restriction on Tuesday on behalf of “millions of people in Russia who have come to rely on us for impartial news in a context of heightened disinformation and propaganda.”
Euronews is broadcast in 160 countries.
Putin has escalated a crackdown on media and individuals who fail to take the Kremlin line on Russia’s war in Ukraine. He has blocked Facebook and Twitter and signed a law criminalizing the willful dissemination of reports that Moscow deems “fake”.
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