Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian offensive in Ukraine on Tuesday approached the center of Kyiv. A series of strikes hit residential areas as the leaders of three NATO member countries planned to visit the Ukrainian capital, where the fighting is taking place.
Shortly before dawn, strong explosions rocked Kiev, which Ukrainian authorities say were artillery strikes. An artillery shelling of a 15-story apartment building started a massive fire and frantic rescue work. At least one person has been killed, others remain trapped inside.
The shockwaves from the explosion also damaged the entrance to the downtown metro station, which was being used as a bomb shelter. City officials tweeted an image of the blasted facade, saying trains would no longer stop at the station.
The leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovakia travel to the Ukrainian capital on Tuesday on a European Union mission to show support for the country as Russian troops close in on Kiev.
“The purpose of the visit is to express the European Union’s unconditional support for Ukraine, its freedom and independence,” wrote Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala on Twitter.
He will be joined by Slovak Prime Minister Janez Jansa, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Polish Deputy Prime Minister for Security Affairs and leader of the conservative ruling party.
The Russian and Ukrainian negotiators also planned to hold a second day of talks as the Russian offensive in Ukraine enters its 21st day.
When Russia launched the war nearly three weeks ago, fear of an imminent invasion gripped the Ukrainian capital as residents slept night after night in subway stations or crammed into trains to flee. But when the Russian offensive faltered, there was relative calm in Kyiv. In recent days, fighting in the outskirts has intensified, and air raid sirens sound from time to time over the capital.
A rare glimmer of hope has dawned in the besieged port city of Mariupol after a convoy of 160 civilian vehicles left along a designated humanitarian route, the city council said. Over the past 10 days or so, a deadly siege has destroyed houses and other buildings, and people are in desperate need of food, water, warmth and medicine.
The latest talks between Russia and Ukraine, held via video link on Monday, were the fourth round involving senior officials from the two countries and the first in a week. The talks ended without a breakthrough hours later, when an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the negotiators had taken a “technical pause” and planned to meet again on Tuesday.
There has been some optimism on both sides in the past few days. Zelensky’s aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that the negotiators would discuss “peace, a ceasefire, an immediate withdrawal of troops and security guarantees.”
Previous discussions in person in Belarus have not led to solid humanitarian routes or cessation of hostilities agreements.
Zelenskiy wants to extend martial law until April 24 and require men between the ages of 18 and 60 to stay in the country to participate in hostilities. Zelenskiy has submitted the extension in the form of a bill to parliament, which is expected to vote this week.
In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that while the Biden administration supports Ukraine’s involvement in talks with Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin will have to show signs of de-escalation to show good faith.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan warned China against Russian aid during a meeting in Rome with a senior Chinese diplomat.
Two administration officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity when discussing confidential information, said China signaled to Moscow that it was ready to provide both military and financial support to Ukraine to help stave off the fallout from Western sanctions, which include a fourth set of sanctions. The EU sanctions were announced late on Monday evening.
The Kremlin denies asking China to provide military equipment for use in Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia was able to continue the operation itself, it “is unfolding according to plan and will be completed on time and in full.”
According to the Ukrainian military, the morning explosions in Kyiv were artillery strikes. They struck at the Svyatoshinsky district of the western part of Kyiv, adjacent to the suburb of Irpin, where some of the heaviest fighting of the war took place.
Flames erupted from the apartment building as firefighters climbed the stairs to rescue people. Smoke choked the air. A firefighter who arrived at the scene confirmed that one person died and several people were rescued, but others remained inside while rescuers tried to get to them.
Damage from unidentified munitions triggered a fire in a 10-story residential building in the Podolsky district of Kyiv, north of the government quarter. One person was hospitalized, according to the State Emergency Service.
Russian forces also stepped up strikes at night on the northwestern outskirts of Irpin, Gostomel and Bucha, said the head of the Kiev region, Alexei Kuleba.
“Many streets (in these areas) have turned into a mess of steel and concrete. People hide in basements for weeks and are afraid to even go out to evacuate,” Kuleba said on Ukrainian television.
But overall, almost all Russian offensives stalled after little progress over the weekend, according to a senior US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity about the Pentagon’s assessment. Russian troops were still about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from central Kyiv, the official said.
The official said Russian troops had fired more than 900 missiles, but Ukrainian airspace is still contested and Russia has not achieved full air superiority.
Ukrainian authorities said two people were killed when the Russians attacked an aircraft factory in Kyiv, causing a large fire. The Antonov plant is Ukraine’s largest aviation plant and produces many of the largest cargo aircraft in the world.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General’s Office on Tuesday released details of two deadly Russian attacks the day before. The department said that as a result of artillery shelling of the university and the open-air market, 10 people were killed, and a 65-year-old woman was injured on a bus that evacuated civilians from the suburbs of Kyiv.
Russian artillery shelling also hit a nine-story residential building in the northern Obolonsky district of the city, killing two more people, authorities said. According to officials, a deputy of the city council of the city of Brovary, east of Kyiv, was killed in the battle.
And a Russian airstrike near a Ukrainian checkpoint caused extensive damage to an area in central Kyiv, killing one person, Ukraine’s emergency agency said.
Katerina Lot said that she was in her apartment while her child was doing homework when they heard a loud explosion and ran for cover.
“The child became hysterical. Our windows and balcony were broken. Part of the floor fell down,” she said. “It was very, very scary.”
In a suburb of Kyiv, Fox News reporter Benjamin Hall was injured while reporting and hospitalized, according to the network.
In Russia, a live broadcast of the main evening news program on state television was briefly interrupted by a woman who entered the studio with a poster against the war. The OVD-Info website, which tracks political arrests, reports that she is an employee of Channel One, who was taken into police custody.
Airstrikes were reported across the country, including on Nikolaev in the south and Chernigov in the north, where most of the city was knocked out due to the heat. Explosions also took place at night around the Russian-occupied Black Sea port of Kherson.
According to the governor of the region, nine people were killed as a result of a rocket attack on a TV tower in the western village of Antopol.
In Mariupol, where the war has taken its toll, the city council did not say how many people were in the car convoy heading west towards Zaporozhye. But it says the ceasefire along the route appears to be holding.
Previous attempts to evacuate civilians and deliver humanitarian aid to the southern city of 430,000 have been thwarted by the fighting.
The Ukrainian military said it repelled Monday’s attempt to take control of Mariupol by Russian troops, who were forced to retreat. Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed fires raging throughout the city, with many high-rise residential buildings badly damaged or destroyed.
Ukraine claims that its forces killed 150 Russian troops and destroyed two Russian tanks in the battles for Mariupol.
The Kremlin-backed leader of the Russian region of Chechnya said on a messaging app that Chechen fighters are leading the offensive on Mariupol.
Robert Mardini, director-general of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the war had become “nothing less than a nightmare” for those living in besieged cities and called for safe escape corridors for civilians and the delivery of humanitarian aid. in.
“The situation cannot, cannot continue like this,” he said. “History is watching what happens in Mariupol and other cities.”
The Russian military said 20 civilians in the separatist-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine were killed by a ballistic missile launched by Ukrainian forces. The assertion cannot be independently verified.
The UN has recorded the deaths of at least 596 civilians since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24, though it believes the actual toll is much higher. Millions more fled their homes, with more than 2.8 million people fleeing to Poland and other neighboring countries in what the UN called the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.
The Russian army is larger and better equipped than the Ukrainian one, but its troops have faced stiffer-than-expected resistance, backed up by Western-supplied weapons.
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Associated Press writer Lolita S. Baldor in Washington DC and AP journalists from around the world contributed to this report.
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Follow AP reporting on the Ukraine crisis at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine.