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Russian forces intensified their shelling of key Ukrainian cities as they didn’t make “any noteworthy progress” in seizing territory, the US stated on Monday amid indicators Ukrainian non-combatants had been discovering it more and more tough to flee bombardment of civilian neighbourhoods.
John Kirby, the Pentagon spokesperson, stated whereas Russian troops had been making progress in southern Ukraine, together with tightening their grip round Mariupol and shifting nearer to the southern port of Odesa, they continued to be largely stymied within the north, the place they’re trying to encircle Kyiv.
“As they proceed to get annoyed, they proceed to rely extra on what we’d name long-range fires . . . missile strikes, long-range artillery into metropolis centres that they aren’t in but,” Kirby stated.
At a gathering of the UN Safety Council on Monday, assist officers stated the southern metropolis of Mariupol seemed to be the toughest hit, with a whole bunch of hundreds of residents trapped with out meals or water underneath close to fixed bombardment. Kharkiv and Melitopol had been additionally being intensively shelled.
The dangers to civilians from the escalating bombing marketing campaign has risen to the highest of the worldwide agenda after Ukrainian authorities rejected as “immoral and unacceptable” a proposal from Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, for so-called humanitarian corridors out of frontline cities.
Moscow provided to droop assaults on Kharkiv, Kyiv, Sumy and Mariupol on Monday morning and create transport corridors out of the cities, however many of the routes ended up in Russia. The Kremlin stated it will do the identical on Tuesday morning, Russian information company Tass reported.
Moscow claimed its provide of a ceasefire adopted “a private request” from Emmanuel Macron, president of France — a suggestion denied by Paris. Regardless of the provide, Ukrainian officers stated bombing continued after the supposed begin of the ceasefire.
Macron condemned the Kremlin’s provide as “ethical and political cynicism” and stated “I don’t know many Ukrainians who wish to take refuge in Russia” in an interview with LCI tv, including he had failed to steer Putin of the necessity for a ceasefire.
Ukrainian officers deal with such Russian affords with scepticism. Earlier Russian ceasefires have failed to carry, with each side buying and selling accusations that the opposite has violated their phrases.
The authorities in Mariupol, a port metropolis on the Sea of Azov which is totally encircled by Russian forces, tried on Saturday and Sunday to evacuate residents to security after Moscow stated it had known as a halt to shelling — and each occasions needed to abandon their makes an attempt when Russia resumed firing.
With concern rising over the humanitarian scenario in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden hosted a two-hour name with Macron and their British and German counterparts in an try to boost strain on Putin and co-ordinate a response.
“The main focus was considerations over additional Russian escalation and the query of humanitarian provides within the battle zones,” stated a spokesperson for Germany’s authorities. “It was agreed that the safety of the civilian inhabitants ought to have utmost precedence.”
The Russian shelling got here as negotiators for Kyiv and Moscow held a 3rd spherical of peace talks with none important breakthroughs. Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, stated there had been some “small constructive developments in bettering the logistics of humanitarian corridors”.
However Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation to the talks, informed Interfax that they “weren’t simple”, “fell wanting [Russia’s] expectations” and that it was “too quickly to speak of one thing constructive”.
Regardless of Russian advances within the south, US defence officers stated there was growing proof of morale issues amongst Russian troops, with Kirby saying the Pentagon believed many had been mislead concerning the goal of their deployments.
“It isn’t clear to us that the entire troopers that Russia has put into Ukraine realised that that’s what they had been doing, that they had been truly going to invade,” Kirby stated.
“They’re having morale issues, they’re having provide issues, they’re having gasoline issues, they’re having meals issues,” Kirby added. “They’re assembly very stiff and decided Ukrainian resistance, and we nonetheless preserve that they’re a number of days behind the place they most likely thought they had been going to be by way of their progress.”
The Pentagon on Monday stated almost 100 per cent of the Russian troops that had amassed on the border earlier than the invasion had now moved into Ukraine, a rise from 95 per cent on Sunday.
The Pentagon stated Russia had launched greater than 625 missile strikes in Ukraine because the invasion started. It accelerated the variety of launches from the weekend, after a tempo of roughly 20 a day on the finish of final week.
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