First round of talks with Russia concludes with more possible, Ukraine says
Ukrainian and Russian national flags are placed on the table ahead of peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations (Seregi Kholodilin/AP)
The first round of talks aimed at stopping the fighting between Ukraine and Russia ended Monday with no agreement except to keep talking, while an increasingly isolated Moscow ran into unexpectedly fierce resistance on the ground and economic havoc at home.
Five days into Russia’s invasion, the Kremlin again raised the specter of nuclear war, while an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move unlikely to sit well with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long accused the US of trying to pull Ukraine out of Russia’s orbit.
A top Putin aide and head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the talks lasted nearly five hours and that the envoys “found certain points on which common positions could be foreseen.” He said they agreed to continue the discussions in the coming days.
As the talks wrapped up, several blasts could be heard in Kyiv, though few details were immediately known.
Russian troops, who are attacking Ukraine on multiple fronts, have been advancing slowly on the capital city of 3 nearly million people.
On Monday, a 17-mile convoy consisting of hundreds of armored vehicles, tanks, artillery and support vehicles was just 17 miles from the center of Kyiv, according to satellite imagery from the Maxar company.
The images also captured signs of fighting outside Kyiv, including destroyed vehicles and a damaged bridge.
Messages aimed at the advancing Russian soldiers popped up on billboards, bus stops and electronic traffic signs across the capital. Some used profanity to encourage Russians to leave. Others appealed to their humanity.
“Russian soldier — Stop! Remember your family. Go home with a clean conscience,” one read.
In the resort town of Berdyansk, on the shore of the Azov Sea, residents described the soldiers who captured their town Sunday as exhausted young conscripts.
“Frightened kids, frightened looks. They want to eat,” Konstantin Maloletka, who runs a small shop, said by telephone.
The soldiers went into a supermarket and grabbed canned meat, vodka and cigarettes.
“They ate right in the store,” he said. “It looked like they haven’t been fed in recent days.”
Meanwhile, social media video from Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, showed residential areas being shelled, with apartment buildings shaken by repeated, powerful blasts.
Authorities in Kharkiv said at least seven people had been killed and dozens injured. They warned that casualties could be far higher.
“They wanted to have a blitzkrieg, but it failed, so they act this way,” said 83-year-old Valentin Petrovich, using just his first name and his Russian-style middle name because of fear for his safety.
He described watching the shelling from his downtown apartment.
The Russian military has denied targeting residential areas despite abundant evidence of shelling of homes, schools and hospitals
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