Russia launches fierce rocket attack on Ukrainian city of Kharkiv
Russian forces have launched a heavy bombardment of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, an assault that overshadowed the first direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials since President Vladimir Putin began his invasion five days ago.
Residents of the city said they had come under intense artillery and rocket fire from Russian positions on Monday. Video footage shared on social media showed high-rise apartment blocks in Kharkiv being hit by heavy shelling that shrouded the sky with plumes of dark smoke.
Other images from the city showed two corpses lying in pools of blood by a road. “There are lots of dead bodies, civilians,” said Andriy, a local contacted by phone from inside Kharkiv. He said the shelling targeted all of the city’s northern outskirts.
“The Russians have effectively surrounded Kharkiv and are bombing the hell out of it,” said Sasha Grinshpun, a resident who fled the city but is in contact with friends and relatives caught up in the bombardment.
As Russia faced increasing international isolation over its invasion of Ukraine, French president Emmanuel Macron phoned Putin to demand he end the offensive, Macron’s office said.
He urged the Russian leader to stop all strikes against civilians, preserve civilian infrastructure and provide safe access to key roads, especially south of Kyiv, Macron’s office added. The Elysée said that Putin “confirmed his willingness to pursue these three points”.
According to the Kremlin readout of the conversation, Putin told Macron that a settlement was possible “only if Russia’s legitimate security interests are unconditionally taken into account, including the recognition of Russian sovereignty over Crimea, the solution of the tasks of demilitarisation and denazification of the Ukrainian state and ensuring its neutral status”.
“At the same time, it was noted that the Russian side is open to negotiations with representatives of Ukraine and expects that they will lead to the desired results,” the Kremlin added.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiations held talks on Monday near the Belarus border, which Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s office said were aimed at securing a ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukrainian territory.
After the talks concluded late in the day, Mykhailo Podolyak, an aide to Zelensky, said the delegations would return to their respective capitals for consultations. “The talks are difficult … The Russians unfortunately still have an extremely non-objective view of the destructive processes they have unleashed,” he said.
Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin and leader of the Russian delegation, will report on the talks to Putin later on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Medinsky said the talks would continue and that the sides found “some points on which it’s possible to find common ground,” according to Interfax.
But hopes of a breakthrough in the talks remain slim considering Russia’s stated war aims. Putin has demanded the surrender of Ukraine’s army and the removal of the country’s government.
The talks were the first since Putin launched the biggest attack on a European state since the second world war, pouring thousands of troops into Ukraine and shelling its cities. After the west imposed swingeing sanctions on Russia, Putin put the country’s nuclear deterrent on high alert.
A barrage of international sanctions aimed at Russian banks, companies and individuals sent the rouble into a tailspin and prompted the Russian central bank to impose capital controls.
While Russia has made some military gains in southern Ukraine, the pace of its advance has slowed and it is yet to take any big Ukrainian population centres, with the capital, Kyiv, still under government control.
Zelensky said on Monday that Ukraine was braced for a crucial 24 hours, as Russian troops stepped up efforts to encircle the capital.
The bulk of Putin’s ground forces remained more than 30km north of Kyiv, according to a UK Ministry of Defence assessment, their advance frustrated by logistical failures and staunch Ukrainian resistance.
Reinforcements were expected on Monday to buttress what appears to be Russia’s objective of taking Kyiv in order to force a surrender.
In southern Ukraine, Russian attempts to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea appeared to be having more success. Its forces have captured the towns of Berdyansk, on the Sea of Azov, and Enerhodar, according to a Russian defence ministry statement.
Reports suggested that the port of Mariupol, the last big stronghold of Ukrainian resistance that has stopped Russia from connecting the eastern border region of Donbas to Crimea, was surrounded.
Ukraine’s military said Russian troops continued to attack airports, air defence systems, critical infrastructure and residential areas around the country, and had launched missile strikes on buildings in the cities of Zhytomyr and Chernihiv.
Russian and Ukrainian military claims cannot be independently verified.
But the bombardment of Kharkiv appeared to be particularly intense. “The situation is difficult but Kharkiv is holding on,” said Ihor Terekhov, the city’s mayor. Residential areas were being hit by shelling, with 16 local civilians wounded and one woman killed in the attack, he added.
One doctor working at a Kharkiv hospital said it had admitted at least 17 people injured by shelling, and that a 17-year-old girl had been killed after being hit in the chest.
“This is a Russian-speaking region of Ukraine,” the doctor said. “All this situation feels like an illusion. It feels like we are dreaming.”
Kyiv, in contrast, experienced a day of relative calm. A curfew imposed on Saturday was lifted on Monday, allowing local residents to leaving their homes to stock up on supplies.
Russia’s armed forces denied claims that they had encircled the capital and said civilians could safely leave on the highway to the town of Vasylkiv, scene of heavy weekend fighting.
Jens Stoltenberg, Nato’s secretary-general, said on Monday that the alliance was stepping up its support for Ukraine, with air-defence missiles, anti-tank weapons and humanitarian and financial aid.
