Attacks and curfew in kyiv before resuming a new round of negotiations

The Russian and Ukrainian delegations plan to resume talks on Tuesday with the aim of reaching a ceasefire, but the conflict, which started 20 days ago, is intensifying, especially in kyiv and its region, the target of intense Russian attacks.

In addition, this Tuesday the figure of three million people fled from Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian offensive was exceeded, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), an agency of the HIM-HER-IT.

Among them are 1.4 million children. That is to say, at the moment in Ukraine almost every second, a child becomes a refugee, said James Elder, spokesman for Unicef.

Added to those who have fled outside the country are the internally displaced persons and the victims, impossible to calculate reliably at the moment. This Tuesday, two people died in the bombing of a building in the Sviatoshin district, in the west of the capital, where 27 people could be rescued unharmed. The 15-storey building burned down after shelling, according to the Ukrainian rescue services.

“At 04:20 in the morning, everything shook strongly. I got up, my daughter ran and asked me: “Are you alive?” But in one of the rooms we couldn’t get my son-in-law and grandson out, so we broke up the doors and they were able to get out,” Lyubov Gura, 73, who lived on the 11th floor and was able to be rescued by medical personnel, told AFP.

In front of a house, a corpse wrapped in a black plastic bag lay on the ground.

Another nine-storey building was hit in the Podil district to the northwest, closer to the city center. One person was treated and hospitalized, according to emergency services.

The explosion shattered the windows of several buildings, AFP found. In the early hours of the morning, several people were throwing rubble from the destroyed floors of the building out of the windows.

Curfew in Kyiv

The mayor of the city, Vitali Klichkó, ​​declared a 35-hour curfew from 8:00 p.m. on Tuesday for the particularly “dangerous” moment in the capital, where at least half the population has already fled. .

The city receives on Tuesday the prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia, who traveled by train to meet with Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmygal, said a statement from the Polish presidency.

The purpose of the visit is “to reaffirm the unequivocal support of the whole of the European Union (EU) to the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine and present a set of measures to support the Ukrainian state and society,” according to the text.

The visit, the first by foreign leaders to kyiv since the start of the war, comes ahead of Tuesday’s resumption of Russian-Ukrainian talks, interrupted the day before. The Kremlin said it had “no prediction” about the outcome.

The talks are being held by video conference after three face-to-face rounds in neighboring Belarus and a meeting last Thursday in Turkey of the heads of Russian and Ukrainian diplomacy.

President Zelensky assured that the Russians “have begun to understand that they will not achieve anything with the war.”

“I have been told that [las conversaciones en curso] they went quite well,” the head of state said. “But we will wait and see,” he added.

His Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putinhad also mentioned “progress” in the talks on Friday.

But Russia has at the same time extended its offensive to the entire country and on Monday the Kremlin even spoke of the possibility of taking under “full control” the main cities that are already surrounded.

Since Friday, the fighting has spread to the west of the country. An attack on a television tower near northwestern Rivne on Monday left 19 dead and nine injured, according to local authorities.

In the large eastern city of Dnipro, relatively untouched until now, the airport was bombed on Tuesday, causing “mass destruction”, according to its mayor, who did not immediately mention casualties.

In the south, the Russians continue to try to take Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of ​​Azov, which has been under siege for days.

But, according to the Ukrainian General Staff, they have lost 150 soldiers in the offensive and have “withdrawn”. This information could not be verified by independent sources.

A humanitarian aid convoy, which has been trying to reach the city for days, was blocked again on Monday by Russian soldiers in Berdyansk, 85 km from Mariupol, according to Ukrainian authorities.

However, some 160 cars were able to leave the city, where thousands of residents live in basements, without water, electricity, heat or food.

protest on television

In Russia, a woman, identified by the NGO OVD-Info as Marina Ovsiannikova, broke into the set of a major television network on Monday night with a poster criticizing the offensive in Ukraine.

“No to war. Don’t believe the propaganda. Here they are lying to you,” read the banner. Video of the incident went viral on social media, with many praising her “extraordinary courage.”

The use of the word “war” in the Russian media or by private individuals to describe Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is now punishable by prosecution and heavy penalties. Russian authorities refer to their offensive in Ukraine as a “special military operation.”

A fourth set of EU sanctions was scheduled to come into force on Tuesday, with measures against access to the Russian luxury goods market or on the country’s presence in international financial institutions.

In Barcelona (Spain) the yacht of a Russian oligarch valued at almost 140 million dollars (about 128 million euros) was seized on Monday as part of the sanctions, according to the president of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sanchez. “And there’s more to come,” she warned.

According to the Spanish newspaper El País, it is the yacht “Valerie”, which would be related to Sergei Chemezov, head of the Russian defense industry conglomerate Rostec, and an ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

The sanctions applied so far have already frozen some $300 billion of Russian reserves abroad, which could prevent Russia from meeting several foreign-exchange debt payments in March and April.

Russia on Monday accused Western countries of trying to cause an “artificial” default with its sanctions.

Oil prices, which had skyrocketed since the start of the Russian invasion, fell again and on Tuesday, a barrel of WTI, the reference in the United States, was again below 100 dollars.