23/3/2022–|Last update: 23/3/202204:09 AM (Mecca)
It was reported that some areas of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol were reduced to ashes due to the violent Russian bombing, and while the Ukrainian president was invited to speak before a NATO summit, the Kremlin threatened to use nuclear weapons if Russia was threatened.
Amid efforts to end the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said peace talks with Russia to end the month-old war were “difficult and sometimes confrontational”.
According to Western officials, the Russian forces have faltered in the vicinity of Kyiv, but are making some progress in the south and east.
According to Western sources, the Ukrainian fighters are confronting the Russian forces in some places, but they cannot defeat them.
Here are the latest developments on the 28th day of this war:
Street fight
Intense Russian air strikes hit the besieged port city of Mariupol, Ukrainian officials said, with street fighting erupting a day after the city rejected Moscow’s demand to surrender.
The city council said the bombing had reduced Mariupol to “ashes”.
RIA quoted a separatist leader as saying that Russian forces and Russian-backed separatist units had taken nearly half of the city.
Pavlo Kirilenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, said there was street fighting there, and that civilians as well as Ukrainian forces were coming under Russian fire.
And Reuters news agency reported that the plight of civilians in Mariupol has worsened. The city was inhabited by 400,000 people, and hundreds of thousands are believed to be trapped inside the buildings without food, water, electricity or heating.
“There is nothing left there,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a video address to the Italian parliament.
The city’s deputy mayor, Sergey Orlov, told CNN that the city was under complete siege and had not received any humanitarian aid.
Orlov added, “The city is under constant bombardment. Russian planes drop between 50 and 100 bombs a day. Many people have been killed, and many horrific war crimes have occurred.”
The United Nations Human Rights Office in Geneva said it had recorded 953 civilians killed and 1,557 wounded since the war began. The Kremlin denies targeting civilians.
NATO meeting
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has been invited to address the leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who will gather Thursday for an extraordinary summit devoted to Russia’s war on Ukraine, NATO said Tuesday.
A NATO official said, “President Zelensky is invited to address the NATO Summit via video link.”
“It will be an opportunity for allied leaders to hear directly from President Zelensky about the catastrophic situation in which the Ukrainian people are living due to Russian aggression,” he added, adding that allies who provide “a significant amount of essential military equipment” to Ukraine will study what they can do to “strengthen” their support.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky:
- Peace talks with Russia to end the month-old war are “difficult and confrontational at times.”
- The humanitarian aid that we receive is not enough for the growing needs.
- Only about 7,000 people were evacuated with great difficulty today from the city of Mariupol, and 100,000 people are trying to get out because of the battles.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov:
- No one had ever thought that the operation in Ukraine would take only two days, and that the campaign was still going according to plan
- Russian President Vladimir Putin may resort to nuclear weapons if Russia is exposed to an “existential danger”, without clarifying what is meant by this.
