Ukraine reported on Sunday that he agreed to a dialogue with Russia on the fourth day of the invasion of Russian troops against the neighboring country, while the Russian president Vladimir Putin ordered the military to place nuclear “deterrent forces” on alert.
The Ukrainian presidency reported that a delegation from the country will meet with Russian representatives at the border with Belarus, but did not specify when. Russian sources say they would start today.
The meeting, “without preconditions” according to Kiev, will take place in the Pripyat River region, near the exclusion zone of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. Although the Kremlin claims that it will be in Gomel, in Belarus.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmitro Kuleba has warned that his country will not “capitulate”.
“I say things clearly, as always: I don’t think it will work” but “we have to try,” Zelensky said in a video.
Given the shipments of aid and weapons to Ukraine and the sanctions decreed against Russia by several Western countries, Putin ordered the Defense Minister and the chief of the General Staff to put the army’s nuclear deterrent forces “on alert”, an “unacceptable” escalation in the words of the United States, and ” irresponsible” for NATO.
In his message on Sunday, the Pope FranciscoHe asked that “weapons be silenced”.
In Kiev, where there is a curfew until 06:00 on Monday (local time), the day was quiet, after a “hard” night with Russian bombing of residential areas, President Zelensky denounced, and the streets The city’s streets were empty, except for the few civilians who dared to go out to try to buy food, sometimes without success.
“Vasilkov, Kiev, Chernigov, Sumy, Kharkov and many other cities in Ukraine are living in conditions that we have not lived on our territory since World War II,” Zelensky said in a video released on Sunday.
Since the invasion began, Ukraine has reported 198 civilian deaths, including three children.
For its part, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported 240 civilians injured and 64 dead.
A foreign legion for Ukraine
In Kharkov, where about 1.4 million people live, the city’s governor reported that the Ukrainian forces managed to repel the Russians and are in “control” of the city.
For its part, Moscow claimed to have “completely” surrounded two large towns in the south, Kherson and Berdyansk, near the peninsula of crimea (annexed by Russia in 2014).
The Russian soldiers meet, however, a tenacious resistance. The Russian army admitted for the first time this Sunday having recorded human losses during its invasion of Ukraine, although without specifying figures.
“Unfortunately, there are dead and wounded. But our losses are much less” than in the Ukrainian countryside, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
Ukraine claims to have killed 4,300 Russian soldiers.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s General Staff said authorities are asking that any foreigner who wants to can come to the country and “fight side by side with Ukrainians against Russian war criminals.”
A wave of refugees
Meanwhile, the UN agency for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that more than 368,000 people have fled Ukraine and the flow continues to increase.
In Romania, Olga, 36, said she is one of the hundreds of people who crossed the Danube River with her three children to get to safety.
“My husband came with me to the border and then he went back to Kiev to fight,” she said.
Other refugees managed to reach Poland by train, by car and even on foot.
“There are attacks everywhere,” said Diana, a 37-year-old woman who fears for her mother who remained in Kiev.
Pope Francis called for humanitarian corridors to be opened “urgently”.
In cities such as Berlin, Prague, Madrid or Amsterdam there were massive demonstrations against the war and in support of Ukraine.
Forceful financial blockade
In response to the invasion, Western countries and their allies, such as Japan, announced to partially exclude Russia from the interbank messaging system. SWIFTkey in international transactions.
In the oil sector, the British BP announced on Sunday that it is withdrawing its capital from the Russian Rosneft, a stake that amounts to 19.75%.
“Russia has become an economic pariah,” a senior US official said on Saturday.
One day after Berlin promised to send weapons to the Ukrainians, the head of the government, Olaf Scholz, stated that the world had entered “a new era” and announced that his country would increase its military spending to “more than 2%” of its GDP per year.
On Sunday, the foreign ministers of the European Union meet again by videoconference to study support for Ukraine, while the UN Security Council will discuss the situation in that country.
The EU also announced that it is closing all its airspace to Russian planes and prohibiting the broadcasting of state media RT and Sputnik.
Russia invaded Ukraine after demanding for weeks that the NATO veto the admission of Ukraine and that the transatlantic alliance does not continue advancing towards its borders.
Putin recognized last Monday the independence of the two separatist regions in the east of Ukrainewhere pro-Russian forces and the Kiev army have clashed since 2014, in a conflict that has left more than 14,000 dead.
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