A narrow diplomatic path stayed open as Ukraine and Russia planned another round of talks and Moscow’s forces pounded away at cities across the country, including the capital, in a bombardment that deepened the humanitarian crisis. The latest negotiations, held via video conference, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first in a week. The talks ended Monday without a breakthrough after several hours, with an aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying the negotiators took “a technical pause” and planned to meet again Tuesday, the AP reports.
The two sides had expressed some optimism in the past few days. Mykhailo Podolyak, the aide to Zelenskyy, tweeted that the negotiators would discuss “peace, cease-fire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees.” Previous discussions, held in person in Belarus, produced no lasting humanitarian routes or agreements to end the fighting. In Washington, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that while the Biden administration supports Ukraine’s participation in the talks with Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin would have to show signs of de-escalating in order to demonstrate good faith.
Shortly before dawn on Tuesday, large explosions thundered across Kyiv while Russia pressed its advance on multiple fronts. Elsewhere, a convoy of 160 civilian cars left the encircled port city of Mariupol along a designated humanitarian route, the city council reported, in a rare glimmer of hope a week and a half into the lethal siege that has pulverized homes and other buildings and left people desperate for food, water, heat, and medicine. Overall, nearly all of the Russian military offensives remained stalled after making little progress over the weekend, according to a senior US defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the Pentagon's assessment. Russian troops were still about 9 miles from the center of Kyiv, the official said.
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