Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that talks between Ukraine and Russia are confrontational but moving forward amid worsening humanitarian crisis in Mariupol city.
“Sustained Russian air attacks have turned Mariupol into the “ashes of a dead land”, the city council said on Tuesday. Hundreds of thousands are believed to be trapped inside buildings without food and water, home to about 400,000 people, according to the regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko.
Russian forces and Russian-backed separatist units had taken about half of the port city, Russia’s RIA news agency said, citing a separatist leader.
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But in an early morning address, Zelenskyy held out hope for negotiations with Moscow, which have so far made little progress.
“It’s very difficult, sometimes confrontational,” he said. “But step by step we are moving forward.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he also saw progress in the talks. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, which began on February 24, has forced more than 3.5 million to flee overseas, brought on the unprecedented isolation of Russia’s economy, and raised fears of a wider European conflict.
The United Nations human rights office in Geneva said on Tuesday it had recorded 953 civilian deaths and 1,557 injured since the invasion. However, Russia denies targeting civilians.
