Fighting surges around Kyiv ahead of peace talks

KYIV • Ukraine warned yesterday that the humanitarian crisis in the pulverised city of Mariupol was "catastrophic", as fighting surged around Kyiv ahead of new face-to-face peace talks with Russia in Turkey.

Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the peril facing the capital despite an apparent retreat in Moscow's war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine.

"The enemy is trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv and block transport routes," Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said. "The defence of Kyiv continues. It is very serious today," she said. "It is extremely difficult for the enemy, but we must be honest about the fact that the enemy is trying to capture Kyiv, because to capture Kyiv is essentially a captured Ukraine, and this is their goal."

About 20,000 Ukrainians have been killed in Russia's month-old invasion and 10 million have fled their homes, according to Kyiv, and several cities are still coming under withering bombardment.

The Mayor of Irpin, near Kyiv, said yesterday Ukrainian forces had seized back full control of the town which has been one of the main fighting hot spots.

"We have good news - Irpin has been liberated," Mayor Oleksandr Markushyn said in a video post on Telegram. "We understand that there will be more attacks on our town and we will defend it courageously." The information could not immediately be verified by Reuters.

As the conflict enters its second month, Russian forces have largely failed in their first aim to take the largest cities and have narrowed immediate targets to the sieges of the southern port city of Mariupol and the strategically placed city of Chernihiv in the north. Russia's military signalled last week it was shifting focus to expanding territory held by separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Last week, Ukrainian forces went on the offensive, pushing Russian troops back in areas around Kyiv, the north-east and the south-west.

Russia has, meanwhile, kept up pressure in the south-east near separatist areas, including its devastating siege of Mariupol, which has been razed to the ground. Mayor Vadym Boichenko said 160,000 civilians were still trapped there, without water, heat and power. Twenty-six buses were waiting to evacuate them but Russian forces had not agreed to give them safe passage.

"The situation in the city remains difficult. People are beyond the line of humanitarian catastrophe," Mr Boichenko said on national television.

"We need to completely evacuate Mariupol."

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said there were no plans to open corridors to evacuate civilians from besieged cities yesterday, because of intelligence reports of possible Russian "provocations" along the routes.

Elsewhere, Russia's armoured columns are bogged down, with trouble resupplying and making little or no progress, despite pounding residential areas.

"As of today, the enemy is regrouping its forces, but they cannot advance anywhere in Ukraine," Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said yesterday.

Separately, Britain's defence ministry yesterday said there had been no major change in Russia's positions in the past 24 hours, with most Russian gains near Mariupol and heavy fighting underway there.

Meanwhile, in north-eastern Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city and one of its hardest hit, people were sweeping rubble out of a classroom on the third storey of a school, where a wall had been blown out by a missile before dawn. "This is a civilian target. It's a school! They've not been able to take the city, so they've decided to destroy it," said a resident, Oleksandr, who had been sheltering with his mother at the school.

Seven people, including two children, died in artillery fire in Kharkiv on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported.

In the south, Ukrainian forces were focused on defending the cities of Krivy Rih, Zaporizhzhia and Mykolayiv.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS, NYTIMES