Ukraine retakes Kyiv suburb and clings on to Mariupol amid siege

KYIV • Ukrainian forces recaptured a key Kyiv suburb and desperately clung on to control of the besieged city of Mariupol, as tenacious defenders blocked more gains by the Russians yesterday.

The Ukrainian troops "liberated" the hot-spot town of Irpin, Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said, wresting a key gateway to Kyiv's north-west from Russian control.

AFP journalists witnessed continued heavy shelling in the area and encountered fleeing residents, who described hellish scenes of bombs raining from the sky and people killed in cold blood while trying to escape.

"We saw those cars which tried to get out on their own; they were crushed by tanks, with people inside," said 55-year-old Roman Molchanov, his voice cracking with emotion.

Western experts described the loss of Irpin as a significant setback for Russian forces, who are still trying to regroup after a failed first attempt to encircle the capital.

It is now more than a month since Russian President Vladimir Putin's tanks rolled into Ukraine, hoping to cripple or oust the democratic government in Kyiv.

Russia promised at peace talks in Istanbul yesterday to drastically scale down its military operations around Kyiv and the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, while Ukraine proposed neutral status, with international guarantees to protect it from attack.

Elsewhere in the fighting, Russia said it destroyed a fuel depot in western Ukraine's Rivne region.

Also, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Russia had degraded Ukraine's military and would respond if Nato, the US-led military alliance in Europe, supplied Ukraine with planes and air defence systems.

In the southern port of Mykolaiv, a Russian rocket hit an administration building, killing three people and wounding 22, emergency services said.

The fighting since the start of the Russian invasion has already killed an estimated 20,000 people and forced more than 10 million from their homes, with more than three million of them fleeing abroad.

Ukrainian officials still believe that Russia wants to take the capital Kyiv, dismissing suggestions the Kremlin is focused on the eastern Donbass region.

Capturing "Kyiv is essentially a captured Ukraine, and this is their goal", said Ukraine's Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar, insisting Russia was still "trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv and block transport routes".

On Monday, Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the continued peril facing the capital.

While Ukraine's forces are counter-attacking in the north, they are struggling to retain control of the southern port city of Mariupol.

Russian forces have encircled the city and have embarked on a steady and indiscriminate bombardment, trapping an estimated 160,000 people with little food, water or medicine.

At least 5,000 people have already died in Mariupol, according to one senior Ukrainian official who estimated the real toll may be closer to 10,000 when all the bodies are collected.

Local lawmaker Kateryna Sukhomlynova told AFP that unburied bodies line streets and residents cowering in basement shelters have been forced to eat snow to stay hydrated.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG