KYIV —
Russia and Ukraine met Monday for their first talks since the outbreak of war
last week, with Kyiv demanding an “immediate ceasefire” as the number of
refugees fleeing the country hit more than 500,000.
اضافة اعلان
As the
delegations arrived for talks on the border between
Belarus and Ukraine on day
five of Moscow’s invasion, the Ukrainian presidency demanded the ceasefire “and
the withdrawal of troops” — which Moscow is almost certain to reject.
“I do not really
believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try,” Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelensky has said.
Severe financial
sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow showed their impact on financial
markets on Monday morning, with the Russian ruble collapsing to a record low
and the Russian central bank more than doubling interest rates to 20 percent.
The sanctions
targeting the Russian financial sector are intended to change the calculus of
Kremlin leader
Vladimir Putin, but on the ground the roughly 100,000 Russian
troops thought to be inside Ukraine continued an invasion from the north, east
and south.
Western defense
officials and the Kyiv government say battling
Ukrainian troops have kept the
country’s major cities out of Russian hands despite incursions in the capital
Kyiv and the second largest city, Kharkiv, over the weekend.
“The Russian
occupiers have reduced the pace of the offensive,” the general staff of the
Ukrainian armed forces said Monday, again claiming that Moscow had suffered
“heavy losses”.
The small
southern city of
Berdyansk has been occupied by Russian soldiers, however,
Ukrainian officials said.
In the capital
Monday, after a relatively calm evening, people rushed out to buy food after
the lifting of a strict blanket curfew-imposed Saturday, with local forces
given shoot-on-sight orders over the weekend.
Amid reports of
further Russian troop movements towards Kyiv, Moscow said it had now “gained
air superiority over the entire territory of
Ukraine”, while accusing Ukrainian
troops of using civilians as human shields.
Putin on Sunday
ordered Russia’s nuclear forces onto high alert in response to what he called
“unfriendly” steps by the West, whose unity and speed in imposing sanctions on
the Russian economy has surprised observers.
“The Western
sanctions on Russia are hard, but our country has the necessary potential to
compensate the damage,” Kremlin spokesman
Dmitry Peskov told journalists
Monday.
Economic pressure
The UN’s refugee agency
UNHCR said over half a million people have fled Ukraine since the invasion
Thursday.
“More than 500,000 refugees have now fled from
Ukraine into neighboring countries,” UN refugee chief Filippo Grandi said in a
tweet.
The grim figure came as talks got underway at the
Belarus-Ukraine border on Monday included Ukraine’s defense minister and other
officials from Ukraine and Russia.
Kyiv had been initially reluctant to send a
delegation to Belarus, given the country’s role in facilitating Russia’s attack
on Ukraine by hosting troops and weaponry used in the invasion.
“We definitely have an interest in reaching some
agreements as soon as possible,” Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin who has
travelled to Belarus for the talks, said in televised remarks.
Zelensky meanwhile issued another video address,
wearing his now trademark green khaki sweatshirt, calling on the EU to agree to
“the immediate accession of Ukraine via a new special procedure”.
The head of the
European Commission, Ursula von der
Leyen, gave her personal support on Sunday in an interview with the Euronews
channel, but without specifying a timeframe.
“They are one of us and we want them in,” she
said.
The weekend featured a momentous series of
announcements from Europe, with Germany unveiling a historic change in its
security and defense policies and the EU saying it would buy and supply arms
for the first time.
“With the invasion of Ukraine, we are now in a new
era,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told parliament while announcing a huge
hike in military spending that reverses decades of reluctance to invest in
defense.
The EU announced it would provide 450 million euros
($500 million) for Ukraine to buy weapons, including Russian-made fighter jets
that Ukrainian pilots could operate.
It also announced restrictions on Kremlin-run media
outlets RT and Sputnik.
500,000 fled
International diplomacy is
set to continue Monday with the
UN General Assembly set to hold a rare
emergency session Monday to discuss the conflict.
Elsewhere, efforts to isolate
Moscow internationally
saw global football body FIFA order Russia to play its home international
fixtures in neutral venues and warned it was considering banning it from the
2022 World Cup.
Ukraine has reported 352 civilian deaths, including
14 children, while its army claims that it has killed 4,300 Russian troops.
Russia has acknowledged that a number of its forces
had been killed or injured, without giving figures.
The UN human rights chief
Michelle Bachelet said
Monday at least 102 civilians, including seven children, had been killed in
Ukraine.
Putin has said Russia’s actions are justified
because it is defending Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces
for eight years in a conflict that has killed more than 14,000 people.
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