A top Ukrainian adviser and an Israeli official on Saturday pushed back against a media report suggesting Israel tried to nudge Ukraine into caving to Russian demands during talks.
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According to reports in Israeli media outlets, Bennett had urged a Ukrainian official to give in to Russia's demands.
Israel has been engaged in diplomatic efforts to try to end the war in Ukraine. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and spoken by phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Twitter, Ukrainian adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote that Israel, "just as other conditional intermediary countries, does NOT offer Ukraine to agree to any demands of the Russian Federation.
"This is impossible for military & political reasons. On the contrary, Israel urges Russia to assess the events more adequately," Podolyak tweeted.
A senior Israeli official called the report "patently false."
"At no point did Prime Minister Bennett advise President Zelenskyy to take a deal from Putin - because no such deal was offered to Israel for us to be able to do so," the official said.
"Bennett has at no point told Zelenskyy how to act, nor does he have any intention to."
While Bennett's mediation efforts had apparently stalled, earlier on Saturday, Zelenskyy said he had proposed to hold the talks in Jerusalem, according to a report by Barak Ravid of the Axios news site.
Continued dialogue with 🇮🇱 PM @naftalibennett. We talked about Russian aggression and the prospects for peace talks. We must stop repressions against civilians: asked to assist in the release of captive mayor of Melitopol and local public figures #StopRussia
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 12, 2022
Russian state media on Sunday said the country's forces had destroyed 3,687 Ukrainian military infrastructure facilities.
Russia bombarded cities across Ukraine on Saturday, pounding Mariupol in the south, shelling the outskirts of the capital, Kyiv, and thwarting the efforts of people trying to flee the violence.
In Mariupol, efforts to evacuate civilians and bring food, water, and medicine into the port city of 430,000 were prevented by incessant attacks. More than 1,500 people have died in Mariupol in the siege, according to the mayor's office, and the shelling has even interrupted efforts to bury the dead in mass graves.
French and German leaders spoke Saturday with Putin in a failed attempt to reach a cease-fire. According to the Kremlin, Putin laid out terms for ending the war. For ending hostilities, Moscow has demanded that Ukraine drop its bid to join NATO and adopt a neutral status; acknowledge the Russian sovereignty over Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine in 2014; recognize the independence of separatist regions in the country's east; and agree to demilitarize.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to break his country apart, as well as starting "a new stage of terror" with the alleged detention of a mayor from a city west of Mariupol.
Russian soldiers pillaged a humanitarian convoy attempting to reach Mariupol and blocked another, a Ukrainian official said. Ukraine's military said Russian forces captured Mariupol's eastern outskirts, tightening their siege of the strategic port. Taking Mariupol and other ports on the Azov Sea could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014.
Zelenskyy encouraged his people to keep up their resistance.
"We do not have the right to let up our defense, no matter how difficult it may be," he said. Later Saturday, Zelenskyy reported that 1,300 Ukrainian soldiers had died since the Russian invasion began on Feb. 24.
The first major city to fall, earlier this month, was Kherson, a vital Black Sea port of 290,000 residents. Zelenskyy said Saturday that Russians were using blackmail and bribery in an attempt to force local officials to form a "pseudo-republic" in the southern Kherson region, much like those in Donetsk and Luhansk, two eastern regions where pro-Russian separatists began fighting Ukrainian forces in 2014. One of the pretexts Russia used to invade was that it had to protect the separatist regions.
Zelenskyy again deplored the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's refusal to declare a no-fly zone over Ukraine. He said Ukraine has sought ways to procure air defense assets, though he didn't elaborate. US President Joe Biden announced another $200 million in aid to Ukraine, with an additional $13 billion included in a bill that has passed the House and should pass the Senate within days. NATO has said that imposing a no-fly zone could lead to a wider war with Russia.
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The Ukrainian president also accused Russia of detaining the mayor of Melitopol, a city west of Mariupol. The Ukrainian leader called on Russian forces to heed calls from demonstrators in the occupied city for the mayor's release.
In multiple areas around Kyiv, artillery barrages sent residents scurrying for shelter as air raid sirens wailed. Britain's Defense Ministry said Russian forces that had been massed north of the capital had edged to within 25 kilometers (15 miles) of the city center and spread out, likely to support an attempted encirclement.
A convoy of hundreds of people fleeing Peremoha, about 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Kyiv, was forced to turn back under shelling by Russian forces that killed seven people, including a child, Ukraine's Defense Ministry said Saturday. Moscow has said it would establish humanitarian corridors out of conflict zones, but Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of disrupting those paths and firing on civilians.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said just nine of 14 agreed-upon corridors were open on Saturday, and that about 13,000 people had used them to evacuate around the country.
Ukraine's military and volunteer forces have been preparing for an all-out assault on the capital. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Thursday that about 2 million people, half the metropolitan area's inhabitants, had left and that "every street, every house … is being fortified."
Zelenskyy said Saturday that Russia would need to carpet-bomb Kyiv and kill its residents to take the city.
"They will come here only if they kill us all," he said. "If that is their goal, let them come."
In Mariupol, where electricity, gas, and water supplies have been knocked out, aid workers and Ukrainian authorities described an unfolding humanitarian catastrophe. Aid group Doctors Without Borders said residents are dying from a lack of medication and are draining heating pipes for drinking water.
Russian forces have hit at least two dozen hospitals and medical facilities, according to the World Health Organization.
The Russian invaders appear to have struggled far more than expected against determined Ukrainian fighters. Still, Russia's stronger military threatens to grind down Ukrainian forces.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned on Saturday that his country could attack foreign shipments of military equipment to Ukraine. He said sending equipment is "an action that makes those convoys legitimate targets."
Thousands of soldiers on both sides are believed to have been killed along with many civilians, including at least 79 Ukrainian children, its government says. At least 2.5 million people have fled the country, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
Ukraine was ready to negotiate to end the war started by Russia's invasion more than two weeks ago, but would not surrender or accept any ultimatums, the country's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Saturday.
Speaking at a virtual event organized by the non-partisan, nonprofit organization Renew Democracy Initiative, Kuleba said civilian lives would be saved if Ukraine had fighter jets and more attack planes to destroy large military columns.
"We will continue to fight. We are ready to negotiate, but we are not going to accept any ultimatums and surrender," Kuleba said, adding that Russia was putting forward demands that were "unacceptable."
Commenting on the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, Ukraine's top diplomat said it was besieged but still under Ukrainian control.
The foreign minister added that Ukraine needed more military supplies and that more steps were needed to hit the Russian economy despite recent sanctions.
"If we had more planes, we would have been able to save many more civilian lives mainly because the main striking force of Russia is in the air and they indiscriminately choose to attack. As we continue to fight we will need more and more weapons," Kuleba added.
Commenting on the role of Belarus, the Ukrainian foreign minister said he believed Belarus was not willing to send troops into Ukraine despite being under pressure from Russia to do so.
"I believe that [Belarus] President Lukashenko sees how, being aware of the casualties of the Russian army in the Ukraine, is not willing to send his troops into Ukraine. We understand that he is under enormous pressure from President Putin to do so", Kuleba said.
The Russian tactics being deployed in Ukraine were similar to what they used in the war in Syria, the foreign minister said.
The United States on Friday imposed sanctions on Russian billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, three family members of President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson, and Russian lawmakers.
Russia has faced a slew of measures since launching its invasion, the largest attack on a European state since World War II. Those hit by Friday's sanctions include 10 people on the board of VTB Bank VTBR.MM, the second-largest lender in Russia, and 12 members of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, the US Treasury Department said in a statement.
"Treasury continues to hold Russian officials to account for enabling Putin's unjustified and unprovoked war," Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said.
Putin's spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was targeted on March 3. Friday's measures extended to his wife and two adult children. They lead "luxurious lifestyles that are incongruous with Peskov's civil servant salary," the Treasury said in a news release.
The Kremlin did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Four Novikombank board members, including chair Elena Georgieva, and ABR Management and four of its board members, including Bank Rossiya chair Dmitri Lebedev and Vice Governor of St. Petersburg Vladimir Knyaginin, were also targeted with sanctions, the US State Department said.
In mid-February, Russia's lower house of parliament voted to ask Putin to recognize two Russian-backed breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as independent.
Eleven members and speaker Vyacheslav Volodin were added to the sanctions list on Friday.
"Today's designations further hold to account those actors who were directly responsible for Russia's illegitimate and unlawful recognition ... and facilitating the sham pretext used by Putin to justify the ... unprovoked war against Ukraine," the Treasury said.
Justifying the move at the time, Volodin said: "Kyiv is not observing the Minsk agreements. Our citizens and compatriots who live in Donbass need our help and support." The Minsk agreements are a pair of accords signed in 2014 and 2015 in the hope of ending violence between pro-Russian separatists in eastern Ukraine and the Kyiv government.
Russia has described its actions in Ukraine as a "special operation" that it says is not designed to occupy territory but to destroy its southern neighbor's military capabilities and capture what it regards as dangerous nationalists.
i24NEWS contributed to this report
