Russian and Ukrainian negotiators held a new round of talks Monday as Russia's military forces bombarded Kyiv and other cities across Ukraine with a punishing assault that the Red Cross said has created "nothing short of a nightmare" for the country's civilians.
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After an airstrike on a military base near the Polish border brought the war dangerously close to NATO's doorstep, the talks raised hopes for progress in evacuating civilians from besieged Ukrainian cities and getting emergency supplies to areas without enough food, water and medicine.
"Everyone is waiting for news," Ukrainian President President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a new video address on the 19th day of the war.
The negotiations, which took place by video conference, were the fourth round involving higher-level officials from the two countries and the first held in a week. Previous discussions, held in person in Belarus, did not produce lasting humanitarian routes or agreements to end the fighting in Ukraine.
The two sides expressed some optimism in the past few days. Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak said over the weekend that Russia was "listening carefully to our proposals." He tweeted Monday that the negotiators would discuss "peace, ceasefire, immediate withdrawal of troops & security guarantees."
The talks ended without a breakthrough after several hours. Podolyak said the negotiators took "a technical pause" and planned to meet again Tuesday.
Earlier Monday, at least 20 people had been killed and 28 wounded when a Ukrainian missile with a cluster charge exploded in the capital of the Donetsk region, the Russian defense ministry claimed. Ukraine denied the reports, which Reuters was unable to verify.
Pro-Russian separatists who control the region in east Ukraine said earlier a child was among those hit in Monday's strike, accusing Kyiv of committing a war crime.
In Israel, Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said Israel was on the brink of a wave of immigration that would bring with it "significant challenges."
"Many Jews want to come to us, to Israel, from the combat zones in Europe. At the same time, the State of Israel is taking in Ukrainians with relatives in the country who are running from the danger zone, and we are allowing them to stay here with family and friends, for as long as necessary, until the threat subsides," Bennett said.
Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's chief of staff, thanked Israel for its efforts to secure a ceasefire on Twitter. He noted he was in constant contact with National Security Adviser Eyal Hulta.
On the refugee front, Yermak lauded Israel's decision to remove the cap on Ukrainian refugees with relatives in the country.
Also Monday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called on the West to supply Ukraine with weapons and apply more sanctions on Russia to help prevent other countries from being dragged into a wider conflict.
Ukraine has repeatedly urged its allies to do more to help it resist the Russian invasion that began on Feb. 24. Some Western governments fear that doing so could pull other countries, including NATO member states, into the war.
"To those abroad scared of being 'dragged into WWIII'. Ukraine fights back successfully. We need you to help us fight. Provide us with all necessary weapons," Kuleba wrote on Twitter. "Apply more sanctions on Russia and isolate it fully. Help Ukraine force Putin into failure and you will avert a larger war."
Two people have died and seven were injured after Russian forces struck an aircraft factory, and another person was killed when a residential building was fired upon, Ukrainian authorities said Monday.
The Antonov aircraft factory is Ukraine's largest and is best known for producing many of the world's largest-ever cargo planes.
The Kyiv city government said a large fire broke out after the strike on the factory. One person died and three were injured when the residential building was hit, authorities said.
Fighting continued Monday on the outskirts of Kyiv, to the west, northwest, east, and northeast, the Ukrainian president's office said Monday. Regional officials are preparing more evacuations from the targeted areas.
Air raid alerts sounded in cities and towns all around the country overnight, from near the Russian border in the east to the Carpathian Mountains in the west.
Airstrikes hit residential buildings near the important southern city of Mykolaiv, as well as in the eastern city of Kharkiv, and knocked out a television tower in the Rivne region in the northwest, the president's office said. Explosions rang out overnight around the Russian-occupied Black Sea port of Kherson.
Three airstrikes hit the northern city of Chernihiv overnight, and most of the town is without heat. Several areas haven't had electricity in days.
The government announced plans for new humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors, although ongoing shelling caused similar efforts to fail in the last week.
The Russian Defense Ministry said Monday its forces had advanced 7 miles over the past 24 hours and reached five towns north of Mariupol.
In a video statement, Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov did not elaborate on the advances or comment on the humanitarian corridors or the crisis in Mariupol.
Russian forces fired artillery strikes on suburbs northwest of Kyiv overnight and targeted points east of the capital, the head of the Kyiv region said Monday.
A town councilor for Brovary east of Kyiv was killed in fighting there, regional administration chief Oleksiy Kuleba said on Ukrainian television. He also reported strikes overnight on the northwest towns of Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel, which have seen some of the worst fighting in Russia's stalled attempt to take the capital.
The surrounded southern city of Mariupol, where the war has produced some of the greatest human suffering, remained cut off despite earlier talks on creating aid or evacuation convoys.
A pregnant woman who became a symbol of Ukraine's suffering when she was photographed being carried from a bombed maternity hospital in Mariupol died along with her baby, authorities said. Images of the woman being rushed to an ambulance on a stretcher had circled the world, epitomizing the horror of an attack on humanity's most innocent.
The general staff of Ukraine's armed forces said Monday morning that Russian troops have not made major advances over the past 24 hours despite expanding strikes to the west.
Ukrainian forces are targeting Russian bases, targeting their logistical abilities, the general staff said in a statement on Facebook marking the 19th day of the war.
The general staff accused Russian forces of setting up firing positions and military equipment in churches and other civilian infrastructure so that Ukrainian forces can't fire back.
An artillery strike hit a nine-story apartment building in the Obolonsky district of northern Kyiv on Monday morning, destroying apartments on several floors and igniting a fire. Internal Affairs Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko says two people were killed, three were hospitalized and nine were treated at the scene.
Global financial markets, which had been riven by fears the conflict could spread and drag in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, rallied on hopes for progress in peace talks. Stocks rose while oil prices gave up some of their massive recent gains.
Soaring energy costs, the conflict's impact on supply chains already frayed by the coronavirus pandemic, and sanctions have fueled inflationary pressures worldwide.
International Energy Agency chief Fatih Birol on Monday urged oil-producing countries to pump more to stabilize markets affected by the war in Ukraine.
After an initial release of 62 million barrels, the IEA would make further releases if "conditions stay or worsen," Birol told an energy conference in Rabat.
"Every responsible oil producer needs to put more oil in the market," he said via video conference.
Russian coal and fertilizer king Andrei Melnichenko said the war in Ukraine, a top producer of grains, must be stopped or there would be a global food crisis as fertilizer prices were already too high for many farmers.
"The events in Ukraine are truly tragic. We urgently need peace," Melnichenko said.
The West has sanctioned Russian businessmen, including European Union sanctions on Melnichenko, frozen state assets and cut off much of the Russian corporate sector from the global economy in an attempt to force Putin to change course.
Russia's finance ministry said on Monday it had approved a temporary procedure for repaying foreign currency debt, but warned payments would be made in roubles if sanctions prevented banks from honoring debts in the currency of issue.
US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who is set to meet China's top diplomat Yang Jiechi in Rome on Monday, warned Beijing it would "absolutely" face consequences if it helped Moscow evade sanctions.
Asked about Russia's request for military aid, Liu Pengyu, spokesperson for China's embassy in Washington, said, "I've never heard of that," while a foreign ministry spokesperson in Beijing accused the United States of "disinformation."
China found the situation in Ukraine "disconcerting," he said, adding, "We support and encourage all efforts that are conducive to a peaceful settlement of the crisis."
Authorities said they were stockpiling two weeks' worth of food for the 2 million Kyiv residents who have not yet fled from Russian forces attempting to encircle the capital.
North of Kyiv, the exhausted staff operating radioactive waste facilities at Chernobyl stopped carrying out safety-related repairs since they have not been relieved since Russia seized the site last month, the UN nuclear watchdog said, citing reports from Ukraine.
Russia's invasion has sent more than 2.7 million people fleeing across Ukraine's borders and trapped hundreds of thousands in besieged cities.
More than 2,500 residents of the southern port of Mariupol have been killed since the start of the invasion, presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said on Monday. Reuters was not able to verify that toll.
Moscow denies targeting civilians. It blames Ukraine for failed attempts to evacuate people from encircled cities, an accusation Ukraine and its Western allies strongly reject.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry on Saturday began using Clearview AI's facial recognition technology, the company's chief executive said, after the US startup offered to uncover Russian assailants, combat misinformation, and identify the dead.
Ukraine is receiving free access to Clearview AI's powerful search engine for faces, allowing authorities to potentially vet people of interest at checkpoints, among other uses, added Lee Wolosky, an adviser to Clearview and former diplomat under US Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
The plans started forming after Russia invaded Ukraine and Clearview Chief Executive Hoan Ton-That sent a letter to Kyiv offering assistance.
Clearview said it had not offered the technology to Russia.
Ukraine's Defense Ministry did not reply to requests for comment. Previously, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Digital Transformation Ministry said it was considering offers from US-based artificial intelligence companies like Clearview. Many Western businesses have pledged to help Ukraine, providing internet hardware, cybersecurity tools, and other support.
The Clearview founder said his startup had more than 2 billion images from the Russian social media service VKontakte at its disposal, out of a database of over 10 billion photos total.
That database can help Ukraine identify the dead more easily than trying to match fingerprints and works even if there is facial damage, Ton-That wrote.
Ton-That's letter also said Clearview's technology could be used to reunite refugees separated from their families, identify Russian operatives, and help the government debunk false social media posts related to the war.
The exact purpose for which Ukraine's defense ministry is using the technology is unclear, Ton-That said. Other parts of Ukraine's government are expected to deploy Clearview in the coming days, he and Wolosky said.
The VKontakte images make Clearview's dataset more comprehensive than that of PimEyes, a publicly available image search engine that people have used to identify individuals in war photos, Wolosky said. VKontakte did not immediately respond to a request for comment; US social media company Facebook, now Meta Platforms Inc FB.O, had demanded Clearview stop taking its data.
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