As Russian troops appeared to stall in their advance on Ukrainian cities, the United States voiced concern on Thursday that China might assist Moscow with military equipment as the war entered its fourth week.
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Ukraine's capital Kyiv came under renewed Russian shelling as rescuers in the besieged port of Mariupol dug survivors from the rubble of bombed buildings. Officials from the two countries met again for peace talks but said their positions remained far apart.
Western sources and Ukrainian officials said Russia's assault has faltered since its troops invaded on Feb. 24, further dashing expectations of a swift victory and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's government.
Despite battleground setbacks and punitive sanctions by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little sign of relenting. His government says it is counting on China to help Russia withstand blows to its economy.
The United States, which this week announced $800 million in new military aid to Kyiv, is concerned that Beijing is "considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment to use in Ukraine," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.
President Joe Biden will make clear to China's President Xi Jiping in a call Friday that Beijing "will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia's aggression, and we will not hesitate to impose costs," Blinken told reporters.
China has refused to condemn Russia's action in Ukraine or call it an invasion. It says it recognizes Ukraine's sovereignty but that Russia has legitimate security concerns that should be addressed.
The war has settled into a grinding pattern of sieges of cities, with Ukrainian officials reporting Russian attacks on schools, hospitals and cultural facilities.
The United Nations human rights office in Geneva said it had recorded 2,032 civilian casualties so far in Ukraine – 780 killed and 1,252 injured. Some 3.2 million civilians, mostly women and children, have now fled to neighboring countries, the United Nations said.
A fourth straight day of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators took place by videolink, but the Kremlin said an agreement had yet to be reached.
"Our delegation is putting in colossal effort," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. "Our delegation... is ready to work around the clock – but unfortunately we don't see such zeal from the Ukrainian side."
Moscow has previously said it was close to agreeing to a formula that would keep Ukraine neutral, one of its demands.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the negotiations were complicated. "The positions of the parties are different. For us, fundamental issues are inviolable," he said.
Ukraine has said it is willing to negotiate an end to the war but will not surrender or accept Russian ultimatums. It is sticking to its core position that it retain sovereignty over areas occupied since 2014 by Russian and pro-Russian forces.
Kyiv and its Western allies say Russia launched the war to subjugate a neighbour Putin calls an artificial state. Moscow says it is carrying out a "special operation" to disarm Ukraine.
Ukraine's Zelenskiy addressed the German Bundestag by video link on Thursday, pulling no punches in a speech that invoked the Holocaust and the Berlin Wall, and seemed intended to shame pro-Russian politicians in Germany, Moscow's main energy buyer
An American man was killed in a Russian attack on the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, where he was seeking medical treatment for his partner. The death of Jim Hill was reported Thursday by his sister.
"My brother Jimmy Hill was killed yesterday in Chernihiv, Ukraine. He was waiting in a bread line with several other people when they were gunned down" by Russian military forces, his sister, Cheryl Hill Gordon, wrote on Facebook. "His body was found in the street by the local police."
Ukrainian officials reported that 10 people were killed Wednesday in Chernihiv while standing in the bread line.
Chernihiv police and the US State Department confirmed the death of an American but did not identify him. Hill was at least the second U.S. citizen to be killed in the conflict, after the killing of journalist and filmmaker Brent Renaud last week.
In poignant posts on Facebook in the weeks before his death, Hill described "indiscriminate bombing" in a city under siege and joked about wanting to appear "feeble–minded" if captured by the Russians.
Under a photo of himself, he wrote on March 8: "me unshaven for 10 days. I am actually trying to look as old and feeble-minded (not hard) as possible in case they catch me. I am working on my Rainman accent 'Oh Boy'..."
Hill, a native of Eveleth, Minnesota, who was living in Driggs, Idaho, identified himself as a lecturer at universities in Kyiv, Ukraine's capital, and Warsaw, Poland. He said he was in Chernihiv with his partner for her to receive medical treatment.
"We are staying on third floor in Hospital. Most patients in basement bomb shelter. But cold down there and no internet," he wrote on Feb. 26, two days after the invasion began.
Four days later, he said: "Nobody in Chernihiv is safe. Indiscriminate bombing. ... Ukrainian forces hold city but are surrounded. It's a siege here. Nobody in. Nobody out."
At least 53 people had been brought to morgues over the past 24 hours, killed during heavy Russian air attacks and ground fire in Chernihiv, the local governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told Ukrainian TV on Thursday.
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