Russia-Ukraine talks fail as the air bombardments rage on

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine entered its third week on Thursday with none of its stated objectives reached, despite thousands of people killed, more than 2-million made refugees and thousands cowering in besieged cities under relentless bombardment.

The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine met on Thursday in Turkey, the highest level contact between the two countries since the war began on February 24, but in simultaneous duelling news conferences made it clear they had made no progress.

Ukraine’s Dmytro Kuleba said he had secured no promise from Russia’s Sergei Lavrov to halt firing so aid could reach civilians, including Kyiv’s main humanitarian priority — evacuating hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the besieged port of Mariupol.

Lavrov showed no sign of making any concessions, repeating Russian demands that Ukraine disarm and accept neutral status. He said Kyiv appeared to want meetings for the sake of meetings, and blamed the West for intensifying the conflict by arming its neighbour.

Mariupol’s city council said the port had come under more air strikes on Thursday morning. Ukraine said Russia committed “genocide” by bombing a maternity hospital there on Wednesday. Lavrov said the building was no longer used as a hospital and had been occupied by Ukrainian forces.

“What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them,” President Volodymyr Zelensky asked in a televised address late on Wednesday, after posting footage of the wreckage, showing huge damage to the building.

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said Ukraine would try to open seven humanitarian corridors on Thursday, including another attempt to reach Mariupol. Daily missions to rescue civilians there have failed since Saturday.

Moscow’s stated objectives of crushing Ukraine’s military and removing its leaders remained out of reach, with Zelensky unshaken and Western military aid pouring across the Polish and Romanian borders.

Russian forces have advanced in the south, but have yet to capture a city in the north or east. Western countries have said they believe a planned lightning strike on Kyiv failed in the early days of the war, and Moscow has instead turned to tactics that involve far more destructive assaults.

The UK defence ministry said a large Russian column northwest of Kyiv made little progress in more than a week and continued to suffer losses. As casualties mount, Russian President Vladimir Putin will have to draw from across the armed forces to replace the losses, said the ministry.

Putin has said the advance by his forces in Ukraine was going according to plan and to schedule. Russia calls its incursion a “special operation” to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls “neo-Nazis”.

Western-led sanctions designed to cut the Russian economy and government from international financial markets have bit hard, with the rouble plunging and Russians rushing to hoard cash.

In the latest Western sanctions move, Britain blacklisted several more Russian business leaders, including Roman Abramovich, owner of Chelsea soccer team. The sanctions block the sale of the club but a special licence would let it keep playing and paying salaries.

Mariupol attack

Ukrainian officials said Russian aircraft bombed the children's hospital on Wednesday, injuring pregnant women and burying patients in rubble despite a ceasefire deal for people to flee Mariupol. The regional governor said 17 people were wounded.

The attack underscored US warnings that the biggest assault on a European state since 1945 could become increasingly attritional after Russia's early failures.

The UN Human Rights body said it was trying to verify the number of casualties. The incident “adds to our deep concerns about indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas,” said a spokesperson.

The White House condemned the hospital bombing as a “barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians”.

“That’s how fake news is born,” Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s first deputy permanent representative to the UN, said on Twitter.

Russia had earlier pledged to halt firing so at least some trapped civilians could escape Mariupol. Both sides blamed each other for the failure of the evacuation.

Half of the more than 2-million total refugees from Ukraine are children. The International Committee of the Red Cross said houses had been destroyed all over Ukraine. “Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, no water, no heat, no electricity and no medical care,” it said.

Ukraine foreign minister Kuleba said his country was seeking a ceasefire, liberation of its territories and resolution of all humanitarian issues.

Moscow demands that Kyiv cease fighting, amend its constitution to proclaim neutrality, drop the idea of joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) alliance and recognise Russia’s rule in Crimea and the independence of regions held by Russian-backed separatists.

Zelensky repeated his call for the West to tighten sanctions on Russia “so that they sit down at the negotiating table and end this brutal war”.

He told VICE in an interview on Wednesday he was confident Putin would at some stage agree to talks. “I think he will. I think he sees that we are strong. He will. We need some time,” he said.

Ukraine’s gas transit company said Russian forces were occupying gas pumping stations threatening shipments to Europe.

Russia has been hit by Western sanctions and the withdrawals of foreign firms, the latest including Nestlé, cigarette maker Philip Morris and Sony.

Rio Tinto on Thursday became the first major mining company to announce it was cutting all ties with Russian businesses.

The US House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to rush $13.6bn in aid to Ukraine, sending the legislation to the US Senate.

Reuters