Ukraine evacuation efforts fail again as Russia presses demands

Bloomberg

Efforts failed for a second day to halt Russia’s siege of the southern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol to allow the evacuation of tens of thousands as President Vladimir Putin pressed ahead with the invasion and demand for the country’s “demilitarization.”
Russian troops violated a temporary ceasefire agreement, Anton Herashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on his Telegram channel. There’s been no comment so far from the Russian military on the latest status of the arrangements.
Kyiv and Moscow have signaled a third round of talks could take place Monday after making only limited progress on humanitarian corridors in negotiations last week.
The violence on Ukraine’s southeast coast— as well as continued attacks on the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, and in Chernihiv north of Kyiv — underscores the scale of the conflict 10 days after the Kremlin gave the order to invade. In Mariupol, residents sustained shelling in the city center and outskirts, with no electricity or access to supplies or water, according to Alex Wade, an emergency coordinator with Doctors Without Borders.
“If the situation is not addressed immediately today, tomorrow, in the coming days, there’s going to be a serious, serious emergency and a possible disaster,” Wade said in a statement posted by the group on Twitter. Russia’s military has been accused by Ukrainian authorities and Nato allies of targeting civilians indiscriminately since the war began on February 24, and of using cluster bombs and other munitions in breach of international law. Russia says it is hitting military targets with high precision.
Putin accused Ukraine of attempting to drag out talks in order to regroup militarily, saying a halt in fighting would depend on the government in Kyiv meeting Russia’s demands, according to a statement issued Sunday after a phone conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Putin has insisted on neutralizing Ukraine’s military and has made clear that he wants to remove the government, a stance that significantly complicates any negotiations. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a video posted by his office that shelling continued in residential areas in cities across Ukraine — and accused Russia of planning to bomb the major port city of Odesa in the south.

Agreement Remains
Elusive
Two rounds of talks between officials from Moscow and Kyiv so far have yielded few tangible results, as efforts to establish corridors for civilians fleeing the violence remains elusive. The International Committee of the Red Cross confirmed that a second attempt to evacuate an estimated 200,000 people from Mariupol ground to a halt as fighting resumed.
“The failed attempts yesterday and today underscore the absence of a detailed and functioning agreement between the parties to the conflict,” the ICRC said in a statement.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces may seek to capture the Kaniv hydroelectric power station, warning of an escalation in targeting civilian infrastructure. The dam, about 60 miles downstream from the capital Kyiv, is one of the key elements in the cascade of hydroelectric power plants on the Dnieper River.
Last week, Russian forces partially occupied the site of Europe’s largest nuclear power plant. Russia’s war in Ukraine has triggered the exodus of 1.5 million people in 10 days, which Filippo Grandi, the United Nations high commissioner for refugees, called the “fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War II.”