KYIV: New talk of concession from both Moscow and Kyiv on status for Ukraine outside of Nato lifted stopgap on Wednesday for an implicit advance after three weeks of the war, but the conflict, including the payoff of civilians, continued on the ground.
In other notable developments of the day, the UN’s top court asked Russia to end the irruption, the Biden administration blazoned an unknown military aid package for Ukraine, and Russian attacks on a convoy fleeing the besieged Ukrainian megacity of Mariupol claimed the lives of civilians.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said accommodations were getting “ more realistic”, while Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said proffers now being bandied were “ near to an agreement”.
For his part, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was ready to bandy neutral status for its neighbor. But he also said Russia would achieve its pretensions in Ukraine and would not submit to what he called a Western attempt to achieve global dominance and dismember Russia.
The military operation was “ going to plan,” he said in a televised address.
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On the ground, the 21st day of the conflict saw further bloodshed as Russian forces besieged and bombarded metropolises.
The United States said Russian forces had shot and killed 10 people staying in line for chuck in the megacity of Chernihiv. It didn’t cite substantiation of the attack and Russia didn’t note the allegation, made in a US Embassy statement.
Ukraine also said that Russian rocket attacks on a convoy fleeing the besieged harborage megacity of Mariupol had claimed the lives of civilians, including children after earlier strikes targeted a near mecca for displaced people.
“ Moment at around3.30 pm (1330 GMT), a column of civilians being vacated from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia was fired on by inhuman Russian occupiers,” the Ukrainian service said, adding that “ the number of victims is being clarified”. Three weeks into the conflict, Russian colors have been halted at the gates of Kyiv, having taken heavy losses and failing to seize any of Ukraine’s biggest metropolises in a war Western officers say Moscow anticipated to win within days.
