Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine is intensifying

published on 3/31/22 9:20 AM

Mariupol

Photo: photo.unian.info

Russia has announced a humanitarian corridor for the evacuation of civilians from besieged Mariupol on Thursday. The city's 150,000 residents have been surviving underground for weeks amid brutal airstrikes, Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said. On the 35th day of the war, the fighting in Mariupol continued.

President Volodymyr Zelensky commented in a midnight video address from the streets of Kyiv that negotiations with Russia were ongoing, but were only "words without specifics" for the time being. "We do not believe in anyone and in any beautiful verbal constructions. There is a real situation on the battlefield and now this is the main thing. We will not give anything away and we will fight for every metre of our land, for every one of our people," Zelensky said.

Russian forces are withdrawing from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant area, US intelligence said. The connection between Kyiv and the besieged city of Chernihiv has been restored, CNN reports. Fighting intensifies in Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russian forces are advancing after Izyum, near Kharkiv, to the Seversky Donetsk River.

Moscow has not given up on insisting that Kyiv should recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk, said Russia's chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky.

Ukrainian negotiator Mykhailo Podoliak said the peace treaty would have to be approved by referendum, but it could not be convened until Russian troops left the territories seized after February 23.

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Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine is intensifying

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