KYIV, Ukraine — As Russian forces bore down on Ukraine’s capital and officers put the toll of civilian useless at greater than 350 for the reason that invasion started, the 2 nations agreed Sunday to take a seat down for talks “without preconditions,” however hopes weren’t excessive for a peaceable decision of the battle.
Even as Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, agreed to ship a delegation to satisfy with Russian officers close to the border with Belarus, he made it clear that he anticipated little to return of it. He declined to comply with any circumstances or concessions earlier than the talks, making it clear that he wouldn’t grant Russia the higher hand after its unprovoked assaults.
“I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting,” he mentioned, “but let them try to make sure that no citizen of Ukraine has any doubt that I, as a president, have not tried to stop the war.”
As world leaders moved to isolate Moscow and inflict heavy financial ache over the invasion, Russia confirmed little obvious curiosity in de-escalating.
President Vladimir V. Putin, denouncing the West’s “aggressive” actions, mentioned he had advised his protection minister and his high navy commander to put Russia’s nuclear forces on alert. Not solely are Western nations imposing “illegitimate sanctions” towards Russia, Mr. Putin mentioned, “but senior officials of leading NATO countries are allowing themselves to make aggressive statements directed at our country.”
In Ukraine, Russian forces have been on the transfer within the south, threatening a serious port, and within the north, the place they have been persevering with their drive towards Kyiv.
But Ukrainian officers took some apparent satisfaction in Russia’s name for talks, which got here as its forces met much more resistance than anticipated, failing to rapidly seize the capital, Kyiv.
“The enemy expected an easy walk, but got real hell,” mentioned Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Russia’s management, he mentioned, “does not understand that it is at war not only with the armed forces of Ukraine, but with the entire Ukrainian people.”
But worldwide navy specialists cautioned that the conflict is younger.
They famous that Ukrainian forces are unfold skinny, with solely restricted ammunition, and that 1000’s of better-trained Russian troopers haven’t but been thrown into the struggle. The fear is that Mr. Putin could transfer to harsher ways, together with the shelling of cities, if his forces get slowed down.
The Ukraine Interior Ministry mentioned Sunday that 352 civilians have been killed for the reason that invasion started, together with 14 youngsters.
The request for talks additionally got here because the European Union moved to impose powerful new financial sanctions on Russia, and as demonstrations in Berlin, Prague, London, Madrid and Brussels over the weekend on behalf of Ukrainians made Moscow’s isolation clear.
The White House, via Jen Psaki, the press secretary, forged the nuclear alert as one other instance of Mr. Putin’s manufacturing risk and utilizing it to justify confrontation.
Top Pentagon leaders stay assured in regards to the United States’ capability to defend itself and its allies, in line with a Pentagon official who briefed reporters. The official known as the transfer to place Russia’s nuclear forces on alert pointless and escalatory, and mentioned that Mr. Putin had made the potential for a miscalculation rather more harmful.
Slowed by Ukrainian resistance and their very own logistical shortcomings, Russian forces have already begun adopting harsher strategies akin to rocket assaults within the metropolis of Chernihiv, to the northeast of Kyiv, the Pentagon official mentioned. Those ways may produce many extra civilian casualties.
Russian troops, he mentioned, are adopting a siege mentality, which will increase the chance of their taking civilian life and damaging infrastructure.
In Ukraine’s south, the official mentioned, Russian troops are advancing, transferring up from Crimea and in addition mounting an amphibious assault close to Mariupol, the place they’re inside 50 kilometers of the town. Mariupol, a serious port, is considered as a part of any Russian land bridge from Donetsk and Luhansk — the jap Ukrainian areas Moscow simply acknowledged as impartial states — to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
Russian forces have been additionally on the transfer from the north, the place they have been making a drive towards Kyiv.
In the middle of Ukraine, Russia seems to be making an attempt to chop off the primary Ukrainian navy forces, which have been defending the previous line of contact with the Donetsk and Luhansk enclaves, to forestall them from transferring towards the capital and getting provides despatched by Western allies overland via Poland.
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Feb. 28, 2022, 12:00 a.m. ET
Russian troops, a minimum of for a time, additionally drew nearer to the middle of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest metropolis, in line with movies and pictures analyzed by The New York Times. The footage confirmed Ukrainians firing rockets towards Russian troops, in addition to some Russian navy automobiles burning and others being ransacked by Ukrainian forces.
With every passing day of conflict, Mr. Zelensky, a former comedian, has embraced his new function: as an emblem of bravery and patriotism who has united his residents towards an invader.
Once derided due to his leisure previous because the unlikeliest of presidents, Mr. Zelensky has reworked into the chief Ukraine didn’t understand it wanted. Dressed in an army-green T-shirt or fleece, unshaven and wan, he has impressed Ukrainians to defend their streets with probably the most rudimentary of weapons. He has additionally received over a lot of Europe, which has been moved to help a rustic it sees as preventing bravely for independence, freedom and democracy.
Mr. Zelensky’s determination to stay in Kyiv — and his household’s determination to stay in Ukraine — has moved many. Some have drawn an unflattering distinction with the Afghan president, Ashraf Ghani, who fled Kabul as quickly because the Taliban have been on the outskirts, demoralizing what was left of the Afghan Army.
And Mr. Zelensky’s response to a reported American supply to evacuate him — “I need ammunition, not a ride” — will most definitely go down in Ukrainian historical past, regardless of the consequence of the battle.
The Ukrainian president and his group have made deft use of social media. His impassioned speeches from the streets of Kyiv have gone viral. And they’ve additionally posted pictures and quick movies of Ukrainians filling Molotov cocktails, volunteering to struggle, being issued computerized weapons and vowing to defend their nation.
Mr. Zelensky has additionally impressed European leaders to do extra to assist his nation. His management and the resilience of the Ukrainian folks “are an inspiration to us all,” mentioned Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission.
Understand Russia’s Attack on Ukraine
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What is on the root of this invasion? Russia considers Ukraine inside its pure sphere of affect, and it has grown unnerved at Ukraine’s closeness with the West and the prospect that the nation would possibly be a part of NATO or the European Union. While Ukraine is a part of neither, it receives monetary and navy assist from the United States and Europe.
Are these tensions simply beginning now? Antagonism between the 2 nations has been simmering since 2014, when the Russian navy crossed into Ukrainian territory, after an rebellion in Ukraine changed their Russia-friendly president with a pro-Western authorities. Then, Russia annexed Crimea and impressed a separatist motion within the east. A cease-fire was negotiated in 2015, however preventing has continued.
How has Ukraine responded? On Feb. 23, Ukraine declared a 30-day state of emergency as cyberattacks knocked out authorities establishments. Following the start of the assaults, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president, declared martial legislation. The overseas minister known as the assaults “a full-scale invasion” and known as on the world to “stop Putin.”
Appearing onscreen throughout an emergency summit assembly of European Union leaders a number of days in the past, he gave a passionate 10-minute speech that moved some reluctant leaders to endorse a harsher bundle of financial sanctions on Russia, mentioned a senior European official who was within the room.
“This may be the last time you see me alive,” Mr. Zelensky advised them.
The silence within the room after Mr. Zelensky spoke was spectacular, the official mentioned, and it was his impression the speech made a serious distinction in convincing extra reluctant nations, like Germany, Italy and Hungary, to comply with more durable monetary and banking sanctions and to ship defensive weapons to Ukraine.
The new authorities of Germany additionally made what some contemplate a historic shift towards taking extra duty for European safety. Hampered by its personal totalitarian historical past, Germany has been a reluctant hard-power participant for the reason that collapse of the Soviet Union. But on Sunday, in a powerful speech earlier than the German Parliament, Chancellor Olaf Scholz turned the web page.
Germany will ship defensive weapons to Ukraine; assist more durable financial sanctions, together with the exclusion of main Russian banks from the SWIFT funds system; and lift navy spending to greater than 2 % of its gross home product for the foreseeable future — lengthy a NATO objective that Germany had resisted. Mr. Scholz additionally proposed a 100 billion euro fund to strengthen the German military.
Mr. Scholz, German officers say, believes that Mr. Putin lied to him personally of their direct talks in Moscow in regards to the Ukraine disaster and that the Russian invasion created critical new threats to German and European safety that can’t be ignored.
In an emergency digital assembly of European Union overseas ministers on Sunday, the bloc agreed to additional powerful financial sanctions on Russia and to ban Russian plane from E.U. bloc’s airspace. They additionally agreed for the primary time to make use of E.U. funding to reimburse member nations for the acquisition and cargo of navy tools to a rustic below assault.
Ms. von der Leyen, the fee president, known as it “a watershed moment.”
Weapons and tools of every kind are being despatched overland via Poland into western Ukraine, which continues to be out of Russia’s attain. Some specialists suppose Russian efforts to disrupt such convoys will enhance as soon as the shipments are inside Ukraine.
Ms. von der Leyen additionally mentioned that the European Union would transfer to ban the state-owned information shops Russia Today and Sputnik, in order that they “will no longer be able to spread their lies to justify Putin’s war and to sow division.”
Europe will proceed to welcome refugees, she mentioned. As many as seven million Ukrainians are internally displaced by the battle, European officers mentioned.
In Kyiv, Nataly Kasianenko, 31, has been sheltering for days together with her husband and a dachshund in a parking storage within the northern Obolon neighborhood, six miles from the town heart, which was the scene of intense preventing on Friday and Saturday. “I actually lost track of days and nights and nights,’’ she said. “We even forgot to eat because of this tension.”
Despite the worry, she mentioned, they’re staying.
“It’s in our blood, it’s Ukrainian blood,” she mentioned. “We can’t just leave, we cannot just surrender — we will always stay on our land.”
Valerie Hopkins reported from Kyiv, Anton Troianovski from Moscow and Steven Erlanger from Brussels. Andrew E. Kramer, Michael Schwirtz, Marc Santora, Helene Cooper, Aishvarya Kavi, Matina Stevis-Gridneff, Monika Pronczuk, Melissa Eddy contributed reporting.