Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for inclusive peace talks with the Russians to stop its invasion of Ukraine. He went to warn that if Russia does not make a course correction, it would take “several generations” for Moscow to recover from the losses suffered due to the war.
Russian troops have faced tough resistance, from the very start, from the Ukrainian forces and are predominantly stalled in their advance, even when they are encroaching on Kyiv.
Air raid sirens blared on Saturday morning in the Kyiv, Chernihiv and Zhytomyr regions, but there are no reports of fresh attacks.
The regional governor, Serhiy Gaiday, said on Telegram that the ceasefire will be observed on Saturday morning and the humanitarian corridor for evacuations in Luhansk region of Ukraine will be opened.
“A humanitarian corridor has been agreed upon, we will try to evacuate people and bring food today. A ‘regime of silence’ has been agreed for March 19, starting at 9 am (12.30 pm IST),” Gaiday wrote. Luhansk is situated in Ukraine’s Donbass region, which is rich in coal and has been partly controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.
Gaidai has said that 59 civilians have been killed in the region since the start of the war on February 24.
Even the plethora of sanctions by the western nations, aimed at cutting out the Russian economy, has proved to be minuscule to halt the Russian aggression in Ukraine.
After Moscow said it was “tightening the noose” around the key port of Mariupol, Ukraine’s defence ministry accepted on Friday that it had temporarily lost its’ access to the Azov Sea, which then connects to the Black Sea.
“I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. The time has come for a meeting, it is time to talk,” Zelensky said early on Saturday. “The time has come to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine. Otherwise, Russia’s losses will be such that it will take you several generations to recover.”
On the 2nd of March Russia had accepted that nearly 500 of its soldiers had been killed but has not provided any update ever since.
Recently, Ukraine and Russia reported some progress in the talks, which aims at a political solution that would guarantee Ukraine security protection outside of the NATO alliance.
Russia has acknowledged for the first time that it used the hypersonic “Kinzhal” missile to take out a weapons storage facility in Western Ukraine.
“The Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse containing missiles and aviation ammunition” in the village of Deliatyn in the Ivano-Frankivsk region,” the Russian defence ministry said Saturday.
Meanwhile, at a rally in Moscow on Friday, Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine. He pledged to continue the invasion until the mission is successful and promised the tens of thousands of people present and waving Russian flags that Russia “will absolutely accomplish all the plans.” His speech was abruptly cut off on the state TV broadcast which the Kremlin described as a technical glitch.
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