Russia, Ukraine Set for Talks as Russian Force Shell Cities

Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine were due to hold more talks Tuesday as Russia presses its nearly three-week invasion with bombardments of Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.

Several airstrikes hit the Ukrainian capital early Tuesday, including one that struck an apartment building in Kyiv, killing at least two people.

A round of negotiations Monday, held by video rather than in-person in neighboring Belarus like previous sessions, yielded still no major signs of a breakthrough.

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White House press secretary Jen Psaki told reporters the United States supports the negotiations, but that it is looking for signs that Russia is willing to pair talks with a pullback in violence.

“Our view continues to be that, despite words that are said in these talks or coming out of these talks, diplomacy requires engaging in good faith to de-escalate,” Psaki said Monday. “And what we’re really looking for is evidence of that. And we’re not seeing any evidence, at this point, that President Putin is doing anything to stop the onslaught or de-escalate.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during a press briefing at the White House, March 9, 2022, in Washington.

Psaki also declined to confirm a report that U.S. President Joe Biden is expected to travel to Brussels next week to meet with NATO leaders to discuss the conflict. She said the Biden administration is “closely engaged” with NATO and European allies about further diplomatic steps, including humanitarian and security assistance, but that no final decision about a Brussels trip has been made.

Biden is scheduled to sign an appropriations package Tuesday that includes $13.6 billion for emergency military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine. That will be followed Wednesday by an address to Congress by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who has appealed for international help including a no-fly zone over Ukraine that the Biden administration has ruled out.

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said he was heading to Kyiv on Tuesday along with Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Slovenian Prime Minister Janez Jansa as representatives of the European Council to meet with Zelenskyy and Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“The purpose of the visit is to confirm the unequivocal support of the entire European Union for the sovereignty and independence of Ukraine,” Fiala said. “The aim of this visit is also to present a broad package of support for the Ukraine and Ukrainians.”

Much of the international response has been focused on punishing Russia through economic sanctions, and Japan on Tuesday announced new asset freezes for 17 Russians, including 11 members of the Russian parliament, billionaire Viktor Vekselberg and family members of banker Yuri Kovalchuk.

The European Union announced late Monday it approved a fourth round of sanctions against sectors of Russia’s economy and “individuals and entities involved in the aggression against Ukraine.”

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the government hoped to be able to open nine humanitarian corridors Tuesday to evacuate civilians and deliver aid to those in areas besieged by Russian forces, including the southern city of Mariupol where Russian shelling prevented deliveries on Monday.

In a rare positive development Monday, Ukrainian officials in Mariupol said a convoy of civilian cars was able to leave after many previous attempts to evacuate civilians collapsed. Officials said 160 cars left in the first two hours that the corridor was open.

Ukrainian officials say as many as 2,500 civilians have died in Mariupol since Russia began its attacks on the southern port city. The figure could not be independently confirmed.

The U.S.-based cable news organization Fox News reported that one of its journalists, Benjamin Hall, was seriously injured Monday while reporting outside of Kyiv. The development comes a day after an American journalist was killed while reporting on the war. Brent Renaud, an award-winning filmmaker and reporter, died in Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv, according to officials.

Four U.S. senators visited Poland over the weekend to speak to Ukrainian refugees. Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said Congress is looking at more ways to boost Ukraine’s defenses.

“We’re not going to give (Russian President) Vladimir Putin a road map of how that can be done,” she told VOA in Warsaw. “There are many ways – whether it is more drones, whether it is other weapons – that we can help, and clearly, we are all committed to doing that. We must do more.”

Members of the delegation also told VOA they were concerned about the humanitarian crisis the invasion has unleashed.

“It’s heartbreaking to see what’s happening,” said Republican Senator Rob Portman. “We had a chance to visit with refugees coming over the border and heard their stories of bombings and their homes being destroyed, families split up.”

U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the decision by NATO countries not to initiate a no-fly zone over Ukraine is based on an “analysis that I think we need to be prudent, even if I understand the dramatic appeal of the Ukrainian government.”

FILE – U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appears on a screen as he delivers a speech at the opening of a session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, following the Russian invasion in Ukraine, in Geneva, Switzerland, Feb. 28, 2022.

In Russia, an anti-war protester interrupted state TV’s Channel One evening news broadcast in Moscow, holding a poster that said “No War” in English, and underneath those words, “Stop the war. Don’t believe the propaganda. Here they are lying to you,” in Russian.

The poster was signed in English, “Russians against the war.”

Talks with China

In another development Monday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan and officials from the National Security Council and the State Department met in Rome with China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi.

The talks included a “substantial discussion of Russia’s war against Ukraine,” according to the White House, and “also underscored the importance of maintaining open lines of communication between the United States and China.”

Media reports emerged Sunday that Moscow has requested military and economic assistance from China for Russia’s war in Ukraine. Earlier, the White House warned China of severe ‘consequences’ if it helps Russia avoid sanctions.

State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters Monday that the United States is watching very closely the extent to which China, or any other country provides any form of support to Russia.

“We have communicated very clearly to Beijing that we won’t stand by, we will not allow any country to compensate Russia for its losses,” he said.

Chinese arms sales to Russia would have “a devastating impact on the U.S.-China relationship, because it would clearly align the Chinese with the Russians, against the United States, Europe in a war,” Robert Ross, a political science professor of at Boston College, told VOA.

FILE – Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, and Russian President Vladimir Putin pose for a photo prior to their talks in Beijing, China, Feb. 4, 2022.

China is in a unique position because of its partnership agreement with Russia, according to Stephen Roach, a senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute of Global Affairs. He told VOA that China has “considerably greater” leverage over Russia than even Western countries that have implemented “unprecedented sanctions” on Russia.

“China has something that the West does not have, and that is the partnership,” with Russia, he said.

Eastern European chief Myroslava Gongadze, White House correspondent Anita Powell, Senior diplomatic correspondent Cindy Saine, National security correspondent Jeff Seldin, U.N. correspondent Margaret Besheer, State Department correspondent Nike Ching, and Mandarin Service reporters Lin Yang and Si Yang contributed to this report. Some information also came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.