Ukraine said Sunday it would hold talks with Russia at its border with Belarus – near the Chernobyl exclusion zone – after a call between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko.
“The politicians agreed that the Ukrainian delegation would meet the Russian one without preconditions at the Ukraine-Belarus border, near the Pripyat River,” Zelensky’s office said.
Zelensky has said he will not hold talks with Russia on the territory of Belarus, where some Russian troops were stationed before invading on Ukraine’s northern border.
But Kyiv said Lukashenko assured Zelensky that “all planes, helicopters and missiles stationed on Belarus territory will remain on the ground during the travel, negotiations and return of the Ukrainian delegation.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that a Russian delegation was currently in the Belarusian city of Gomel.
Moscow has wanted to hold the talks in Kremlin-aligned Belarus.
Zelensky, refusing to travel to Minsk, said Kyiv had proposed “Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul, Baku” as options to Russia.
Ukraine fought off an incursion by Russian troops into its second city Kharkiv on Sunday, the fourth day of the invasion, but Putin raised international alarm by putting nuclear forces on alert.
Street fighting raged in Ukraine’s second-biggest city on Sunday after Russian forces pierced through Ukrainian lines.
Machine gun fire and explosions could be heard in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine and an AFP journalist saw the wreckage of a Russian armored vehicle smoldering and several others abandoned.
Ukraine has reported 198 civilian deaths, including three children, since the invasion began.
Ukrainian forces had secured full control of Kharkiv on Sunday following street fighting with Russian troops in the country’s second-biggest city, the local governor said.
“Kharkiv is fully under our control,” the head of the regional administration, Oleg Sinegubov, said on Telegram, adding that the army was expelling Russian forces during a “clean-up” operation.
Putin has defied crippling Western sanctions on Russia’s economy and international pariah status for his country to press ahead with the air, ground and sea assault.
Apart from the attack on Kharkiv, located near the Russian border, Moscow also claimed it was “entirely” besieging the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and the city of Berdyansk in the southeast.
Ukrainian officials also said that a gas pipeline in eastern Kharkiv and an oil depot near the capital Kyiv were targeted overnight.
The claims could not be independently verified.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s general staff said the 44-year-old leader was urging any foreigners to come to Ukraine “and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against Russian war criminals.”
“There is no greater contribution which you can make for the sake of peace,” the general staff said in a Facebook post, adding that the foreign fighters would form part of an “International Legion for the Territorial Defense of Ukraine.”
Ignoring warnings from the West, Putin unleashed a full-scale invasion that the UN Human Rights Office (OHCHR) says has left at least 240 civilians wounded, including 64 killed.
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) says more than 100,000 people have fled to neighboring countries, while over 160,000 are estimated to be displaced within Ukraine.
In neighboring Romania, Olga, 36, was among hundreds to have crossed the Danube river with her three young children to safety.
“My husband came with us as far as the border, before returning to Kyiv to fight,” she said.
Thousands also made their way to Poland by train, on foot and in cars.
“Attacks were everywhere,” said Diana, 37, who fled the Ukrainian capital. “My mother is still in Kyiv.”
Residents of the capital have sought sanctuary in subway stations and cellars and Zelensky announced a baby girl had been born on the metro.
Yulia Snitko, a pregnant 32-year-old, said she had sheltered in the basement of her Kyiv apartment block, fearing premature labor.
“It was more than one hour of huge explosions. I was trembling,” she said.
Thousands around the world demonstrated their solidarity with Ukraine on Saturday.
Zelensky said he asked UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to strip Russia of its vote at the UN Security Council as punishment for the invasion.
The UN Security Council will convene later on Sunday to vote on a resolution calling for a special session of the General Assembly over the Russian invasion of Ukraine, diplomats have said.
The Ukrainian president has also thanked NATO members for sending weapons and equipment, while Washington announced $350 million of new
military assistance.
Berlin said it would send Kyiv 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger missiles, in a major U-turn from its longstanding policy of not exporting weapons to war zones.
Paris said it would deliver more arms to Ukraine.
NATO also said it will deploy its 40,000-strong rapid response force to Eastern Europe for the first time, but stressed it will not send forces to Ukraine.
Responding to the invasion, the West said it would remove some Russian banks from the SWIFT bank messaging system, and froze central bank assets — essentially crippling some of Russia’s global trade.
Speaking in Washington Saturday, a senior US official said the measures would turn Russia into a “pariah,” adding that a task force will “hunt down” Russian oligarchs’ “yachts, jets, fancy cars and luxury homes.”
Germany had previously resisted the SWIFT removals over concerns Russia could cut off key gas supplies.
The Kremlin has so far brushed off sanctions, including those targeting Putin personally, as a sign of Western impotence.
Putin has said Russia’s actions are justified because it is defending Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.
The rebels have been fighting Ukrainian government forces for eight years in a conflict that has killed more than 14,000 people.
Putin called the current conflict a “special military operation” and Russia’s communications regulator on Saturday told independent media to remove reports describing it as an “assault, invasion, or declaration of war.”
British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said the Russia-Ukraine conflict could last a “number of years” and the world needs to be prepared for Moscow “to seek to use even worse weapons.”
“I fear this will be a long haul, this could be a number of years,” Truss told Sky News.
“Russia has strong forces and we know the Ukrainians are brave, they are determined to stand up for their sovereignty and territorial integrity and they are determined to fight,” she said.
The minister said that intelligence showed that Ukrainian forces were “continuing to resist Russian advances” and that there had not been “significant changes” overnight.
But she warned that Putin could deploy more deadly weapons.
“This could well be the beginning of the end for Putin and I fear that he is determined to use the most unsavory means in this war.
“I fear this conflict could be very, very bloody. We do need to be prepared for Russia to seek to use even worse weapons,” she added.
However, Putin “should be aware the International Criminal Court is already looking at what is happening in Ukraine and there will be serious consequences for him personally,” she told Sky News.
Western allies on Saturday agreed on a new volley of financial sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, including the exclusion of a number of Russian banks from the SWIFT interbank system.
The allies also agreed to impose restrictive measures to prevent the Russian central bank from “using international financial transactions to prop up the ruble,” a senior US official said.
Britain has provided Ukraine with lethal defense weapons and applied sanctions to Kremlin-linked tycoons and businesses.
The foreign minister said that Britain would continue to supply defense weapons, but cautioned that the sanctions “will take time” to become effective and that they could only work through their “hit list” of oligarchs as fast as the legal process would allow them to.
“We’ve already had letters to the Foreign Office, from lawyers, threatening us, so we have to make sure the cases are properly prepared and that we have the right evidence before we sanction these individuals,” she told the Sunday Times.
“That is why we’re taking it step by step, but we are working through that hit list and we will continue to sanction new oligarchs every few
weeks.