Russia escalated its bombardment of the Ukrainian capital and launched new assaults on the port city of Mariupol, making bloody advances on the ground as Ukraine’s president prepared Wednesday to make a direct appeal for more help in a rare speech by a foreign leader to the U.S. Congress.
As the invasion entered its third week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested there was still some reason to be optimistic negotiations might yet yield an agreement with the Russian government.
After their delegations met Tuesday via video, Zelenskyy said Russia’s demands were becoming “more realistic.” The sides were expected to speak again later Wednesday.
“Efforts are still needed, patience is needed,” he said in his video address to the nation. “Any war ends with an agreement.”
Moscow has not captured any of Ukraine's 10 biggest cities following its incursion that began on Feb. 24, the largest assault on a European state since 1945.
Ukrainian officials have raised hopes the war could end sooner than expected, possibly by May, saying Moscow may be coming to terms with its failure to impose a new government by force and running out of fresh troops.
"The meetings continue, and, I am informed, the positions during the negotiations already sound more realistic. But time is still needed for the decisions to be in the interests of Ukraine," Zelenskyy said in a video address ahead of the next round of talks.
In a hint of a possible compromise, Zelenskyy said earlier Ukraine was prepared to accept security guarantees from the West that stop short of its long-term goal of joining NATO. Moscow sees any future Ukraine membership of the Western alliance as a threat and has demanded guarantees it will never join.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it was too early to predict progress in the talks. "The work is difficult, and in the current situation the very fact that (the talks) are continuing is probably positive."
Russia calls its actions a "special military operation" to demilitarize and "denazify" Ukraine. Ukraine and Western allies call this a baseless pretext for a war of choice that has raised fears of wider conflict in Europe.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said a "business-like spirit" is emerging at talks with Ukraine that are now focused on a neutral status for the war-torn country.
"A neutral status is being seriously discussed in connection with security guarantees," Lavrov said Wednesday on Russian channel RBK TV. "There are concrete formulations that in my view are close to being agreed."
He didn't elaborate, but said "the business-like spirit" starting to surface in the talks "gives hope that we can agree on this issue." he said.
Russia's chief negotiator in the latest round of talks with Ukraine, which started Monday and are set to continue Wednesday, said the sides are discussing a possible compromise idea for a future Ukraine with a smaller, non-aligned military.
"A whole range of issues tied with the size of Ukraine's army is being discussed," Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said, according to Russian news agencies.
U.S. President Joe Biden will make his first visit to Europe since Russia invaded Ukraine to discuss the crisis with NATO allies next week, the White House said.
Biden will attend a NATO leaders' meeting at the military alliance's headquarters in Brussels on March 24. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will also attend.
Biden is expected to announce an additional $800 million in security assistance to Ukraine on Wednesday, a White House official said.
NATO is set to tell its military commanders on Wednesday to draw up plans for new ways to deter Russia from future military action, including more troops and missile defenses in Eastern Europe, officials and diplomats said.
"We need to reset our military posture for this new reality," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Tuesday. "Ministers will start an important discussion on concrete measures to reinforce our security for the longer term, in all domains."
At least 10 of NATO’s biggest allies, including the United States, Britain and France, have deployed more troops, ships and warplanes to its eastern flank, and put more on standby.
Just over 3 million have now fled Ukraine, according to the United Nations, with over 1.8 million arriving in neighboring Poland. Its prime minister and those of Slovenia and the Czech Republic were in Kyiv on Tuesday to show solidarity.
Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki has expressed solidarity and support for Ukraine during a meeting with Zelenskyy in Kyiv.
“We will never leave you alone. We will be with you because we know that you are fighting not only for your homes, for your freedom, for your security, but also for others,” he said.
Nine out of 10 Ukrainians could face poverty and extreme economic vulnerability if the war drags on over the next year, wiping out two decades of economic gains, the U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) said on Wednesday.
In Kyiv, around half of the 3.4 million residents have fled and some spend nights sheltering in metro stations.
Local authorities said Tuesday's bombardments on Kyiv killed at least five people as buildings were set ablaze and people were buried under rubble. Russia denies targeting civilians.
About 2,000 cars left the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, the location of the worst humanitarian crisis, the local council said.
But a convoy with supplies for Mariupol, where residents have been sheltering from repeated Russian bombardments and are desperate for food and water, was stuck at nearby Berdyansk, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
More than 100 buses carrying a few thousand civilians left the besieged northeastern city of Sumy in a "safe passage" operation, the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Tuesday. They were heading towards Lubny in central Ukraine after the Russians gave the evacuation the green light.
Russia said it now controlled the Kherson region in southern Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Fox News said a second journalist working for the cable network was killed in Ukraine in the same incident in which a Fox camera operator died when their vehicle was struck on Monday by incoming fire.
The conflict has brought economic isolation upon Russia and the economic cost was fully exposed on Wednesday as its sanctions-ravaged government teetered on the brink of its first international debt default since the Bolshevik revolution.
Moscow was due to pay $117 million in interest on two dollar-denominated sovereign bonds it had sold back in 2013, but it faces limits on making payments and has talked of paying in rubles, which would trigger a default.
The crisis is also being felt in the form of spiraling energy costs in many Western countries with some heavily reliant on exports from Russia and after a U.S. ban on imports of oil from the country.
The United States, the European Union and Britain announced further sanctions on Tuesday, while Moscow retaliated by putting Biden and other U.S. officials on a "stop list" that bars them from entering Russia.
The latest EU sanctions include bans on energy sector investments, luxury goods exports to Moscow and imports of steel products from Russia.
They also freeze the assets of more business leaders believed to support the Russian state, including Chelsea football club owner Roman Abramovich.