Lviv
\nA promised ceasefire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror but a pro-Russian official said safe-passage corridors would open again for city residents on Sunday, while Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the ongoing resistance is putting Ukrainian statehood in jeopardy and likened the West\u2019s sanctions on Russia to \u201cdeclaring war\u201d.
\nWith the Kremlin\u2019s rhetoric growing fiercer and a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.4 million.
\nBy nighttime on Saturday, Russian forces had intensified their shelling of Mariupol, while dropping powerful bombs on residential areas of Chernihiv, a city north of Kyiv, Ukrainian officials said.
\nBereft mothers mourned slain children, wounded soldiers were fitted with tourniquets and doctors worked by the light of their cellphones as bleakness and desperation pervaded. Crowds of men lined up in the capital to join the Ukrainian military.
\nThe government has ordered men between the ages of 18 and 60 to stay and be available to fight. Some, like Volodymyr Onysko, have volunteered.
\n\u201cWe know why we are here. We know why we defend our country,\u201d Onysko told Britain\u2019s Sky News. \u201cWe know what we are doing, and that\u2019s why we will win.\u201d
\nEduard Basurin, the head of the military in separatist-held Donetsk territory, said safe passage corridors for residents of two cities in the region \u2014 Mariupol and Volnovakha \u2014 would be open again on Sunday.
\nHe did not give any details on how long the corridors would remain open, nor whether there would be a ceasefire to facilitate the evacuation of the two cities. He made the comments on Russian state television.
\nRussia\u2019s defence ministry said the country had struck and disabled Ukraine\u2019s Starokostiantyniv military airbase with long-range high-precision weapons.
\n\u201cThe Russia armed forces continue to strike the military infrastructure of Ukraine,\u201d Russian defence ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said.
\n\u201cOn the morning of March 6, strikes were carried out by high-precision long-range weapons. The Ukrainian air force base near Starokostiantyniv was disabled.\u201d
\nHe said a Ukrainian-controlled S-300 missile system had also been destroyed by Russian rocket forces. He said Russia had downed 10 Ukrainian planes and helicopters over the past 24 hours.
\nPutin continued to pin the blame for the war squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and slammed their resistance to the invasion.
\n\u201cIf they continue to do what they are doing, they are calling into question the future of Ukrainian statehood,\u201d he said on Saturday. \u201cAnd if this happens, it will be entirely on their conscience.\u201d
\nHe also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia\u2019s economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.
\n\u201cThese sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war,\u201d he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. \u201cBut thank God, we haven\u2019t got there yet.\u201d
\nEscalating situation
\nRussia\u2019s financial system suffered yet another blow as Mastercard and Visa announced they were suspending operations in the country.
\nTen days after Russian forces invaded, the struggle to enforce the temporary ceasefires in Mariupol and Volnovakha showed the fragility of efforts to stop the fighting across Ukraine.
\nUkrainian officials said Russian artillery fire and airstrikes had prevented residents from leaving before the agreed-to evacuations got underway. Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort.
\nA third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Monday, according to Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. He gave no additional details, including where they would take place.
\nPrevious meetings were held in Belarus and led to the failed ceasefire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the evacuation of children, women and older people from besieged cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to their wounds.
\nMariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said thousands of residents had gathered for safe passage out of the city of 430,000 when the shelling began and the evacuation was stopped. Later in the day, he said the attack had escalated further.
\n\u201cThe city is in a very, very difficult state of siege,\u201d Boychenko told Ukrainian TV. \u201cRelentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, airplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas. The Russian occupants are using heavy artillery, including Grad multiple rocket launchers.\u201d
\nRussia has made significant advances in the south, seeking to cut off Ukraine\u2019s access to the sea. Capturing Mariupol could allow Russia to establish a land corridor to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014.
\nMeanwhile, the head of the Chernihiv region said Russia has dropped powerful bombs on residential areas of the city of the same name, which has a population of 290,000. Vyacheslav Chaus posted a photo online of what he said was an undetonated FAB-500, a 500-kilogramme bomb.
\n\u201cUsually this weapon is used against military-industrial facilities and fortified structures,\u201d Chaus said.
\nIn a speech to Ukrainians, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pointed to \u201cthe 500kg bombs that were dropped on the houses of Ukrainians. Look at Borodyanka, at the destroyed schools, at the blown-up kindergartens. At the damaged Kharkiv Assumption Cathedral. Look what Russia has done.\u201d
\nThe West has broadly backed Ukraine, offering aid and weapons and slapping Russia with vast sanctions. But the fight itself has been left to Ukrainians, who have expressed a mixture of courageous resolve and despondency.
\n\u201cUkraine is bleeding,\u201d Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a video released on Saturday, \u201cbut Ukraine has not fallen.\u201d
\nRussian troops advanced on a third nuclear power plant, having already taken control of one of the four operating in the country and the closed plant in Chernobyl, Zelenskyy told US lawmakers.
\nZelenskyy pleaded with the lawmakers for additional help, specifically fighter planes to help secure the skies over Ukraine, even as he insisted Russia was being defeated.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re inflicting losses on the occupants they could not see in their worst nightmare,\u201d Zelenskyy said.
\nRussian troops took control of the southern port city of Kherson this week. Although they have encircled Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Sumy, Ukrainian forces have managed to keep control of key cities in central and southeastern Ukraine, Zelenskyy said.
\nFrenetic meetings
\nUS President Joe Biden called Zelenskyy early on Sunday, Kyiv time, to discuss Russia sanctions and speeding US assistance to Ukraine.
\nThe White House said the conversation also covered talks between Russia and Ukraine but did not give details.
\nMeanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Poland to meet with the prime minister and foreign minister, a day after attending a Nato meeting in Brussels in which the alliance pledged to step up support for eastern flank members.
\nBlinken also spoke by phone with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who said Beijing opposes any moves that \u201cadd fuel to the flames\u201d in Ukraine, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry.
\nBlinken said the world is watching to see which nations stand up for freedom and sovereignty, the State Department said.
\nIn Moscow, Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett met with Putin at the Kremlin. Israel maintains good relations with both Russia and Ukraine, and Bennett has offered to act as an intermediary in the conflict, but no details of the meeting emerged immediately.
\nBennett\u2019s office said he spoke twice with Zelenskyy afterwards.
\nIn the wake of Western sanctions, Aeroflot, Russia\u2019s flagship state-owned airline, announced plans to halt all international flights except to Belarus starting on Tuesday.
\nThe death toll of the conflict was difficult to measure. The UN human rights office said at least 351 civilians have been confirmed killed since the February 24 invasion, but the true number is probably much higher.
\nUkraine\u2019s military is vastly outmatched by Russia\u2019s, but its professional and volunteer forces have fought back with fierce tenacity. Even in cities that have fallen, there were signs of resistance.
\nOnlookers in Chernihiv cheered as they watched a Russian military plane fall from the sky and crash, according to video released by the Ukrainian government. In Kherson, hundreds of protesters waved blue and yellow Ukrainian flags and shouted, \u201cGo home.\u201d
\nA vast Russian armoured column threatening Ukraine\u2019s capital remained stalled outside Kyiv.
\nUkrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovich said in the afternoon that the military situation was quieter overall and Russian forces hadn\u2019t \u201ctaken active actions since the morning\u201d.
\nThe US Congress is considering a request for $10 billion in emergency funding for humanitarian aid and security needs.
\nThe UN said it would increase its humanitarian operations both inside and outside Ukraine, and the Security Council scheduled a meeting for Monday on the worsening situation.
\nThe UN World Food Programme has warned of an impending hunger crisis in Ukraine, a major global wheat supplier, saying millions will need food aid \u201cimmediately\u201d.
\nKyiv\u2019s central train station remained crowded with people desperate to flee. \u201cPeople just want to live,\u201d one woman, Ksenia, said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lviv A promised ceasefire in the besieged port city of Mariupol collapsed amid scenes of terror but a pro-Russian official said safe-passage corridors would open again for city residents on Sunday, while Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that the ongoing resistance is putting Ukrainian statehood in jeopardy and likened the West\u2019s sanctions on Russia to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":248096,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[4699,338,456,633],"class_list":{"0":"post-248085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-ceasefires-collapse","9":"tag-russia","10":"tag-ukraine","11":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"yoast_head":"\n