Ukraine says Russia killed civilians in evacuation convoy, puts troop deaths at 1,300
LVIV, UKRAINE (REUTERS) - Ukraine accused Russian forces on Saturday (March 12) of killing seven civilians in an attack on women and children trying to flee fighting near Kyiv, and France said Russian President Vladimir Putin had shown he was not ready to make peace.
With Russia’s invasion in its third week, the Ukrainian intelligence service said the seven, including one child, were killed as they fled the village of Peremoha and “the occupiers forced the remnants of the column to turn back”.
Ukrainian officials later said the convoy was not traveling along a “green corridor” agreed with Russia when it was struck on Friday, correcting their earlier assertion that it was on such a designated route.
Reuters was unable immediately to verify the report and Russia offered no immediate comment. Moscow denies targeting civilians since invading Ukraine on Feb 24. It blames Ukraine for failed attempts to evacuate civilians from encircled cities, an accusation Ukraine and its Western allies strongly reject.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier that Moscow was sending in new troops after Ukrainian forces put 31 of Russia's battalion tactical groups out of action in what he called Russia's largest army losses in decades. It was not possible to verify his statements.
He also said about 1,300 Ukrainian troops had been killed so far and urged the West to get more involved in peace negotiations. The president suggested Russian forces would face a fight to the death if they sought to enter the capital.
"If they decide to carpet bomb (Kyiv), and simply erase the history of this region... and destroy all of us, then they will enter Kyiv. If that's their goal, let them come in, but they will have to live on this land by themselves," he said.
Mr Zelensky discussed the war with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and French President Emmanuel Macron, who then spoke to Mr Putin by phone and urged him to order an immediate ceasefire.
A Kremlin statement on the 75-minute call made no mention of a ceasefire and a French presidency official said: "We did not detect a willingness on Putin's part to end the war."
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov accused the United States of escalating tensions and said the situation had been complicated by convoys of Western arms shipments to Ukraine that Russian forces considered "legitimate targets".
In comments reported by the Tass news agency, Ryabkov made no specific threat, but any attack on such convoys before they reached Ukraine would risk widening the war.
Responding to Mr Zelensky's call for the West to be more involved in peace negotiations, a US State Department spokesman said: "If there are diplomatic steps that we can take that the Ukrainian government believes would be helpful, we're prepared to take them."
Crisis talks between Moscow and Kyiv have been continuing via a video link, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was quoted as saying by Russia's RIA news agency. He gave no details but Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Kyiv would not surrender or accept any ultimatums.
Air raid sirens blared across most Ukrainian cities on Saturday, local media reported.
Russian rocket attacks destroyed a Ukrainian airbase and hit an ammunition depot near the town of Vasylkiv in the Kyiv region, Interfax Ukraine quoted its mayor as saying.
The exhausted-looking governor of Chernihiv, around 150km north-east of Kyiv, gave a video update in front of the ruins of the city's Ukraine Hotel.
"There is no such hotel any more," Mr Viacheslav Chaus said, wiping tears from his eyes. "But Ukraine itself still exists, and it will prevail."
Images taken on Saturday by private US satellite firm Maxar showed fires burning in the western section of the southern city of Mariupol and dozens of apartment buildings heavily damaged.
"There are reports of looting and violent confrontations among civilians over what little basic supplies remain in the city," the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said.
People were boiling ground water for drinking, using wood to cook food and burying their dead near where they lay, a staff member for Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors without Borders) in Mariupol said.
At least 1,582 civilians in Mariupol have been killed as a result of Russian shelling and a 12-day blockade, the city council said on Friday. It was not possible to verify casualty figures.
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