This article was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Up to 20,000 civilians managed on March 15 to leave the besieged city of Mariupol, which has been devastated by relentless Russian shelling, Ukrainian officials said, as invading forces stepped up strikes on suburbs of the capital, Kyiv, and Ukrainian and Russian negotiators ended a second day of talks aimed at reaching a cease-fire without palpable progress.
“Today around 20,000 people drove out of Mariupol in private cars along the humanitarian corridor,” President Volodymyr Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Telegram.
Earlier, the city council said on Telegram that “as of 14:00 (local ti,e) it is known that 2,000 cars left Mariupol,” adding that a further 2,000 vehicles were waiting to leave the port city on the Sea of Azov.
But the city’s deputy mayor said that Russian troops were holding 400 people, including doctors and patients, “like hostages” inside a hospital in Mariupol, while a humanitarian convoy was being prevented from reaching the city.
The city of some 400,000 inhabitants has been besieged by Russian troops for days and cut off from the rest of the country. Local officials estimate that more than 2,300 civilians have been killed in the siege.
There are “fundamental contradictions” in talks aimed at ending Russia’s military attack on Ukraine but compromise is possible, a member of the Ukrainian delegation and presidential aide, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said at the end of a second day of virtual talks.
“We’ll continue tomorrow. A very difficult and viscous negotiation process. There are fundamental contradictions. But there is certainly room for compromise,” Podolyak tweeted.
Zelenskiy is due to address the U.S. Congress via video link on March 16, and he will likely reiterate his appeal for the West to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine. The Ukrainian president made the same impassioned appeal in his address to the Canadian parliament on March 15.
The White House announced that U.S. President Joe Biden will travel to Europe next week for face-to-face talks with European leaders about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Biden will meet with NATO and European leaders at an extraordinary summit of the alliance in Brussels on March 24, and will also attend a scheduled European Council summit, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
Such a move is extremely rare for a U.S. president.
The extraordinary NATO summit will seek to coordinate its response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said on March 15.
“We will address #Russia’s invasion of #Ukraine, our strong support for Ukraine, and further strengthening NATO’s deterrence & defense. At this critical time, North America & Europe must continue to stand together,” Stoltenberg wrote on Twitter.
Zelenskiy urged the Canadian parliament and government on March 15 to exert greater economic and military pressure on Russia, and asked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and lawmakers for help to enact a no-fly zone over the Ukraine.
“Please close the sky, close the airspace,” Zelenskiy told a packed House of Commons chamber on video link from Ukraine. “Please stop the bombing. How many more cruise missiles have to fall on our cities until you make this happen?” said Zelenskiy, who received a standing ovation.
The prime ministers of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Slovenia arrived in Kyiv on March 15, according to Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki.
