Frustrated….
The Russian military is now bombing the two main cites in the Ukraine….
A second round of talks are due on Thursday….
And?
Reports are that the Russian ’40 mile’ convoy has come under attack by Ukrainian forces already….
Russian troops have suffered causalities as their military actions stall….
Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday that they were prepared to hold talks for the second time since the Russian invasion of its neighbor began last week.
The talks are expected to take place Thursday in Belarus, the head of the Russian delegation said. They were announced the same day that the U.N. General Assembly condemned the invasion and called on Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Russia’s assault on Ukrainian cities continued, including a strike on the country’s second-largest, Kharkiv. The shelling led one official to call Kharkiv “the Stalingrad of the 21st century.”
The human toll of the war kept mounting, too, with the number of Ukrainians who have fled from their homeland expected to reach 1 million soon and the Ukrainian government putting the civilian death toll in the thousands, though the claim couldn’t be verified…..
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Vladimir Medinsky, Putin’s aide and the head of Russia’s delegation, told reporters that the Ukrainians were expected to arrive Thursday for the talks in the Brest region of Belarus, which borders Poland….
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Russia’s assault on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, continued with a strike on the regional police and intelligence headquarters, and a university building across the street, according to the Ukrainian emergency service and government officials. Explosions also happened in a central square near other government buildings, including the city council’s.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said an advance of Russian troops on Kharkiv was stopped, so Russia shelled the northeastern city with rockets and airstrikes in response.
“Kharkiv today is the Stalingrad of the 21st century,” said Arestovich, who added that several Russian planes were shot down over the city….
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Concern is rising about Ukraine’s four operating nuclear power plants.
Arestovich said Wednesday that Russian troops were stopped at the entrance to Energodar, where the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant is located, and that local authorities were negotiating the plant’s safety.
The U.K. Defense Ministry said Tuesday that it had seen an increase in Russian air and artillery strikes on populated urban areas over the past two days. It also said Russian forces had encircled Kharkiv and the southern coastal cities of Kherson and Mariupol.