The Russian army is continuing its offensive in Ukraine on Monday, March 7, tightening its grip on the capital Kiev, while a third session of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations is scheduled for the day.
Intense aerial bombardments struck overnight from Sunday to Monday Kharkiv, in the northeast of the country, targeting in particular a sports complex of a local university and civilian buildings. According to the Ukrainian General Staff, the Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on Kharkiv, Cherniguiv (north), Sumy (northeast) and Mykolaiv (south) and “hoard their resources to launch an assault” on Kyiv. In the capital, the army stood ready to destroy the last bridge connecting the city to its hinterland to the west to halt the advance of Russian tanks.
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The Russian army announced the opening of several humanitarian corridors and the establishment of local ceasefires to evacuate civilians from the Ukrainian cities of Kharkhiv, Kiev, Mariupol and Sumy. “Russian forces, for humanitarian purposes, declare a “silent diet” from 10:00 a.m. (07:00 GMT) on March 7 and the opening of humanitarian corridors”the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Fighting on the outskirts of Kiev
Intense fighting took place all day Sunday on the outskirts of Kiev, according to the Ukrainian regional administration, in particular around the road leading to Zhytomyr (150 km west of Kiev), as well as in Cherniguiv ( 150 km north of the capital).
The Russian army also continued its siege of the strategic port of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov in the south-east of the country, where a second attempt at humanitarian evacuation failed on Sunday. And Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of preparing to bomb the port of Odessa on the Black Sea. Russian missiles fired from the sea fell on the village of Tuzly in the Odessa region on Monday, regional military spokesman Sergey Bratchouk said. According to him, the shots were aimed at “critical infrastructure sites”but caused no injuries.
A third round of negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians is scheduled for Monday. But hopes of success are slim, Russian President Vladimir Putin having set as a precondition for any dialogue the acceptance by Kiev of all the demands of Moscow, in particular the demilitarization of Ukraine and a neutral status for the country. The two previous sessions of talks, on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border and then on the Polish-Belarusian border, had however resulted in an agreement on the establishment of “humanitarian corridors” for the evacuation of civilians.