Kyiv has responded to Russia’s call for Ukrainian forces to lay down their arms in besieged Mariupol, saying that surrender is out of the question, as fears grow that the situation in the port city will derail negotiations between the two neighbors.
Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Irina Vereshchuk, said in the early hours of Monday morning that Ukraine’s abandonment of the city of Mariupol and laying down its arms was out of the question. “We have already informed the Russian side of this,” she added.
Russia says Mariupol is experiencing a “horrific humanitarian catastrophe”. “Anyone who lays down their arms is guaranteed safe passage out of Mariupol,” she says.
Mariupol has been hit by some of the heaviest bombardments since the Russian invasion began on February 24. Many of its 400,000 residents are still trapped in the city without food, water or energy.
According to the Donetsk Military Administration, Mariupol has become a “ghost town”.
The southern city is a major target in President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. It provides a connection between the Russian forces in the Crimea, in the southwest, and the territories controlled by Russia in the north and east.
The raging battles in Mariupol, overlooking the Sea of Azov, contribute to deepening differences and complicating negotiations between the Russians and Ukrainians, and darkening the scene on the Ukrainian arena, according to a report published by the newspaper.Washington Post“.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mikhailo Podolyak, said the negotiations were complicated. He continued, “The positions of the two sides are different. For us, the pivotal issues cannot be touched.”
On Sunday night, the Ukrainian president considered that Jerusalem could be the “appropriate place to find peace”, in reference to the negotiations he had called for with Russia.
Officials said that heavy fighting spread, on Sunday, to all neighborhoods in the city. The battles raged at a time when Moscow is trying to “achieve its first strategic victory” since the invasion, with its progress still halting in most other cities and regions.
During the fighting, Russian planes bombed a technical school housing 400 people, according to the mayor of Mariupol, Vadim Boychenko.
Lieutenant-Colonel Sergey Bacchinsky, a spokesman for the military hospital in Dnipro, a city about 300 km northwest of Mariupol, said communications in the city had been largely cut off, and industrial areas linked to steel production in the city had become a “major battleground”.
“Russian officials will allow armed Ukrainians to leave Mariupol, unharmed, within two hours of Monday,” the state-run TASS news agency reported.
On Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated his position that he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin. “Without negotiations, it will not be possible to end the war,” Zelensky said during an interview with the “Fred Zakaria GPS” program on CNN.
The paper notes that “there are reasons to believe” that the Russians and Ukrainians remain far apart on a number of key issues. Zelensky said Ukraine would need “security guarantees, the restoration of its sovereignty and territorial integrity” to end the fighting, and that “otherwise, the Ukrainians will defend themselves.”
On the other hand, the British Ministry of Defense said, on Sunday, that the Russian naval forces continue to besiege the Ukrainian coast and launch missiles “at targets across Ukraine.”
British officials said the blockade “is likely to exacerbate the humanitarian situation in Ukraine and prevent vital supplies from reaching the Ukrainian population”.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Sunday that “Turkey is making some real efforts” to facilitate talks between Ukraine and Russia.
But “it is too early to say whether these talks or others can lead to any tangible result,” he said.