Russia said it had captured two towns in southern Ukraine as its war on its western neighbor raged for a fifth day on Monday and a cascade of western sanctions pushed it into ever deeper international isolation.
Talks were due to start on Monday on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border that will focus on achieving an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces, the Ukrainian presidency said in a statement.
The Russian defense ministry said Russian forces had taken control of Ukrainian airspace and captured the two towns of Berdyansk, on the Sea of Azov, and Enerhodar.
It added that its troops had seized territory around a nuclear power plant in Zaporizhiya. Fighting was also reported in the town of Tokmak north-west of Berdyansk on Sunday night, where Ukrainian forces were engaging Russian saboteurs who had infiltrated the city wearing Ukrainian army uniforms, according to local officials.
East-west tensions over Ukraine reached a new high on Sunday as President Vladimir Putin put Russia’s nuclear deterrent on high alert. On Monday a barrage of western sanctions sent the Russian double plunging by as much as 29 per cent.
An update by the Ukrainian armed forces said the pace of Russia’s offensive had slowed after encountering stiff resistance from Ukrainian troops.
The Ukrainian military commander leading the defense of the capital Kyiv said his troops had successfully repelled a Russian attack overnight. Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi said in a Facebook post on Monday that columns of Russian troops had repeatedly tried to storm the city.
“The occupier’s equipment columns were destroyed,” Syrskyi said in a post released by Ukraine’s military general staff. “The opponent suffered significant losses of personnel.”
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military said Russian troops continued to attack airports, air defense systems, critical infrastructure and residential areas around the country, and had launched missile strikes on buildings in the cities of Zhytomyr and Chernihiv.
Russian and Ukrainian military claims cannot be independently verified.
A curfew imposed by Kyiv’s mayor Vitaly Klitschko on Saturday lifted on Monday morning, and local residents left their homes to stock up on supplies, forming long queues outside supermarkets.
Russia’s armed forces denied claims they had encircled Kyiv and said civilians could safely leave the highway to Vasylkiv to the city’s south-west, scene of heavy fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops over the weekend.
Ukrainian soldiers manned checkpoints on roads leading out of Kyiv, checking the documents of those leaving the capital.
Speaking to UK prime minister Boris Johnson on Sunday, Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky said he believed “the next 24 hours was a crucial period for Ukraine”, according to a Downing Street official.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian-Russian talks were due to start later on Monday on Ukraine’s border with Belarus, near the Pripyat river.
“We definitely want to reach some kind of agreement as quickly as possible, though it has to be in the interests of both sides,” Vladimir Medinsky, head of the Russian delegation, told Russia’s state agency RIA-Novosti.
Russian media said the Ukrainian delegation would include the country’s defense minister Oleksiy Reznikov, presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak and David Arakhamia, leader of Zelensky’s party in parliament, Servant of the People.
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