Russian forces continue their multi-front assault on Ukraine

Ukraine’s president is asking for one-on-one talks with Vladimir Putin, as heavy combat continues in the south and east of Ukraine.

Russian troops walk the streets and the loud noise of tanks fills the air in the southern strategic city of Kherson.

22-year-old travel agent Daria Mironchuk keeps the lights off after dark, to try and avoid being targeted by a Russian bomb. She says Russian troops are only a couple of hundred metres from her home, occupying a store and a police station. Yesterday she says Kherson was hit by a rocket and artillery fire between ten and twenty times, killing civilians and causing widespread destruction. Today she says they have bombed five times. She says, “they bombed houses, they bombed the school near me, they burned the big shopping centre, they take our food, take our drinks, they drink a lot of alcohol.”

The Russian military says it has taken control of the city, but a senior U.S. defense official tells Reuters that isn’t true, saying fighting continues and it’s too soon to say Russia is in control. Vladimir Putin went on state tv to say the invasion is going to plan.

Mironchuk says Kherson is not controlled by Russia, saying the mayor and his staff remain in control of public utilities, the Ukrainian flag still flies, and Ukrainian forces continue to battle Russians outside the city limits.

Russian forces surround the city and are moving towards Mykolaiv, getting closer to Odesa. Kherson’s mayor says there are no Ukrainian military units inside Kherson.
He says the Russians entered the city council, and they made a deal where if civilians follow a set of rules, the Ukrainian flag will still fly.

Mironchuk says Russians are using the population as a human shield, and Ukrainian soldiers don’t engage because they don’t want to kill civilians. “Russian soldiers hide between civilians, between people like me.”

To the east Mariupol’s deputy mayor says the Russians are destroying the city which is now surrounded, as locals protest Russian convoys passing in the streets.

Outside the capital, Ukrainian forces say they destroyed 20 Russian vehicles in Gostomel. As Russia presses its assault towards Kyiv, that 65-kilometre convoy still inching forward. It’s coming from the northwest where the town of Borodyanka has been heavily damaged. Locals say they repelled a Russian attack. Russian military vehicles sit destroyed in the street.

In the suburb of Hatne, homes were destroyed by an airstrike according to local police. The Russian ministry of defense released a video of its forces moving towards Kyiv,
where construction workers are using their skills to build anti tank defenses.

Ukraine’s president is once again asking for a no-fly zone from NATO, and more warplanes, telling reporters a compromise with Russia is needed to end the war,
and asking for one-on-one talks with Putin.

There was also heavy attacks on Kharkiv and Chernihiv, as a Ukrainian and Russian delegation met for another round of talks today, agreeing on the need to create humanitarian corridors, but no agreement on a ceasefire or an armistice. Both sides have agreed to speak again. The United Nations refugee agency says more than a million people have fled Ukraine since the war began. The head of the agency says it’s the fastest exodus he’s seen in forty years.