Russian strikes pounded the central square in Ukraine’s second-largest city and other civilian sites Tuesday in what the country’s president condemned as a blatant campaign of terror by Moscow. “Nobody will forgive.
Nobody will forget,” vowed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. At the same time, a 40-mile convoy of hundreds of Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced on the capital, Kyiv, in what the West feared was a bid to topple Ukraine’s government and install a Kremlin-friendly regime. And Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces pressed their attack on other towns and cities across the country, including the strategic ports of Odesa and Mariupol in the south.
Day 6 of the biggest ground war in Europe since World War II found Russia increasingly isolated by tough economic sanctions that have thrown its economy its disarray and left the country practically friendless, apart from China and Belarus. In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city, with a population of about 1.5 million, at least six people were killed when the region’s Soviet-era administrative building was hit.
Explosions tore through residential areas, and a maternity ward was moved to an underground shelter. The country’s embattled president said he believed the stepped-up shelling was designed to force him into concessions. “I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address.
He did not offer details of hours-long talks that took place Monday, but he said Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting another with rocket artillery.” The developments came as Russia finds itself increasingly isolated as a result of international condemnation and potentially backbreaking economic sanctions.
Five days into the invasion, the Russian military’s movements have been stalled by fierce resistance on the ground and a surprising inability to dominate the airspace. The Kremlin has twice in as many days raised the specter of nuclear war and put on high alert an arsenal including intercontinental ballistic missiles and long-range bombers.
Stepping up his rhetoric, President Vladimir Putin denounced the U.S. and its allies as an “empire of lies.” Meanwhile, an embattled Ukraine moved to solidify its ties to the West by applying to join the European Union — a largely symbolic move for now, but one that is unlikely to sit well with Putin, who has long accused the U.S. of trying to pull Ukraine out of Moscow’s orbit.
