LAHORE MIRROR (Monitoring Desk)– Fighting has continued on the fifth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, despite talks aimed at securing a ceasefire.
Missile strikes killed dozens of civilians in the country’s second city, Kharkiv, while air raid sirens sounded again in the capital, Kyiv.
There were reports of fierce shelling in the northern city of Chernihiv.
Russia is attacking Ukraine on several fronts, but its advance has been slowed by Ukrainian resistance.
All three cities remain under Ukrainian control.
Away from the battlefields, economic and diplomatic moves have continued.
President Vladimir Putin has banned Russians from moving money abroad as he tries to halt a plunge in the value of the rouble following the imposition of sanctions.
And a rare emergency session of the United Nations General Assembly has heard a demand from the secretary general for an immediate halt to hostilities.
Meanwhile, on the northern border with Belarus, Ukrainian and Russian officials ended their first round of talks.
There was little expectation the session would bring a breakthrough, but a Ukrainian official said both sides would now return to their respective capitals for further consultations before a second round of negotiations.
Russia said both sides had agreed to continue talking and would meet again “in the next few days”.
In other developments:
- More than half a million people have fled their homes to escape the war in Ukraine, the UN says
- President Putin put Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert after comments by UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss and others, the Kremlin has said
- Mr Putin and French President Emmanuel Macron have had a telephone conversation in which the Russian leader called for Moscow’s legitimate security interests to be addressed
- Football’s world governing body, Fifa, and Europe’s governing body, Uefa, have suspended Russian clubs and national teams from all competitions
IMAGE SOURCE,REUTERSVideos shared on social media showed rockets landing in Kharkiv, in what some defence analysts described as typical of a cluster munition strike on a dense urban area.
Attempts have been made to impose a global ban on cluster munitions, with 110 nations agreeing to outlaw them under a 2008 convention. However, neither Russia nor Ukraine have signed it.
Human rights group Amnesty International has accused Russia of indiscriminate use of weaponry on populated areas, something it said could constitute a war crime.
Russia has previously denied targeting residential areas.
In Kyiv, the bulk of Russian forces are about 30km (19 miles) outside the north of the city, slowed by fierce Ukrainian resistance, according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
But reports of fresh fighting on the outskirts of the capital forced residents back into their shelters on Monday evening.
SOURCE: BBC NEWS
