NEW DELHI, March 21: While the Russian progress into Ukraine has considerably slowed down, Ukraine on Monday rejected Russian calls for Ukrainian forces in Mariupol to lay down their arms in exchange for safe passage out of the city.
The Russian Defence Ministry had asked Ukraine to surrender the port city of Mariupol by 5 am local time, blaming the “lawlessness” of Ukrainian nationalists for the “terrible humanitarian catastrophe” in the south-eastern city. It claimed that every day, from 80 to 235 innocent citizens who try to leave the city are dying as hostages of “Nazis” in the city. Ukraine has rejected the demand.
Reiterating that Ukraine was ready for talks with Russia even as Russia had accused it of stalling talks, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said if talks fail, it could mean a third world war. “The Ukrainian side is ready for negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin,” Zelensky said.
“I’m ready for negotiations with him. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations we cannot end this war. I think that we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin,” Zelensky said. “But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War,” he added.
He also said Ukraine cannot give up its territorial integrity under any conditions.
Russian forces advancing on Kyiv from the north-east have stalled and the bulk of its forces remain more than 25 kilometres from the centre of the city, British military intelligence said on Monday. “Heavy fighting continues north of Kyiv,” the Ministry of Defence said. “Forces advancing from the direction of Hostomel to the north-west have been repulsed by fierce Ukrainian resistance.”
A statement by the Ministry of Defence said: “The Ministry of Defence calls on Kyiv for prudence and the abolition of previously issued instructions that obliged the militants in Mariupol to sacrifice themselves. The Ministry of Defence insists on receiving a written response from Kyiv to the proposals made on Mariupol before 5 am.”
Separately, the Russian military appealed to the local authorities of Mariupol: now you have the right to make a historic choice – either you are with your people, or you are with bandits, otherwise the military tribunal that awaits you is just a little that you have already deserved.
To save civilians, the Russian Ministry of Defence announces the opening of humanitarian corridors from Mariupol from 10 am on March 21 – both in the eastern and western directions.
From 10 am to 12 pm, it is proposed to organise an exit from the city of Ukrainian military and foreign mercenaries without weapons (in this case, they are guaranteed to save their lives). Then the passage of humanitarian convoys into the city and the evacuation of civilians should follow.
Representatives of the UN, OSCE, Red Cross are invited to accompany this humanitarian operation “on the ground.” But the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister and Head of the Ministry of Transport and Communications Iryna Vereshchuk rejecting the offer said, “We can’t talk about surrendering weapons. We have already informed the Russian side about it. I wrote that instead of spending time on 8 pages of letters, just open the corridor. We informed the UN and the ICRC. Now we are waiting for the reaction of the international community. It’s a deliberate manipulation and it’s a real hostage-taking,” she said.
World leaders continued to rally around the war-torn country as New Zealand announced that it will be providing non-lethal military assistance. The US President Joe Biden will travel to Poland as part of his diplomatic outreach to the US’s NATO and other Western allies around the Russia-Ukraine war. He will stop in Warsaw on Friday “where he will hold a bilateral meeting with President Andrzej Duda. The President will discuss how the United States, alongside our Allies and partners, is responding to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created,” a White House press statement said.
Before heading to Warsaw, Biden will hold meetings in Brussels with NATO Allies, G7 Leaders, and European Union leaders to discuss international efforts to support Ukraine. Israel’s prime minister says the country is managing its involvement with Ukraine and Russia “in a sensitive, generous and responsible way while balancing various and complex considerations” after Ukraine’s president called on Israel to take sides. Naftali Bennett spoke on the tarmac at Israel’s main international airport as an aid delegation was set to depart for Ukraine to set up a field hospital for refugees near the Polish border.
In its latest update on civilian casualties in Ukraine due to the war, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights says from February 24 to March 19, it has recorded the deaths of 2,361 civilian casualties — 902 killed and 1,459 injured. As the UN agency puts out only numbers of verified deaths, the real number could be higher.