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Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a warning on Saturday that Ukrainian statehood was at risk and compared the West’s sanctions on Russia to “declaring war,” as officials attempted to resurrect the collapsed ceasefire in the besieged port city of Mariupol.
With the Kremlin’s rhetoric growing fiercer and plans for a reprieve from fighting dissolving, Russian troops continued to shell encircled cities and the number of Ukrainians forced from their country grew to 1.5 million.
The Ukrainian government has ordered men between the ages of 18 and 60 to stay and be available to fight. Some, like Volodymyr Onysko, have volunteered.
“We know why we are here. We know why we defend our country,” Mr Onysko told Britain’s Sky News. “We know what we are doing, and that’s why we will win.”
Mr Putin continued to pin the blame for the war squarely on the Ukrainian leadership and condemned their resistance to the Russian military operation.
"The current [Ukrainian] authorities must understand that if they continue to do what they are doing, they are putting in question the future of Ukrainian statehood," Mr Putin said on Saturday. "And if this happens, they will be fully responsible."
He also hit out at Western sanctions that have crippled Russia’s economy and sent the value of its currency tumbling.
“These sanctions that are being imposed, they are akin to declaring war,” he said during a televised meeting with flight attendants from Russian airline Aeroflot. “But thank God, we haven’t got there yet.”
Mr Putin also dismissed rumours that the Kremlin was planning to declare martial law in Russia.
Russia’s financial system suffered yet another blow as MasterCard and Visa announced they were suspending operations in the country.
MasterCard said it made the decision over the "unprecedented nature of the current conflict and the uncertain economic environment".
Visa meanwhile said that "effective immediately" it would "work with its clients and partners within Russia to cease all Visa transactions over the coming days".
Ten days after Russian forces invaded, the struggle to enforce the temporary ceasefires in Mariupol and the eastern city of Volnovakha showed the fragility of efforts to stop the fighting across Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials said Russian artillery fire and air strikes had prevented residents from leaving, despite the evacuation agreements. Mr Putin accused Ukraine of sabotaging the effort.
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Damage after the shelling of buildings in central Kharkiv, Ukraine. EPA -
Workers from a local construction company weld anti-tank obstacles to be placed on roads around Kyiv as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues. Reuters -
Anti-war protesters attach sunflowers to barriers in front of the Russian embassy. Reuters -
Ukrainian volunteers prepare food for displaced people outside Lviv railway station in western Ukraine. AP -
A Ukrainian soldier holds an anti-tank launcher north-east of Kyiv. AFP -
Ukrainian refugees rest at Warsaw East train station in Poland. EPA -
Children look out from a carriage window as a train prepares to depart from a station in Lviv to the town of Uzhhorod near the border with Slovakia. AFP -
A girl who fled Ukraine is reunited with her father in Medyka, south-eastern Poland. AP Photo -
Tears outside a house damaged by a Russian airstrike in Gorenka, on the outskirts of Kyiv. AP Photo -
A civil defence member is poised to shoot as a vehicle approaches a checkpoint in Gorenka. AP Photo -
A Ukrainian civil defence member in the garden of a house damaged by a Russian airstrike. AP Photo -
Members of the US Army 3rd Infantry Division board a plane bound for Germany in Savannah, Georgia. EPA -
Prayers for peace in Ukraine at the Vatican's Saint Peter's Square. AFP -
A woman (right) hugs an arriving passenger from a train carrying refugees at Berlin's central station. EPA -
Firefighters battle a blaze in a Kharkiv police building hit by shelling. AFP -
A Ukrainian woman makes a phone call after crossing the Slovakian border. AFP -
A doctor takes shelter in the basement of a Kyiv perinatal centre. Reuters -
Debris which locals say was caused by shelling in separatist-controlled Horlivka, Donetsk. Reuters -
MPs in London give a standing ovation to Ukraine ambassador Vadym Prystaiko, who was in the public gallery. AP -
Distraught women and children fleeing Ukraine wait to enter Poland at the Korczowa crossing. Getty -
Newborn Ivan lies next to his mother as they shelter in the basement of a Kyiv perinatal centre. Reuters -
Firefighters hand water to people in a Ukrainian train full of refugees in Przemysl, Poland. Reuters -
Ukrainian refugees queue to file for residency permits at Prague's police headquarters. AFP -
Firefighters work to contain a blaze in buildings housing the Kharkiv regional police department. AFP -
A woman and her children sit in a tent in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter. AP -
Firefighters work to extinguish a blaze at the Kharkiv National University building, which city officials said was damaged by Russian shelling. Reuters -
An elderly woman comforts a child as they take shelter inside an underground station in Kyiv. Reuters -
People queue at a pharmacy in central Kyiv. Reuters -
A woman is consoled by a volunteer after fleeing from Russia's invasion of Ukraine, at the border crossing in Siret, Romania. Reuters -
A Ukrainian civilian in the city of Zhytomyr practises throwing petrol bombs. Reuters -
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy poses after an interview with Reuters in Kyiv. Reuters -
A blast is seen at Kyiv's TV tower. Reuters -
A girl in Siret, Romania, covers herself with a blanket after fleeing from Ukraine. Reuters -
Ukraine's ambassador to the US, Oksana Markarova, acknowledges applause from US first lady Jill Biden as they attend President Joe Biden's first State of the Union address in Washington. AFP -
A man walks past the remains of Russian military vehicles in Bucha, close to Kyiv. AFP -
Civilians cross a river on a blown-up bridge on Kyiv's northern front. Defending the capital is a 'key priority', Ukraine's president has said. AFP -
Russian aircraft on the ground at Luninets Airbase, Belarus, about 50 kilometres north of the Ukrainian border. AFP -
People look at the gutted remains of Russian military vehicles on a road in the town of Bucha. AP -
A woman with a child who fled from the war in Ukraine reunite with their family after crossing the border in Medyka, Poland. AP -
Animal keeper Kirilo Trantin comforts an elephant at Kyiv Zoo. AP -
An armed man stands by the remains of a Russian military vehicle in Bucha. AP -
Ukrainian families say goodbye as they prepare to board a bus to Poland at Lviv, western Ukraine. AP -
Paramedics move a man who was wounded by shelling in a residential area of Mariupol, south-eastern Ukraine. AP -
Rescuers work at the site of a Russian strike in Zhytomyr. Reuters -
US actor and director Sean Penn attends a press briefing at the Presidential Office in Kyiv. Reuters -
Demonstrators participate in a protest against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at Lafayette Square in Washington. AFP -
Ukrainian soldiers rest while others eat near the front line with Russian troops in northern Kyiv. AP -
A barricade made of trams, buses and sand bags is seen through the window of car in the northern part of Kyiv. AP -
Members of the European Parliament applaud after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's speech at a special session to debate its response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Reuters -
Ambassadors and diplomats walk out as Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov (on screen) speaks during a recorded message at the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. EPA
A third round of talks between Russia and Ukraine will take place on Monday, said Davyd Arakhamia, a member of the Ukrainian delegation. He gave no additional details, including where they would take place.
Previous meetings were held in Belarus and led to the failed ceasefire agreement to create humanitarian corridors for the relocation of children, women and older people from besieged cities, where pharmacies have run bare, hundreds of thousands face food and water shortages, and the injured have been succumbing to wounds.
Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said thousands of residents had gathered for safe passage out of the city of 430,000 when shelling began and the evacuation was stopped. Later in the day, he said the attack had escalated further.
“The city is in a very, very difficult state of siege,” Boychenko told Ukrainian TV. “Relentless shelling of residential blocks is ongoing, aeroplanes have been dropping bombs on residential areas. The Russian occupants are using heavy artillery, including Grad multiple rocket launchers.”
On Sunday, the city council said that another attempt at a ceasefire would start and they would try to evacuate the dead and wounded as well as civilians.
Russian forces have also been inching closer to the capital Kyiv in an assault that has become evermore indiscriminate ― and deadly.
Working-class towns such as Bucha and Irpin are in the line of fire, and air raids on Friday broke many people's resolve to stay.
"They are bombing residential areas ― schools, churches, big buildings, everything," said accountant Natalia Dydenko, glancing back at the destruction she was leaving behind.
Dozens of civilians have been killed in Chernihiv. Those remaining live in craters or among ruins.
"There were corpses all over the ground," a man who gave his name only as Sergei told AFP, as air raid sirens wailed. "They were queuing here for the pharmacy that's just there, and they're all dead."
AFP reporters saw scenes of devastation — despite Moscow's insistence it is not targeting civilian areas.
A defiant Zelenskyy said on Saturday that Ukrainian forces were counter-attacking around Kharkiv, the country's second-largest city, inflicting "such losses on the invaders that they have not seen even in their worst dream".
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba was equally defiant, saying, "Ukraine is bleeding, but Ukraine has not fallen, and stands both feet on the ground … The myth of the unbeatable and almighty Russian army is already ruined."
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy pleaded with US lawmakers for additional help, specifically fighter planes to help secure the skies over Ukraine, even as he insisted Russia was being defeated.
“We’re inflicting losses on the [Russian forces] they could not see in their worst nightmare,” Mr Zelenskyy said.
