Russian and Ukranian foreign ministers will hold a face-to-face meeting in Turkey, as Moscow continues its assault on Kyiv. The all-out invasion has entered its third week.
Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukraine foreign minister, said he was ready for talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov, however he had “limited” expectations.
Ukraine’s foreign ministry said that Kyiv was seeking an immediate “cessation of hostilities and the war against Ukraine by Russia”.
The meeting between the foreign ministers follows after Ukraine accused Russia of bombing a children’s hospital. The attack is a “war crime”, Kyiv said.
As many as 17 people were injured in the attack in Mariupol on Wednesday, Ukraine claims.
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UN Secretary General António Guterres has dubbed the attack as “horrific”. The US has accused Russia of a “barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians”.
However, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN Dmitry Polyanskiy said the bombed hospital had been “turned into a military object by [Ukrainian] radicals”.
Russian forces have surrounded Mariupol – where about 400,000 people live. Repeated attempts at a ceasefire to allow civilians to leave have broken down, the BBC reported.
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“The whole city remains without electricity, water, food, whatever and people are dying because of dehydration,” Olena Stokoz of Ukraine’s Red Cross told the BBC on Wednesday.
Residential areas have also been reportedly attacked in overnight raids in Ukraine’s north-eastern Sumy region.