Russia-Ukraine war: Key things to know about the conflict

Kyiv, March 21 (PTI/AP): The battle for Ukraine’s strategic port of Mariupol raged on Monday, as Ukraine rejected a Russian offer to evacuate its troops from the besieged city and Russian bombardment continued.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said about 400 civilians were taking shelter at an art school in the Azov Sea port city when it was struck by a Russian bomb.

Russia’s war in Ukraine, now in its 26th day, shows no signs of abating. The invasion has wreaked devastation and destruction, exacting a heavy toll on civilians. The UN says more than 3.38 million people have fled Ukraine.

What is the latest in Mariupol?

The key port city has seen some of the heaviest fighting since the Russian invasion. Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are fighting block-by-block for control of the city where at least 2,300 people have died, some buried in mass graves.

Ukrainian officials rejected a Russian offer that its troops be granted safe passage out of the encircled city, which would hand Mariupol to Russia, allowing Russian forces in southern and eastern Ukraine to unite.

There can be no talk of any surrender, laying down of arms, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Irina Vereshchuk told the news outlet Ukrainian Pravda.

Along with the offer to surrender, Russian attacks have continued. A Russian airstrike hit the school where some 400 civilians had been taking shelter. It was not clear how many casualties there were, Zelenskyy said in a video address early Monday.

They are under the rubble, and we don’t know how many of them have survived, he said.

The strike on the art school was the second time in less than a week that officials reported an attack on a public building where Mariupol residents had taken shelter. On Wednesday, a bomb hit a theater where more than 1,000 people were believed to be sheltering. It was unclear how many people were killed in that attack.

What is happening elsewhere in Ukraine?

Russian shelling Sunday near the city center of the capital, Kyiv, killed at least six people, according to Associated Press journalists at the scene.

The attack devastated a shopping center, leaving a flattened ruin still smoldering Monday morning in the midst of high-rise towers. The force of the explosion shattered every window in the high-rise next door and twisted its metal frames.

In the distance, the sound of artillery rang out as firefighters picked their way through the destruction in the densely populated Podil district.

Russian troops have been shelling Kyiv for a fourth week now and are trying to surround the capital, which had nearly 3 million people before the war.

Emergency officials have contained an ammonia leak at a chemical plant that contaminated wide area in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy, officials said Monday.

The plant is on the eastern outskirts of the city, which has a population of about 263,000 and has been regularly shelled by Russian troops in recent weeks.

Are Russian forces making any advances?

The two sides now seem to be trying to wear down the other, experts say, with bogged-down Russian forces launching long-range missiles at cities and military bases as Ukrainian forces carry out hit-and-run attacks and seek to sever Russian supply lines.

Denied an easy and early victory, Russia’s military is reverting to the scorched earth tactics of its past offensives in Syria and Chechnya, and pounding population centers with airstrikes and artillery barrages that leave civilians like those in the port city of Mariupol unable to safely venture out for food or water, to bury the dead, or to flee.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Ukrainian resistance means Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces on the ground are essentially stalled.

It’s had the effect of him moving his forces into a woodchipper, Austin told CBS on Sunday.

Western military analysts say that even if Mariupol is taken, the troops battling for control there may be too depleted to help secure Russian breakthroughs on other fronts.

What about diplomatic efforts surrounding the conflict?

Russian and Ukrainian officials have held a series of talks, but no substantive solution to the conflict has emerged from that dialogue.

Speaking to Israeli legislators via video link on Sunday, Zelenskyy thanked Israel for its efforts to broker talks with Russia. He praised Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett for trying to help find a negotiation track with Russia so that we sooner or later start talking with Russia, possibly in Jerusalem.

President Joe Biden meanwhile travels to Europe this week, where he will attend a summit with NATO leaders that will look for ways to strengthen the bloc’s own deterrence and defense, immediately and in the long term, to deal with the now openly confrontational Putin.

That gathering is intended not just to show NATO’s support to Ukraine, but also our readiness to protect and defend all NATO allies, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told CBS’ Face the Nation on Sunday.

On Monday ahead of his trip, Biden will discuss the war with European leaders. President Emmanuel Macron of France, Chancellor Olaf Scholz of Germany, Prime Minister Mario Draghi of Italy and Prime Minister Boris Johnson of the United Kingdom are expected to take part, the White House said Sunday.

Biden has added a stop to Poland during his trip, travelling to visit a crucial ally of Ukraine which has taken in more than 2 million refugees from Ukraine.

Biden will travel to Warsaw on Friday, for a bilateral meeting with Poland’s President Andrzej Duda, where he plans to discuss how the US along with its allies and partners are responding to the humanitarian and human rights crisis that Russia’s unjustified and unprovoked war on Ukraine has created, said press secretary Jen Psaki said in a statement Sunday night.

Biden and NATO have said repeatedly that while they will provide weapons and other defensive support to non-NATO member Ukraine, they are determined to avoid any escalation on behalf of Kyiv that risks a broader war with Russia.