Ukraine said it had agreed to send a delegation to meet Russian representatives
Ukraine vowed not to give ground at talks with Moscow on Sunday as Ukrainian forces resisted a Russian invasion four days in and Moscow put its nuclear forces on high alert.
Fighting has claimed dozens of civilian lives, forced hundreds and thousands of Ukrainians to flee west and could, according to the EU, eventually displace up to seven million people.
Russia has become an international pariah as its forces do battle on the streets of Ukraine’s cities, facing a barrage of sanctions including a ban from Western airspace and key financial networks.
Ukraine said it had agreed to send a delegation to meet Russian representatives on the border with Belarus, which has allowed Russian troops passage to attack Ukraine.
But Kyiv insisted there were no pre-conditions to the talks.
“We will not capitulate, we will not give up a single inch of our territory,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said ahead of the first public contact between the two sides since war erupted.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky was sceptical.
“As always: I do not really believe in the outcome of this meeting, but let them try,” he said.
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The United States on Sunday asked its citizens in Russia to “consider” leaving immediately, as commercial airlines cancelled flights and nations shut airspace in efforts to tighten the screws on Moscow for invading Ukraine.
“An increasing number of airlines are cancelling flights into and out of Russia, and numerous countries have closed their airspace to Russian airlines,” said the US embassy in Moscow in a statement.
It called on its citizens to “consider departing Russia immediately via commercial options still available.”
But the US embassy said that Washington was not changing its travel advisory to Russia.
Amid ongoing tensions between Moscow and Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday (local time) spoke with UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Polish President Andrzej Duda and agreed on further joint steps to counter the “aggressor”.
“Talked to UK Prime Minister @BorisJohnson and Poland President @AndrzejDuda about the current security situation. Agreed on further joint steps to counter the aggressor. Anti-war coalition in action!,” Zelenskyy tweeted.