KYIV, Ukraine — Three European leaders were traveling to Kyiv on Tuesday to express the European Union’s “unequivocal support” for Ukraine and offer financial help, the Czech and Polish governments said, even as fighting rages around the city, with half a dozen loud blasts shaking central Kyiv in the pre-dawn hours. The leaders of the Czech Republic, Poland and Slovenia were traveling by train and crossed into Ukraine on Tuesday morning, officials said.
As evidence grows that Russia’s advance has stalled across multiple fronts, talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators were set to resume on Tuesday, presenting a narrow path to a diplomatic solution.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine sought to step up pressure on the Kremlin by reiterating appeals to Russian soldiers and citizens appalled by the war to end the fighting. “As long as your country has not completely closed itself off from the whole world, turning into a very large North Korea, you must fight,” he said in a video address in Russian.
There was little sign that the Kremlin would ease its assault, however, as it relies on long-range missiles and heavy artillery to bombard cities and other targets across Ukraine.
Here are some of the latest developments:
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President Biden is considering convening and traveling to a meeting of NATO leaders next week in Europe, according to White House officials.
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Mr. Zelensky plans to address Congress on Wednesday in a virtual speech that could increase pressure on the Biden administration to send fighter jets to Kyiv.
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The whereabouts of a Russian state television employee who was detained on Monday for an on-air anti-war protest were unknown on Tuesday morning, according to a rights lawyer following her case.
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Britain’s defense ministry warned that Russia may be planning a chemical or biological attack in a “false-flag” operation to justify the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Hundreds escaped Mariupol by car on Monday, according to the local government. A convoy carrying tons of food, water and medicine failed to break a blockade of the city that has been in place since the start of the war.
