A delegation led by Ukraine’s defense minister held cease-fire talks on Monday with Russian officials in Belarus as Russian troops shelled a residential neighborhood in the eastern city of Kharkiv, killing at least 10 civilians, and Ukrainian defenders repelled attacks on the capital, Kyiv.

The talks on the fifth day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine come after Russian forces have struggled to make headway in most of the country, and failed so far to take any of Ukraine’s major cities as they faced fierce resistance.

In recent days Russian forces have cut off the main direct highway leading from Kyiv to the western city of Lviv.

The Russian delegation includes presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky; Russia’s deputy ministers of defense and foreign affairs; Leonid Slutsky, the head of the International Committee of Russia’s State Duma; and Russia’s ambassador to Belarus, Boris Gryzlov, said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

In the five days of the offensive, Russia so far hasn’t seized any big Ukrainian city, and dozens if not hundreds of Russian troops have been taken prisoner, videos of them posted on social media so that their families in Russia could find out about their fate.

Moscow on Monday repeated its assertion that it has gone to war in Ukraine because Kyiv threatens Russia’s own security and accused it of attacking the residents of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, which has been under Russian control since 2014.

In the Azov Sea town of Berdyansk, one of the handful that the Russian military currently controls, video footage broadcast by Ukrainian media showed dozens of residents protesting outside the city hall that now houses Russian occupation authorities.

Read Full Story
Wall Street Journal Rating