Officials: More than 2,100 killed in Mariupol, first evacuation convoys leave city

More than 2,100 residents have been killed in the besieged southeastern Ukrainian city of Mariupol since the Russian invasion, according to city authorities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Tuesday that the situation in Mariupol “remains dire” and that it was not able to deliver aid to the city.

“The bottom line is that hundreds of thousands of people are still suffering,” the ICRC said.

Some 2,000 civilian cars were able to drive out of Mariupol Tuesday along a humanitarian evacuation route, city authorities said.

“As of 2 p.m. it is known that 2,000 cars left Mariupol,” the city council said on Telegram, adding that a further 2,000 vehicles were waiting to leave the city.

The statement did not specify how many people left in the vehicles. Another 160 cars had left the city yesterday, the council said.

The successful evacuations came after several failed attempts since Russian forces surrounded the port city on the Azov Sea early this month.

Heavy bombardment has left some 400,000 inhabitants with no running water or heating and food running short.

Meanwhile, a senior Ukrainian negotiator said that talks between Moscow and Kyiv on ending nearly three weeks of fighting in Ukraine have restarted, with both sides having signaled progress.

“Negotiations are ongoing,” a member of the Ukrainian delegation and presidential aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, wrote on Twitter, adding that his side would be pushing for a “ceasefire [and] withdrawal of troops from the territory of the country.”

Earlier, the Kremlin said it was too soon to draw any conclusions from talks to resolve the conflict in Ukraine as fighting intensified around the capital Kyiv.

“The work is complex, but the very fact that the work is continuing is in itself positive,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

“We don’t want to give any forecasts. Let’s wait for tangible results,” he said.

Delegations from Moscow and Kyiv have met for four rounds of talks to find a diplomatic resolution to the nearly three weeks of fighting between Russia’s army and Ukraine.

Both sides earlier raised hopes that a document might be signed at meetings held by videoconference Monday, before the sides announced a break for a “technical pause.”

Peskov said Tuesday it was “too early” to discuss the format of any document that could be adopted as a result of negotiations, saying this was part of discussions between negotiators.

Both sides indicated over the weekend that they were making headway.

Russia’s negotiators hailed “significant progress” while a lead Ukrainian negotiator said Moscow’s delegation had stopped issuing “ultimatums” and instead “carefully listens to our positions.”

The latest round of talks came as the leaders of Poland, the Czech Republic and Slovenia traveled by train to Kyiv to meet with Ukraine’s top leadership as Russia’s offensive moved closer to the center of the capital.

The visit by the leaders of three countries which belong to the EU and to NATO, comes as a series of strikes hit a residential neighborhood in Kyiv.

They described their visit into the war zone as a mission by the European Union to support Ukraine, though EU officials characterized it as trip the central European leaders had undertaken independently despite the security risks.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki of Poland announced he was joined by Petr Fiala of the Czech Republic and Janez Jansa of Slovenia. Also traveling is Jaroslaw Kaczynski, Poland’s de facto leader.

Kaczynski’s presence carries a certain symbolic significance. He is the surviving twin of the late president Lech Kaczynski, who died in a plane crash on Russian soil in 2010 along with 95 other Poles, among them political and military leaders, as they traveled to commemorate Poles executed by the Soviet secret police during World War II.

A Polish investigation determined that the crash was an accident caused by fog and pilot error, but Kaczynski, 72, has long suspected that Russian President Vladimir Putin had a role in provoking the accident, a suspicion he has so far failed to prove.

The leaders traveling to Kyiv on Tuesday are to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“The aim of the visit is to express the European Union’s unequivocal support for Ukraine and its freedom and independence,” said Fiala.

Morawiecki said on Facebook that he and the other leaders were making a visit, which he cast as historic, in agreement with the EU and that the United Nations was also informed.

“In such critical times for the world it is our duty to be where history is forged,” Morawiecki said. “Because it’s not about us, but about the future of our children who deserve to live in a world free from tyranny.”

In Brussels, officials said they had been informed of the visit but characterized it as one taken independently into a war zone.

The visit had been planned for several days but was kept secret for security reasons, said Michal Dworczyk, the head of Morawiecki’s office. He said that Morawiecki and Kaczynski had crossed the Polish border by train into Ukraine on Tuesday morning.

A proposal of concrete help for Ukraine would be presented to Ukraine’s leaders, Dworczyk added.

Shortly before dawn as the leaders were en route, large explosions thundered across Kyiv from what Ukrainian authorities said were artillery strikes. The shelling ignited a huge fire and a frantic rescue effort in a 15-story apartment building. At least one person was killed and others remain trapped inside.

Shockwaves from an explosion also damaged the entry to a downtown subway station that has been used as a bomb shelter. City authorities tweeted an image of the blown-out facade, saying trains would no longer stop at the station.