Mar 23, 2022: Talks between Ukraine and Russia are confrontational but moving forward, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday, as authorities appealed to the Russians to evacuate tens of thousands of people from the besieged city of Mariupol amid a worsening humanitarian crisis.

The city council said Tuesday that a series of Russian airstrikes had turned Mariupol into “ashes of a dead land.”

Millions are believed to be trapped inside buildings without access to food, water, electricity or heat. According to regional governor Paolo Kirilenko, both civilians and Ukrainian soldiers are being targeted by Russian shelling in a port city where about 400,000 people live.

Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency quoted a separatist leader as saying that Russian forces and Russian-backed separatist units had taken over about half of the port city. But in an early morning speech, Zelenskyy expressed hope for talks with Moscow, which has so far made little progress.

“It’s very difficult, sometimes confrontational,” he said. “But step by step we are moving forward.”

“Its very difficult. Sometimes it’s scandalous,” he said, without giving details.

Zelenskyy has been having a series of conversations with Western leaders in the days before the leaders of NATO countries gather in Brussels to discuss the response to the war in Ukraine.

He said he spoke on Tuesday to Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, “who supports us.”

Zelenskyy said he expects the Western leaders to approve more sanctions to punish Russia and more help for Ukraine.

“We will work, we will fight, as hard as we can, to the last, bravely and openly,” he said.

Zelenskyy accused Russian forces of not only blocking a humanitarian convoy trying to take desperately needed aid to Mariupol, but seizing what another Ukrainian official said were 15 of the bus drivers and rescue workers on the aid mission, as well as their vehicles.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the continued bombing of Ukraine comes as Western nations prepare to step up pressure on the Kremlin, with the United States expected to announce new sanctions by Thursday.

U.S President Joe Biden is expected to announce the latest developments as he travels to Brussels this week to attend the NATO Emergency Summit, the G7 Summit and the European Council.

“He will have the opportunity to coordinate on the next phase of military assistance to Ukraine. He will join our partners in imposing further sanctions on Russia and tightening the existing sanctions to crack down on evasion and to ensure robust enforcement,”U.S national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

A senior U.S defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity to give the Pentagon’s assessment, said Russian ships in the Sea of Azov had joined the shelling of Mariupol. The official said there were about seven Russian ships in that area, including a minesweeper and a couple of landing vessels.

Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk, speaking on Ukrainian television on Tuesday, said at least 100,000 people wanted to leave Mariupol but could not.

According to Zelensky, more than 7,000 people were evacuated from the battered city on Tuesday. But about 100,000 remain there “in inhuman conditions, under a full blockade, without food, without water, without medicine, and under constant shelling, under constant bombardment.”

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