Russia escalates its offensive as Ukraine asks for more help

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia increased its bombardments on the Ukrainian capital and launched new attacks on the port city of Mariupol, in a bloody offensive as the Ukrainian president prepared on Wednesday to call for more help in an unusual speech by a foreign president to the United States Congress.

As the invasion began its third week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy suggested that there was still some reason to be optimistic that the negotiations could produce an agreement with the Russian government.

After the videoconference meeting of the two delegations, Zelenskyy said that Russian demands were becoming “more realistic.” The two sides were expected to speak again on Wednesday.

“Efforts are still needed, patience is needed,” he said in his evening video message to the nation. “Any war ends with an agreement.”

Progress on the diplomatic front and on the ground occurred while the number of people who have fled Ukraine and the worst fighting in Europe since World War II exceeded three million.

Referring to his speech to the US Congress, Zelensky thanked President Joe Biden and “all friends of Ukraine” for the $13.6 billion announced in new aid.

The president called for more weapons and more sanctions to punish Russia, and reiterated his call to “close the skies over Ukraine to Russian missiles and planes.”

The president said that Russian forces had not been able to enter Ukrainian territory any further on Tuesday, although they had continued their heavy bombing of cities.

Throughout the day, 28,893 civilians were able to flee through nine humanitarian corridors, he said, although Russian forces did not allow aid to be sent to Mariupol.

A cloud of smoke was rising over western Kiev after shrapnel from an artillery shell hit a 12-story apartment building in the center of the Ukrainian capital. The attack destroyed the last floor and caused a fire, according to a statement and images distributed by the city's emergency agency.

The neighbouring property was also damaged by the attack on Wednesday morning. The agency reported two victims but did not provide further details.

In Kharkiv, a powerful explosion resounded at night throughout the eastern city.

In addition to air strikes and rounds of ground troops, Russian navy ships fired overnight at a town south of Mariupol, on the Sea of Azov, and another near Odessa, on the Black Sea, according to local authorities.

Russian forces have intensified fighting in the suburbs of Kiev, especially around Bucha in the northwest, and on the highway heading west to Zhytomyr, regional government chief Oleksiy Kuleba said Wednesday.

According to the official, Moscow troops are trying to cut Kiev's transport arteries and destroy logistics capabilities while planning a large-scale attack to seize the capital.

Twelve towns around Kiev do not have water and in six there is no heating.

Russia has occupied the city of Ivankiv, 80 kilometers (50 miles) north of Kiev, and controls the neighbouring region on the border with Belarus, Kuleba said.

Throughout the Kiev region, “kindergartens, museums, churches, residential blocks and engineering infrastructures are under relentless attack,” he added.

The Russian bombing of the capital seemed to become more systematic and was approaching the city center, where it destroyed apartment blocks, a metro station and other civilian structures. Zelenskyy said that the shells had hit four multi-storey buildings and killed dozens of people.

Although Russian forces used long-range fire to attack civilian targets in Kiev more frequently, their ground troops had made little or no progress in the country, according to a senior US Defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to comment on the Pentagon's analysis. Russian troops were still about 15 kilometers (9 miles) from the center of the capital, the official said.

In Kharkiv, the second largest city in the country, hospital workers in the second largest city Ukraine have two open fronts: fighting COVID-19 in intensive care units while war rages abroad.

The Regional Clinical Hospital for Infectious Diseases in Kharkiv has boarded up its windows.

Its director, Dr. Pavel Nartov, told that anti-aircraft sirens sound several times a day, forcing fragile patients to go to the makeshift bomb shelter. Moving patients from ICU who need respirators is the most complicated and dangerous part of the process, but also the most critical, because of the danger of exposing oxygen tanks to the impact of bombs and shrapnel, he explained.

“The bombings take place from morning till night. Thank God, no bomb has yet hit our hospital. But it could happen at any time,” he told The Associated Press.

The United Nations says that nearly 700 civilians have been confirmed dead in Ukraine, but the real figure is likely to be much higher.

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Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this office.