After Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his invading army to attack “from all directions,” Ukraine’s defense forces and civilian volunteers reportedly repelled an assault on Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, but battles remain underway nationwide on Sunday as diplomatic efforts unfold.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that Kyiv intends to send a delegation to the Ukraine-Belarus border to hold discussions with Moscow “without preconditions.”
Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s earlier offer to meet his delegation in Minsk — saying that talks there could have been possible had Russia not attacked Ukraine from Belarus — but agreed after Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko assured him during a phone call that “all planes, helicopters, and missiles stationed on Belarusian territory remain on the ground during the Ukrainian delegation’s travel, talks, and return” from the border.
Just before the planned negotiations were announced, Putin ordered the Russian military to put its nuclear forces on “special alert.”
The move, made in response to what Putin called “aggressive statements” by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), makes it easier to launch nuclear weapons more quickly, though it doesn’t necessarily mean that Russia intends to use them.
According to BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera, Putin is likely trying to “deter NATO support for Ukraine by creating fears over how far he is willing to go and creating ambiguity over what kind of support for Ukraine he will consider to be too much.”
Earlier Sunday, regional governor Oleh Sinegubov said that Ukrainian forces successfully expelled Russian troops following intense street fighting and are in full control of Kharkiv, a city roughly 300 miles east of the capital of Kiev, which is also still in Ukraine’s hands.
One video, verified by the BBC, shows a group of Ukrainian soldiers taking cover and launching missiles at Russian military vehicles in Kharkiv.
