KYIV — Russian forces have continued to bombard Ukrainian cities, with Kharkiv appearing to be the main target. But Ukraine’s armed forces have said that in some areas of the country the tide has turned and its military has gone on the offensive for the first time as the war enters its seventh day.
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No major Ukrainian city has fallen as of March 2, but experts have warned that Moscow appears to be turning to devastating shelling of built-up areas before entering them.
While Russian troops are massed close to the capital and cities around the country are being heavily shelled, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces announced in a statement on March 2 that in some areas Ukrainian troops “are beginning to seize the initiative from the Russian occupiers.”
“The enemy is trying to maintain the fighting capacity of their units, realizing that the ‘easy walk’ did not work,” the statement reads. “It tries to avoid direct encounters not only with the Ukrainian Army, but also with civilians who block the movement of its columns. Russian propaganda ceases to operate in Ukraine and the ‘liberators’ realize that no one was ready to welcome them here.”
The heaviest Russian bombardments appear to be targeted on the northeastern city of Kharkiv, where dozens of residents have been killed and the city center hit by missile strikes in recent days. Regional Governor Oleh Synyehubov said on the morning of March 2 that at least 21 people had been killed and 112 wounded due to shelling over the previous 24 hours.
On March 2, regional officials reported that Kharkiv’s City Council was struck by a missile, a day after the city’s administration building was hit in an attack Ukrainian President Volodymyr described as a “war crime.”
According to updated figures released by the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces on March 2, Russia has suffered losses of about 5,800 troops, although those numbers could not be independently verified and it is unclear if the figures include only killed soldiers. Russia has also lost 30 airplanes, 31 helicopters, and 211 tanks, according to the new statistics. Updated figures relating to Ukrainian troop losses were not released, although Ukraine recently placed the number in the hundreds.
Russia has not provided clear data on troop casualties.
WATCH: Rescue operations were under way on March 2 in Irpin, near the Ukrainian capital, after an attack blamed on Russian forces hit a residential area:
The UN human rights office said it has recorded 136 civilian deaths. More than 870,000 people are estimated to have fled Ukraine, according to the UN refugee agency.
Ukraine’s State Emergency Service has said that more than 2,000 civilians died in the first week of the war. That figure has not been independently confirmed.
Reports from Kharkiv said that Russian airborne troops had landed in the city on March 2 and that Russian forces attacked a military medical center. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry said apartment blocks had been damaged by shelling and that the regional headquarters of the national police and Karazin National University were targeted.
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Satellite images from Maxar Technologies show that a convoy of Russian armored vehicles and artillery extended for more than 65 kilometers and was within a few kilometers of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on February 27-28, in what Ukraine’s armed forces see as an attempt to encircle and take control of the country’s largest city.
Synyehubov said that overnight airstrikes had caused multiple fires but that Ukrainian forces continued to hold the city.
“All attacks have been pushed back. The Russian enemy suffered heavy losses,” Synyehubov was quoted by dpa as saying.
Ukraine’s UNIAN news agency reported that six modern Russian tanks had been captured.
The status of Kherson, a strategically important Black Sea port city of about 280,000 people, was disputed.
In televised remarks on March 2, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that “the Russian divisions of the armed forces have taken the regional center of Kherson under full control.”
However, an adviser to Zelenskiy disputed the claim, saying that street fighting was continuing as of midday on March 2. “The city has not fallen. Our side continues to defend,” Oleksiy Arestovych said in a live-streamed presidential briefing.
Early on March 2, Mariupol’s mayor said that the Azov Sea port city has been under intense shelling and the authorities are unable to evacuate the injured. The city is a key target of joint Russian and separatist forces from Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
Russian forces also continue to mass outside the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, where Russian missiles struck the city’s television tower located near a Holocaust massacre site on March 2:
At least five people were killed in that attack and more explosions were reported later that evening in Kyiv and surrounding areas. A massive convoy of artillery and armored vehicles that had extended more than 65 kilometers continues to position itself within striking distance of the capital in what Ukrainian officials see as an attempt to surround and take control of the country’s largest city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy expressed outrage on Twitter that the Russian missile strike on the TV tower had struck so close to the Babyn Yar memorial center, which was dedicated just last year to mark the 80th anniversary of the infamous mass slaughter of Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and others by the Nazis during World War II.
“To the world: What is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating,” Zelenskiy wrote on March 1.
Shortly after reports of the attacks, Zelenskiy spoke by phone with U.S. President Joe Biden.
“The American leadership on anti-Russian sanctions and defense assistance to Ukraine was discussed. We must stop the aggressor as soon as possible. Thank you for your support!” Zelenskiy said on Twitter.
A White House official said the two leaders spoke for about 30 minutes.
During his first State of the Union Address, delivered in Washington on March 1, Biden addressed Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine at length.
“Six days ago, Russia’s Vladimir Putin sought to shake the foundations of the free world, thinking he could make it bend to his menacing ways,” Biden said. “But he badly miscalculated. He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead, he met a wall of strength he never imagined. He met the Ukrainian people.”
Biden announced that he was immediately closing U.S. airspace to Russian flights and stressed the unity of Western countries against Russia’s military action.
“He thought he could divide us at home, in this chamber, in this nation,” Biden said during his address to the nation from the House of Representatives in the U.S. Capitol. “He thought he could divide us in Europe as well. But Putin was wrong. We are ready. We are united.”
In an interview to Reuters and CNN on March 1, Zelenskiy said Russia must “first stop bombing people” before peace talks could make any headway. A second round of talks with Russia on a possible cease-fire was expected between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators in Belarus on March 2, but there have been differing accounts of if and when they will take place.
The Kremlin said on March 2 that there was “contradictory information” regarding the scheduled talks and that it was prepared to meet but it was not clear if the Ukrainian negotiating team would show up.
“Our delegation will be there late in the afternoon. [It will] wait for Ukrainian negotiators,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow on March 2. “Our delegation will be ready to continue the conversation tonight.”
During a live-streamed briefing on Facebook on March 2, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Ukraine was ready to talk but that it was not clear when.
“We are ready for talks. We are ready for diplomacy. But we are in no way ready to accept Russian ultimatums,” Kuleba said.
Russian media later cited Ukrainian presidential adviser Arestovych as telling Ukraine-24 television that the talks were back on for March 2.
After the first round of talks, on February 28, failed to reach a breakthrough, Zelenskiy said that Russia must stop bombing Ukrainian cities before fresh discussions could take place. A Ukrainian presidential adviser told Reuters that a “substantial agenda” needed to be established before negotiations can commence.
Zelenskiy has urged NATO members to impose a no-fly zone to stop Russia’s air force. The Ukrainian president has also condemned the bombardment of Kharkiv as a war crime and act of terror, saying in video statement following a deadly attack that struck the city administration building on March 1 that “after such an attack, Russia is a terrorist country.”
WATCH: There were emotional farewells at Kyiv’s main train station as more people fled the Ukrainian capital.
Emergency services reported that at least 10 people were killed in the attack, which came after dozens were killed by Russian shelling a day earlier. Moscow has repeatedly claimed that it is not targeting civilian areas during what it calls its “military operation” in Ukraine.
On February 28, the office of the prosecutor of the ICC, the global criminal court, announced that it was launching an investigation into possible war crimes committed in Ukraine both before last week’s invasion by Russia, which in 2014 illegally annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula, and since the current invasion began on February 24.
The court already has conducted a preliminary probe into crimes linked to the violent suppression of pro-European protests in Kyiv in 2013-14, as well as allegations of crimes in Crimea following its annexation by Russia.
On March 1, Canada petitioned the ICC to probe alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
“We are working with other ICC member states to take this significant action as a result of numerous allegations of the commission of serious international crimes in Ukraine by Russian forces,” Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly said in a statement. “The ICC has our full support and confidence. We call on Russia to cooperate with the court.”
