Russia-Ukraine live updates: Intense fighting complicates rescue efforts at bombed Mariupol art school

Intense fighting across Mariupol complicates any rescue efforts at an art school that was bombed by Russian jets on Sunday, the city’s mayor said, with hundreds of civilians believed to have been sheltering in the building before the strike.

Given the street-to-street fighting in the area and the severed communications, there is simply “no information” on how many people might be trapped in the rubble at Art School No. 12 in the city’s eastern Left Bank district, Mayor Vadym Boychenko said.

About 400 people had been sheltering there, he said. But front lines in the city have collapsed in recent days, opening the way for civilians to leave. Thousands have left on foot, he said, and it’s possible some at the art school had evacuated.

“We still have to work it out,” Boychenko said. “This is what we are hoping.”

Rescue work at a theater in the city that was bombed by Russian forces on Wednesday has halted.

“It’s not possible to get to this building,” he said.

Boychenko said that around 800 people were sheltering there before the bombing but that some families had fled.

“A lot of people were getting out and evacuating,” he said, adding that his relatives had left that shelter the previous day.

No one is sure how many emerged on foot from the wreckage, Boychenko added. Although a figure of 130 has been released, “no one was counting,” he said. “Whether it was 150 or 200, we have no idea.”

There are fears that hundreds remain trapped, but no one will have a clear picture until there is a break in the fighting, he said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday that its forces launched hypersonic missiles from the airspace over Crimea, the second time Kremlin forces have claimed to use the weapon in as many days.

The Kinzhal — Russian for “Dagger” — hypersonic missile destroyed a fuel storage base in the Mykolaiv region, the Defense Ministry said in a statement. On Saturday, Russian officials said troops had used the weapon to destroy a storage facility in the Ivano-Frankivsk region of western Ukraine.

The claims have not been independently verified. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told CBS News’s “Face the Nation” on Sunday that he could not confirm whether Russia has used hypersonic weapons. If it did, he said, they would not be a gamechanger in the war.

Hypersonic weapons can fly at five times the speed of sound, or Mach 5. President Vladimir Putin has boasted that Russia’s hypersonic missiles cannot be intercepted and are “absolutely invulnerable to any missile defense system.”

China’s ambassador to the United States said Sunday that it is “disinformation” that his country has provided Russia with military assistance in its war on Ukraine but dismissed questions about why Beijing has not condemned the invasion.

“Don’t be naive,” Qin Gang said during an occasionally contentious interview on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.” Doing so, Qin said, doesn’t “solve the problem.”

“I would be surprised if Russia will back down by condemnation,” he said.

The comments came after Chinese President Xi Jinping and President Biden spoke for two hours on Friday, with Biden warning Xi of consequences if China supported Russia’s aggression. Qin called the discussions “constructive” and characterized Beijing as a peace-loving nation that has encouraged Russian President Vladimir Putin to pursue negotiations with Ukraine.

“China’s trusted relations with Russia is not a liability,” Qin said. “Actually, it’s an asset in the international efforts to solve the crisis in a peaceful way.”

But Qin appeared to rule out any severing of China’s economic ties to Russia, which have offered a lifeline as Western nations impose crushing sanctions on Russia. The economic ties, the ambassador said, are “normal business.”

Qin said China has sent Russia food, medicine, sleeping bags and baby formula, “not weapons and ammunition.” He used Putin’s language in describing the war, calling it a “military operation” rather than an invasion.

Qin also empathized with Russian concerns about how the West has handled Moscow, saying that “there is a complicity in the history of the Ukraine issue.” Putin has said repeatedly that he had no choice but to invade because Ukraine had oriented itself toward NATO and the West.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reiterated Sunday that he is ready to negotiate with Russian President Vladimir Putin, warning that if talks to end the invasion fail, it could lead to a “third world war.”

“I’m ready for negotiations with him,” Zelensky told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. “I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war.”

The Ukrainian leader called Russia’s invasion an attempt to “exterminate” Ukrainians and credited the “dignity” of his fellow Ukrainians and the military with dealing Russian forces a “powerful blow.”

“But, unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives. So, I think we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin,” Zelensky said. “But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third world war.”

Asked whether he would acquiesce to Moscow’s wish that Ukraine abandon its efforts to join NATO, Zelensky would only state that there would be no compromise over his country’s “territorial integrity and our sovereignty.”

“You cannot just demand from Ukraine to recognize some territories as independent republics. These compromises are simply wrong,” Zelensky said at the prospect of recognizing two Russian-backed separatist territories in the Donbas as independent regions.

Later, he said the war wouldn’t have started had Ukraine been a NATO member, and he urged the alliance to be decisive on whether it would accept Ukraine.

“You can’t force us to be in this limbo,” he said.

Turkey’s foreign minister signaled Sunday that talks between Kyiv and Moscow are making progress, more than three weeks since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“Both sides are close to an agreement on fundamental issues,” Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said during a speech in the coastal city of Antalya. “It is not easy to come to an agreement while civilians are dying. Still, momentum has been gained.”

Cavusoglu, who traveled to both Russia and Ukraine last week as part of Turkey’s effort to thrust itself into the center of peace-making efforts, said he was hopeful for a cease-fire if the talks maintain their progress. But he released few details about the issues dividing the two sides or the nature of the talks.

Ukraine, he said, “wants Turkey and other parties to be guarantors of a possible agreement,” adding that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was “constantly in contact” with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to convene a meeting between the two.

Turkey, a NATO member, has been forced to walk a fine line between Russia and Ukraine given its close relations with both countries. It has condemned the Russian invasion but not joined its allies in levying sanctions. And while Ankara has highlighted the civilian suffering in Ukraine, it has tried to downplay its own involvement in the war, including providing armed drones to Kyiv.

Ibrahim Kalin, an adviser to Erdogan, has spoken more expansively in recent days about the state of the negotiations. In an interview with Al Jazeera, he said there was a “growing consensus” between Russia and Ukraine on several issues, including on the idea that Kyiv would agree to “neutrality” and not join NATO, and on Ukraine’s demilitarization.

On other key issues — mainly, the status of Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, as well as the separatist regions of Luhansk and Donetsk in Ukraine — the two sides remained far apart, and Putin did not seem willing to meet Zelensky for the moment, given the gaps, Kalin said.

“The longer this takes, the more severe the damage will be for the Russian military and for the Russian economy, as well,” Kalin said. “So I believe those will be the factors that will go into President Putin’s thinking in terms of when he will call this off.”

DNIPRO, Ukraine — Russian forces are present in all civilian neighborhoods of Mariupol, as the battle for control of the strategic port city descends into house-to-house guerrilla warfare, Ukrainian military and city officials said Sunday.

“They are in the center, in the periphery, they are everywhere,” Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko said in an interview with The Washington Post. He said that over the past four days, the war has shifted into intense street fighting.

“Our boys are fighting back,” he said. “But it’s hard.”

Russian gunships have also been targeting the city for several days, Boychenko said. With communications cut, information from the city has been scant, but those fleeing have painted a picture of a city where Ukrainian forces are losing their grip.

Lt. Col. Sergiy Bachynskyj, a spokesman for the military hospital in Dnipro, a city nearly 200 miles northwest of Mariupol, said dozens of workers from the military hospital in Mariupol have evacuated in recent days. About 40 essential employees have remained, he said.

“They are in all the civilian quarters right now,” he said of the Russian forces.

Industrial areas linked to the city’s steel industry, meanwhile, are still in Ukrainian control. “It’s the main zone of fighting,” he said. “I’m not saying that there are no Ukrainian soldiers in other parts of the city, they just don’t control that territory.”

Petro Andryushchenko, an adviser to the Mariupol mayor’s office, said that, overall, there is “no complete control on either side.”

“Who can talk about controlling, when one building is Russian-occupied, and one is Ukrainian military,” he said.

“It was, is and always will be a Ukrainian city,” he added. “The Russian army can bomb everything in Mariupol, but that doesn’t mean Mariupol isn’t Ukrainian. That’s why they are bombing it completely.”

Russia’s targeting of civilian neighborhoods and use of siege tactics in Ukraine are “really disgusting,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Sunday, in some of his most direct comments about the war.

Austin said Russian President Vladimir Putin has probably resorted to these tactics because Ukraine has “essentially stalled” Russia’s advance on the battlefield with resolve and the use of weapons provided by the United States and other allies and partners.

The Ukrainian defense “has had the effect of him moving his forces into a wood chipper,” Austin said of Putin, speaking on CBS News’s “Face the Nation.”

Austin said he could not confirm whether Russia had used hypersonic weapons in Ukraine, as Russia first claimed Saturday. If the claim is true, he said, it would not be a game changer in the war.

The Pentagon chief also indicated that it is still unclear if the United States and allies that possess the S-300 air defense missile system that Ukraine has requested will reach a deal that would move the weapons into Ukraine. Slovakia has indicated it is willing to send it if it receives similar weapons from the West as replacement.

Austin said such systems will be delivered “if we can get it in.” The defense secretary has just returned from a trip to Europe that included stops in Slovakia and Bulgaria, which also possesses the S-300.

“We’ll continue to work with them and to work with other allies and partners to not only create the conditions to provide that kind of assistance, but also work to ensure that they have the ability to protect their skies going forward,” he said.

The Polish ambassador to the United States clarified Sunday that his country’s proposal to launch a peacekeeping mission in Ukraine involving NATO military forces is not intended to include direct conflict with Russia.

The plan, proposed ahead of a NATO summit, is “understandably a preliminary concept,” Ambassador Marek Magierowski said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” He did not provide a timeline for whether the peacekeepers under the proposal would deploy soon or only if a settlement is reached in the war.

“I believe we have to explore every option and every avenue to stop this aggression and this unprovoked war as quickly as possible — of course without engaging Russia in direct military confrontation, because that is not the intent,” Magierowski said.

The ambassador acknowledged that peacekeepers can come under attack in a war zone. “Nevertheless,” he said, “it is a proposal that should be discussed.”

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