Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes
Ukraine warned on Monday the humanitarian crisis in the pulverised city of Mariupol was now "catastrophic", with thousands dead, as fighting surged around Kyiv ahead of new face-to-face peace talks with Russia in Turkey.
A senior Ukrainian official said that around 5,000 people have been buried in the besieged city of Mariupol.
But the burials stopped 10 days ago because of continued shelling," Tetyana Lomakina, a presidential adviser now in charge of humanitarian corridors, said by phone, adding that as many as 10,000 people may have died since the start of the Russian invasion.
Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the peril facing the capital despite an apparent retreat in Moscow's war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine.
"The enemy is trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv and block transport routes," Ukraine's deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar said.
"To capture Kyiv is essentially to capture Ukraine, and this is their goal."
UN chief Antonio Guterres said Monday the global body is seeking a humanitarian ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine, as the civilian toll continues to rise a month after Moscow's invasion of its neighbour.
Guterres told reporters he had asked UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths "immediately to explore with the parties involved the possible agreements and arrangements for a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine."
He said he hoped Griffiths would go to both Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after he returns from a mission to Afghanistan.
About 20,000 Ukrainians have been killed in Russia's month-old invasion and 10 million have fled their homes, according to Kyiv, and several cities are still coming under withering bombardment.
Ukraine Prosecutor General Iryna Venediktova said Monday there was proof that Russian forces have used banned cluster bombs in the southern Odessa and Kherson areas.
Humanitarian needs are direct in the southern port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine said that about 160,000 civilians remain encircled by Russian forces, desperate for food, water and medicine.
