Russian forces shelled Ukraine’s second-largest city on Monday, rocking a residential neighborhood as they closed in on the capital, Kyiv, in a 40-mile convoy that included hundreds of tanks and other military vehicles.
The fighting continued as talks aimed at stopping the five-day war yielded only an agreement to keep talking. The country’s embattled president said the stepped-up shelling was aimed at forcing him into concessions.
“I believe Russia is trying to put pressure (on Ukraine) with this simple method,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Monday in a video address. He did not offer details of the hours-long talks that took place earlier, but said that Kyiv was not prepared to make concessions “when one side is hitting each other with rocket artillery.”