Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that he was open to negotiations with his Russian counterpart-- but if the talks fail, it "could mean a third World War."
“I’m ready for negotiations with him [Putin]. I was ready for the last two years. And I think that without negotiations, we cannot end this war,” he told CNN on Sunday.
His comments come as Russian and Ukrainian forces fought for control of the port city of Mariupol throughout the day.
The Ukrainian leader went on saying: “If there’s just 1% chance for us to stop this war, I think that we need to take this chance. We need to do that. I can tell you about the result of this negotiations — in any case, we are losing people on a daily basis, innocent people on the ground.
“Russian forces have come to exterminate us, to kill us. And we can demonstrate that the dignity of our people and our army that we are able to deal a powerful blow, we are able to strike back. But, unfortunately, our dignity is not going to preserve the lives," he added.
"So, I think we have to use any format, any chance in order to have a possibility of negotiating, possibility of talking to Putin. But if these attempts fail, that would mean that this is a third World War,” he concluded.
In Mariupol, which has suffered some of the heaviest bombardment since Russia launched its invasion on February 24, many of its 400,000 residents remain trapped in the city with little if any food, water and power.
Fighting continued inside the city on Sunday, regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko said, without elaborating.
Capturing Mariupol would help Russian forces secure a land corridor to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The city council said on its Telegram channel late on Saturday that several thousand residents had been "deported" to Russia over the past week. Russian news agencies said buses had carried hundreds of people Moscow calls refugees from Mariupol to Russia in recent days.
Russian forces bombed an art school on Saturday in which 400 residents were sheltering, but the number of casualties was not yet known, Mariupol's council said.
Zelenskiy said the siege of Mariupol was a war crime.
The UN refugee agency said 10 million people had now been displaced across Ukraine, including some 3.4 million who have fled to neighbouring countries such as Poland. Officials in the region said they were reaching capacity to comfortably house refugees.
At least 902 civilians have been killed and 1,459 injured in Ukraine since February 24, according to the United Nations human rights office. But Russia denies targeting civilians.