Putin ramps up Ukraine invasion pronouncing peace talks dead

President Vladimir Putin snuffed out any hope of diplomacy to end the fighting in Ukraine and ordered Russia’s military advance to press ahead, as western nations rushed aid to help the government in Kyiv defend itself.

Speaking on a conference call Saturday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Kyiv had refused to conduct negotiations, after the two sides failed to reach agreement on a format or a location for any talks. “Because the Ukrainian side in effect refused negotiations, the main Russian forces resumed their advance according to the plan of the operation,” he said, declining to provide more details.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhaylo Podolyak dismissed Peskov’s comments as “tactics,” saying that Russia was trying to consign diplomacy “to a dead end even before talks begin,” according to Interfax. The president “categorically rules out any ultimatums and conditions,” it cited him as saying.

Negotiations were first floated on Friday shortly after Chinese President Xi Jinping urged Putin in a call to enter talks with Ukraine. But success always seemed unlikely given Russia’s insistence on the surrender of Ukraine’s military and removal of the elected government, while conducting a full-scale invasion of its neighbor. Neither was there any sign that the Russian offensive had ever halted, as Peskov maintained.

Russia struck Ukrainian military infrastructure overnight with arms including cruise missiles, and took control of the city of Melitopol, according to a Defense Ministry statement carried by the Interfax newswire. Ukraine claimed to have rebuffed Russian invaders intent on toppling the government in the capital.

In a video apparently filmed on a street in Kyiv and posted on Twitter and Facebook, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that a large amount of “fake information” was circulating on social networks alleging that he had called on Ukrainian troops to lay down their weapons and that evacuation was under way.

“We won’t give up any arms,” Zelenskiy said. “We will defend our country.”

With the war in its third day and casualties mounting, a shocked world ratcheted up the costs for the Kremlin of its aggression. The European Union, the U.S., the U.K. and others have already enacted punishing sanctions on Russia, including on Putin and members of his inner circle, sending Russian markets and the ruble tumbling.

The 27-nation EU moved closer toward supporting Russia’s exclusion from the SWIFT financial messaging system, a drastic step that would inflict damage on the European economy and that of its EU members as well as on Moscow. Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki and Lithuanian President Gitanas Nauseda met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Saturday in a bid to overturn one of the final holdouts to EU agreement on the measure.

In a sign of Moscow’s isolation, China distanced itself from Russia, with Foreign Minister Wang Yi saying that the situation in Ukraine “is something China does not want to see,” adding that it was “absolutely imperative” for all sides to exercise restraint.  

Promises of aid for Ukraine poured in. U.S. President Joe Biden authorized the State Department to provide $600 million in immediate aid to Ukraine, including $350 million in military funding.

The Netherlands will send 200 Stinger anti-aircraft missiles as soon as possible, in addition to other military aid approved earlier this month. The Czech Republic will send machine guns, sniper rifles, handguns and ammunition on top of 4,000 artillery shells already agreed. Belgium is dispatching fuel and 2,000 small arms, while Slovakia -- which shares a border with Ukraine -- is sending shells and fuel. Germany said it would deploy troops to Slovakia to set up a Patriot anti-aircraft missile system on its territory.

“It’s very important that tangible military aid reaches Ukraine now,” Lithuania’s Nauseda said before meeting with Scholz. “Sanctions are important, but sanctions will have real tangible impact on Russia’s behavior in some time only.”

With the war raging, Russia’s media regulator ordered ten mostly independent news outlets to remove reports of alleged civilian casualties and attacks on cities by Moscow’s forces in Ukraine, as the Kremlin seeks to control the narrative at home about its invasion. Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko earlier said that Russian forces were in areas of the capital, though the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said its forces are still in control of the city.

“Ukraine’s troops are repelling air strikes, they destroyed military transport aircraft carrying Russia’s paratroopers, continue to carry out systematic fighting,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on Facebook.

Putin said he invaded Ukraine to stop it from getting closer to NATO, the Western military alliance, and to force it to “demilitarize.”