Zelensky tells Putin 'sit down with me, I don't bite, I'm a normal bloke' after Russian President's breathtaking address calling Ukrainians 'extreme gangsters' who use civilians as 'human shields' while his forces relentlessly bombard family homes

• Vladimir Putin has tonight denied that his troops are killing civilians or targeting cities, instead accusing Ukrainian soldiers of holding people hostage and hiding their military equipment in civilian areas
• Russian leader also claimed his 'special military operation' is going on time and to schedule, despite his troops missing key objectives, suffering embarrassing defeats, and getting bogged down in fighting
• It will do little to assure people the war could be over soon, but suggests Putin is rattled at level of resistance
• Came just hours after he shared a call with Emmanuel Macron, vowing that Russia would fight until 'the end'
• Macron said he believes 'the worst is yet to come' in Ukraine after 90-minute phone call with Vladimir Putin ended with his Russian counterpart declaring his goals will be achieved 'in any case'
• Talks were held between Ukraine and Russian negotiators, who agreed for safety corridors to be created
• Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has appealed to Putin directly to sit down with him for talks
• Click here for MailOnline's liveblog with the latest updates on the Ukraine crisis 

By CHRIS JEWERS and CHRIS PLEASANCE FOR MAILONLINE -, 3 March 2022 

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has this evening called on his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to sit down with him at the negotiating table in person during another impassioned television appearance.

Zelensky's comments came as Putin's forces continued their brutal assault on several of Ukraine's cities, and on the same day negotiations between the two sides made little progress in deescalating the deadly war.

In an appeal to his Russian counterpart, Zelensky said: 'Get off our land. You don't want to leave now? Then sit down with me at the negotiation table. I'm available. Sit. Just not 30 metres away like with Macron or Scholz etc. I am your neighbour. You don't need to keep me 30 metres away.

'I don't bite. I'm a normal bloke. Sit down with me and talk. What are you afraid of? We aren't threatening anyone, we're not terrorists, we aren't seizing banks and seizing foreign land.'  

Earlier today, Putin branded Ukrainians 'extreme gangsters', claimed their army is using civilians as 'human shields', hailed his soldiers as heroes who are fighting to save innocent lives and said his invasion is going exactly to plan and schedule in a stunning act of hypocrisy and outright denial.

The Russian leader, who eight days ago declared all-out war against Ukraine in a bid to topple its elected government and reunify it with Russia by force, denied that his troops are deliberately targeting civilians - despite reams of evidence to the contrary - and instead blamed 'neo-Nazis' holding citizens hostage. 

Referring to the invasion as a 'special operation' aimed only at protecting the eastern Donbass region, he acknowledged that some Russian forces including a senior commander had died in the fighting - but claimed the officer had blown himself up in a heroic act of sacrifice while taking out several Ukrainian soldiers.

The address, one of the first Putin has made in public since announcing the start of his 'special operation' eight days ago - will do little to reassure anyone that the war is close to being over, or that Russia can be brought to the negotiating table without more blood being shed.

But it also hints that Putin is rattled as the fighting proves harder than Russian commanders anticipated, and western sanctions go harder and deeper than even European or American observers predicted. All hope of a swift victory has now been dashed, leaving Putin facing a long, bloody and expensive war to achieve his aims.

Zelensky's subsequent comments came in during a press conference in Kyiv and in response to a reporter's question on what 'guarantees' Ukraine can offer.

'Guarantees for what?' Zelensky fired back at the interviewer in Russian. 'We aren't attacking Russia and we have no intention of doing so. Guarantee what? We aren't in NATO. We don't have nuclear weapons. What am I supposed to say, what am I supposed to give, and to whom?

'You must understand - this is also a huge thing that everybody is talking about - what am I supposed to give? Jesus, what do you want from us?!' 

Ukraine's president, who has become an inspirational figure both at home and abroad for his defiance in the face of Russian aggression, also called on the West to supply planes to help his military control the skies. It came after NATO members ruled out enforcing a no-fly zone over Ukraine for fear of igniting World War Three.

'If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!' Zelensky told a news conference. 'If we are no more then, God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next,' he said, adding that direct talks with Putin were 'the only way to stop this war'.    

Zelensky - who just weeks ago sought to calm Ukrainians over US allegations that Russia was planning to invade his country - said: 'Nobody thought that in the modern world a man can behave like a beast.' 

Soon after Putin's address, Ukraine announced that it has agreed with Russia to create safe corridors - backed by ceasefires - to evacuate civilians and deliver aid to areas under attack by Russian forces. Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky also said the agreement had been made during talks, describing it as 'substantial progress'.

The agreement was the only tangible progress from a second round of talks between Moscow and Kyiv, according to an adviser to Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky, and it was not immediately clear how they would work. 

Negotiators from Ukraine and Russia said afterwards that a third round of talks on the war will be held shortly.

So far, more than one million people have fled Ukraine as Putin's armies have laid waste to key cities.

Meanwhile the Russian economy is tanking with the ruble at record lows, the stock market unable to open because it faces near-total collapse, and European countries seizing assets from billionaire oligarchs. Protests have also sprung up in Russia, coupled with high-profile political figures and celebrities calling for the war to end.  

Ukraine war: The latest 

• Peace talks between the two sides resumed today, with negotiators meeting on the Belarus border  
• An agreement was made for safe corridors to be created to allow for people to evacuate cities and for aid to be delivered, both sides confirmed  
• Vladimir Putin called Emmanuel Macron to tell him that he has no intention of calling off the invasion, will keep going until 'the end', and may increase his demands despite suffering losses 
• In an appeal to his Russian counterpart, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to Putin to sit down with him in-person for negotiations
• Russian forces take the Black Sea port of Kherson in southern Ukraine, the first major city to fall 
• Invasion so far has been badly managed, a 'disaster, through and through', US defence experts say
• Ukraine's second city Kharkiv continues to come under heavy Russian shelling 
• Column of Russian vehicles north of Kyiv 'stalled' due to fuel and food shortages, and Ukrainian resistance
• More than one million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion
• Moscow admits 498 troops have died in Ukraine, widely thought to be an under-estimate but still a record total for post-Soviet Russia 
•  The International Criminal Court's chief prosecutor says an active probe into possible war crimes in Ukraine 'will immediately proceed'
• Russia's top independent radio station closed and a leading independent TV station has suspended its operations as Kremlin moves to stifle criticism
• A Bangladeshi sailor is killed in an attack on his vessel docked in the Black Sea port of Olvia
• Russia floats the possibility of a ceasefire with talks with Ukraine scheduled for Thursday 
• Russia tells citizens in Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mariupol  to leave, raising fears bombing will intensify
• UN General Assembly demands Russia 'immediately' withdraws. Moscow wins support from only four nations - Belarus, North Korea, Eritrea and Syria
• Swedish Armed Forces say four Russian fighter jets entered its airspace in the Baltic Sea
• US launches 'KleptoCapture' with the aim of seizing yachts, private jets and homes of Russian oligarchs
• Chelsea Russian owner Roman Abramovich confirms he is selling the Premier League club
• Ukraine invites mothers of captured Russian troops to come and collect their sons
• Jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny urges Russians to protest daily against the invasion
• US follows the EU in targeting Russian ally Belarus with sanctions for supporting invasion 

Just hours before the TV address, Putin had phoned Emmanuel Macron to tell the French President that he has no intention of pulling back from Ukraine or watering down his security demands, will achieve his aims 'whatever happens' and will continue fighting until 'the end'. 

Macron's aides said after the call that they believe Putin intends to take the whole country, and that the 'worst is yet to come' as the Russian attacks step up, and that 'there was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us.'

Mr Macron is said to have told Putin he is making a 'major mistake' and 'lying to himself'. Macron said Russia would end up poor, weakened and under sanctions for a very long time.

'There was nothing in what President Putin told us that should reassure us. He showed great determination to continue the operation,' Macron's aide said, before adding that Putin 'wanted to seize control of the whole of Ukraine'.  

Putin's two statements today - the first he has made in public since announcing the start of his 'special operation' eight days ago - will do little to reassure anyone that the war is close to being over, or that Russia could be brought to the negotiating table without more blood being shed. 

News that the convoy has been at least partially damaged or destroyed will come as a huge boon to the people of Kyiv, as it was feared the vehicles would be used to surround and bomb the city into submission. The Ukrainian capital is still under attack by Russian rockets and missiles, but has largely escaped the intense fire being rained down on other locations.

Perhaps the hardest-hit has been the city of Mariupol, on Ukraine's eastern Black Sea coast, which came under bombardment by Russian forces surrounding it yesterday - with the fire kept up near-continuously into today. Local officials say the city is without water, heat, or electricity, and cannot clear the dead from the streets.

Harrowing pictures revealed at least part of the civilian death toll, with a father seen weeping over the body of his son who was killed when a Russian shell destroyed his legs. Two elderly women were also pictured being evacuated from their homes and covered in blood after Russian attacks. 

Despite the vicious shelling, the city still remains in the hands of Ukrainian forces - as a defiant Zelensky vowed today that Ukraine will be rebuilt with Russian money as he praised his troops' 'heroic' defence.

Kharkiv, in the east, and Chernihiv, in the north west, also remained under Ukrainian control despite coming under heavy rocket fire. Nine people died in Chernihiv after Russian rockets hit a school and nearby apartments. There were also fears the Russians were about to launch a major amphibious assault against the port city of Odessa after a large fleet of ships was spotted near Crimea in the early hours. 

The Ukrainian president said that 'all lines of defence are holding' with the cities of Kyiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mykolaiv all resisting Russian attacks. He even claimed the city of Kherson remains in Ukrainian hands, despite the mayor seeming to confirm overnight that it had been taken by Russian forces.  

'They wanted to destroy us. They failed. We've been through so much. And if anyone thinks that, having overcome all this, Ukrainians will be frightened, broken or surrender, they know nothing about Ukraine,' Zelensky said, adding: 'We will restore every house, every street, every city and we say to Russia: learn the word 'reparations'.

'You will reimburse us for everything you did against our state, against every Ukrainian, in full.' 

Separately, one of his presidential advisers said the Ukrainian army is now getting ready to launch counter-attacks on Russian forces after their initial assault on the country stalled - amid reported of fuel and food shortages, heavy casualties, and mismanagement of the operation.

'Help to us is increasing every minute and the strength of the enemy is decreasing every minute. We're not only defending but also counter-attacking,' the adviser said in a televised briefing.

President Zelensky's office said a second round of negotiations had concluded. A first round of talks on Monday ended without an agreement. 

Ukraine war: City by city 

Kyiv: Four large rocket strikes hit the Ukrainian capital overnight, including one which struck a train station being used to evacuate civilians , while others struck TV and radio stations.

Ukraine claimed to have shot down a Russian fighter jet over Irpin, a satellite city of Kyiv which has come under heavy attack, in the early hours of Thursday 

Kharkiv: The second-largest city in Ukraine continue to come under bombardment with pictures showing destroyed residential buildings and rubble littering the city centre.

Izyum, a city 70 miles to the south of Kharkiv towards Donetsk, also came under heavy bombardment with explosions lighting up the night sky

Chernihiv: Located to the north-west of Kyiv, the city has been the site of fierce fighting with Russian troops since the early days of the invasion

Despite being surrounded and under heavy shelling, the city remains under Ukrainian control

Mariupol: Heavy Russian shelling which began targeting the city on Wednesday continued into Thursday, with the mayor saying the bombardment is so heavy that medics can't get into the streets to rescue the dead and injured

Despite the attacks, the city remains in Ukrainian hands

Kherson: City feared captured by Russian forces after mayor says 'armed visitors' joined a local council meeting and had imposed a curfew

However, the British MoD said Thursday morning that the military situation is still 'unclear' - suggesting that Russia may not be in full control

Zaporizhzhia: Russian forces have surrounded the city and its nuclear power plant, which is the largest in Europe

Civilians set up road blocks around the plant to defend it, with the city's mayor saying one came under fire by Russian troops on Wednesday leaving two people hurt

Odessa: The Black Sea port city, and Ukraine's main naval base, is preparing for a Russian assault after a dozen warships were seen forming up near Crimea

Mayor said fighter jets appear to be testing air defences by flying sorties overhead, as residents prepare makeshift defences made of old railway sleepers and lay landmines on the beach

Ahead of the invasion, Washington had warned that Russia's superior forces would be able to quickly overwhelm Ukraine's 200,000-strong army - taking out air defences, achieving superiority in the skies, and then raining death down on those below.

But none of that has come to pass. Ukraine's skies remain contested, US intelligence says, while attacks have been piecemeal with troops under-supplied and not fighting in a coordinated fashion, leading to large numbers of dead along with some abandoning their vehicles which have then been captured.

'This is a colossal intelligence failure that vastly underestimated Ukrainian resistance, and military execution has been terrible,' Michael Vickers, former US Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

'[Putin's] main attack has been underweighted. It's been piecemeal. His reconnaissance elements have been captured, columns have been destroyed,' he said. 'It's just a disaster, through and through.'

But many caution that Russia's initial failures could simply pre-sage a secondary phase of the fighting in which it uses superior numbers and force of arms to surround and bomb Ukrainian troops into submission, causing large civilian casualties. 

Yves Le Drian, the French foreign minister, agreed with that assessment today as he issued a warning that the 'worst' is still to come as Russia switches to a 'logic of siege' with major cities in danger of being surrounded. 

He spoke as Europe continued to step up its assistance to Ukraine, with Germany pledging another 2,700 anti-aircraft missiles to bolster the Ukrainian defences. That comes on top of 1,000 anti-tank weapons and 500 Stinger anti-aircraft weapons it has already sent, in a stunning reversal of its long-standing pledge not to supply weapons. 

Kyiv has so-far escaped what observers feared would be Russian attempts to surround and bomb it into submission, after skirmishes in the outskirts led to Moscow's men being pushed back. Sight of the convoy earlier this week seemed to confirm that Putin would resort to 'siege' tactics to force a bloody victory.

But, as of Thursday morning, the convoy was near-motionless - having stalled late Monday. The exact reason is unclear, but American and British intelligence believe it is due to a combination of Ukrainian resistance and logistical problems within the convoy itself.

Reports from the ground indicate that Russian vehicles have been running out of fuel, while pictures also appear to show some vehicles have been poorly maintained and their tyres are falling apart.

A Pantsir missile system bogged down and abandoned in a muddy field lost several of its tyres when Ukrainian forces tried to tow it away, with Trent Teletenko - a former Department of Defence civil servant - wrote on Twitter that it appears Russia has failed to maintain the tyres on its vehicles properly, leaving them brittle. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gestures as he speaks during a press conference in Kyiv on March 3, 2022. He made a plea to Russian President Valdimir Putin to sit down with him in person for negotiations

'I don't bite': Ukrainian President urges Putin to 'sit down and talk'

 

 

Russian President Vladimir Putin issues assessments during his meeting with the officials of Security Council of Russia, on March 03, 2022 in Moscow, Russia. Putin branded Ukrainians 'extreme gangsters', claimed their army is using civilians as 'human shields', hailed his soldiers as heroes who are fighting to save innocent lives and said his invasion is going exactly to plan and schedule in a stunning act of hypocrisy and outright denial

Vladimir Putin declares Ukrainians are 'extreme gangsters'

Units of Russian Armed Forces enter Kyiv region, Ukraine, in this screengrab obtained from a video by Reuters on Thursday

 

MARIUPOL: Serhii, a father from the Ukrainian city of Mariupol, weeps over the body of teenage son Iliya at a maternity unit converted into a hospital to treat civilian victims of Russian shelling

 

MARIUPOL: Ilya is brought into hospital in the back of a car, with both of his legs destroyed by a Russian shell explosion. The mayor of Mariupol believes 'hundreds' of civilians have been killed in similar strikes

Injured woman taken to hospital after shelling in eastern Ukraine

 

 

 

MARIUPOL: A civilian wounded in Russian strikes on the city of Mariupol is treated at a maternity unit of the local hospital that has been converted into a centre to treat the victims

KYIV: A firefighter works to extinguish fire at a warehouse that caught flames, according to local authorities, after shelling, as Russia's invasion of Ukraine continues, in the village of Chaiky in the Kyiv region, Ukraine March 3, 2022

Kherson, a city of 300,000 on the Black Sea, appears to have fallen under Russian control after the mayor said 'armed visitors' had taken over a council meeting and imposed curfews. If Putin's men are in full control then it opens up the city of Odessa, home to Ukraine's main naval port, to attack - with amphibious assault ships seen forming up near Crimea today 

 

Pictured: A map showing the Kyiv region and the area occupied by Russian troops as they close in on Ukraine's capital

Russians in suits and Ukrainians in military fatigues for peace talks

 

 

MARIUPOL: A Ukrainian woman living in the Black Sea city of Mariupol is evacuated from her home during a brief break in Russian shelling, which has now been continuous for more than 24 hours

 

MARIUPOL: An elderly woman laying in a pool of blood inside her apartment in Mariupol is rescued by paramedics after being injured during shelling of the city

 

MARIUPOL: Ambulance paramedics move a wounded in shelling civilian onto a stretcher to a maternity hospital converted into a medical ward in Mariupol

Ukrainian MPs belt out national anthem in 'highly targeted building'

 

 

 

MARIUPOL: The Black Sea city continues to be under heavy bombardment today, with the mayor saying there is no water, heat or electricity and that Russian fire is so intense they cannot collect bodies from the streets

 

KYIV: Smoke rises over Chaika, a residential area on the outskirts of Kyiv, as the city again came under bombardment

Zelensky: We will restore every house, every street, every city

 

 

 

BELARUS: Ukrainian and Russian negotiators meet on the border with Belarus for talks on ending the war. Ukraine says it will demand a ceasefire and the withdrawal of all Russian forces from the country

 

KYIV: An apartment building in Borodyanka is seen on Thursday morning almost totally destroyed after a Russian missile struck it the day before, causing a large part of it to collapse

Drone footage shows grim devastation in Borodyanka town near Kyiv

 

 

 

KYIV: Another view of the apartment block in Borodyanka shows it suffered heavy damage in a Russian strike on Tuesday, as Putin's men continue to try and take the country

 

A view of heavy damage in the residential area of Borodyanka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine

 

CHERNIHIV: A diesel fuel storage facility burns in Chernihiv after being struck with a Russian shell

Chernihiv oil depot burns after Russian shelling starts a fire

 

 

 

CHERNIHIV: Ukrainian firefighters attempt to put out a burning diesel fuel depot in the northern city after attacks by Russia

 

A force of around a dozen Russian vessels including landing ships is massing off the coast of Crimea today, with experts saying an assault on Odessa could come later in the day.

Footage from western Crimea shows Russian ships in the Black Sea

 

KYIV: Destroyed Russian vehicles are seen on a street in the settlement of Borodyanka, around 30 miles from the capita

 

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