Russian Attack Kills 13 Civilians In Bakery Factory, Ukrainian President: They Are Bombing Lives

Rescue workers tried to put out the burning building as a result of the Russian attack. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

JAKARTA - Ukrainian officials said a Russian airstrike hit a bakery in northern Ukraine on Monday, killing at least 13 civilians, while talks between Kyiv and Moscow made little progress on de-escalating the conflict.

The strike at the factory in Makariv, just west of the capital Kyiv, came as the number of refugees fleeing across the border from Russia's offensive in Ukraine passed 1.7 million, according to UN figures.

Russian troops continued their siege and bombardment of Ukrainian cities on the 11th day of the war. In the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, hundreds of thousands of people remain trapped without food and water under regular bombardment.

"They are bombing the life of everything that moves," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.

Reuters was unable to verify the reported bakery attack, but local emergency services said the bodies of at least 13 civilians were recovered from the rubble after being hit.

Five people were rescued out of the 30 people believed to be there at the time. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Zelenskiy, speaking on a zoom call with Jewish groups in the United States, said: "Bakeries are being eliminated. And this is happening in different cities."

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, police said 10 more people had died over the past day, bringing the total death toll there from the Russian bombing to 143 since the start of the invasion. Although, it is difficult to verify the figure

After a third attempt to defuse the bloodshed at talks in Belarus, a Ukrainian negotiator said that while minor progress in agreeing on logistics for the evacuation of civilians had been made, it remained largely unchanged.

"Until now, no results have significantly improved the situation," Mykhailo Podolyak said in a video statement.

Meanwhile, Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told reporters the talks were 'not easy'.

"We hope that starting tomorrow these corridors will finally be able to function," he said.

Ukrainian rescue workers in the rubble of a building hit by a Russian attack. (Wikimedia Commons/dsns.gov.ua/State Emergency Service of Ukraine)

The fourth round of talks will take place soon, Russian negotiator Leonid Slutsky told Russian state television.

Russia had offered Ukraine escape routes to Russia and Belarus, its close allies, on Monday morning after an attempted weekend evacuation truce failed. A Zelenskiy spokesman said the Russian proposal was "absolutely immoral".

The day before, Reuters reporters had witnessed people trying to flee the city of Irpin near Kyiv caught up in Russian shelling. On Monday people chose their way through the ruins of a huge bridge in Irpin, with the river running right under them.

"It's like a disaster. The city is almost destroyed and the district where I live (there are no) houses that haven't been bombed," a young woman traveling with her children told Reuters.

In Mariupol, Deputy Mayor Sergei Orlov said there had been continuous air strikes overnight.

Orlov told CNN that authorities were ready to evacuate 6,000 people on Saturday, but that Russia had bombed 29 buses that were going to transport them. Moscow accuses Ukraine of obstructing the planned evacuation.

Separately, the US Ambassador to the OSCE, Michael Carpenter, told a meeting of 57 participating countries that Russia had bombed agreed evacuation routes from Volnovakha and Mariupol, just as civilians were fleeing.

"This is a pure crime," he said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said on Monday its forces had retaken control of the northeastern city of Chuhuiv after heavy fighting, as well as the strategic Mykolayiv airport in the south, which regional governors said was under tank fire. No claims could be immediately verified.

Russia has called the campaign launched on February 24 a "special military operation" to disarm Ukraine, removing leaders it describes as neo-Nazis. Ukraine and its Western allies have called this a transparent pretext for an invasion of conquering the country of 44 million people.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters Moscow would halt operations if Ukraine stopped fighting, amend its constitution to declare neutrality and recognize Russia's annexation of Crimea and independence of territories controlled by Russian-backed separatists.