Blasts heard in Kyiv as Ukraine's delegation arrives for talks with Russia

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Blasts were heard in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and in the major city of Kharkiv on Monday morning, a statement from officials said, as a delegation from Ukraine arrived at the border with Belarus for talks with Russia. 

The delegation includes Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov and presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak among others, the Ukrainian presidency said in a statement. The talks will focus on achieving an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces, the statement said.

The Kremlin on Monday said it hoped talks with the Ukrainian side would start imminently, but declined to comment on Moscow's aim in negotiations, as Russian invasion forces seized two small cities in southeastern Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia regretted that talks had not started a day earlier. Russian forces ran into stiff resistance elsewhere in Ukraine as Moscow's diplomatic and economic isolation deepened.

The update about proposed talks came as Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection said Blasts were heard in Kyiv and in the major city of Kharkiv.  Kyiv had been quiet for a few hours prior to that, it said in a brief statement on the Telegram messaging app.

In a separate statement, the agency said a residential building in the city of Chernihiv in northern Ukraine was on fire after being struck by a missile.

Faced with missile threats and advancing Russian troops, nearly 400,000 civilians — mainly women and children — have fled into neighbouring countries, a UN relief agency said.

President Vladimir Putin put Russia's nuclear deterrent forces on high alert on Sunday in the face of a barrage of Western-led reprisals for his war on Ukraine, which said it had repelled Russian ground forces' attempts to capture urban centres.

The United States said Putin was escalating the war with "dangerous rhetoric" about Russia's nuclear posture, amid signs Russian forces were preparing to besiege major cities in the democratic country of about 44 million people.

The fast-moving developments came as scattered fighting has continued around Kyiv. With Russian troops closing in around Kyiv, a city of almost three million, the mayor of the capital expressed doubt that civilians could be evacuated. Authorities have been handing out weapons to anyone willing to defend the city. Ukraine is also releasing prisoners with military experience who want to fight, and training people to make firebombs.

But Russian Defence Minister Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the military would let Kyiv residents use a highway that leads out of the city to the southwest — an offer that appeared to signal a new onslaught is coming.

A nearly 40-hour curfew in Kyiv ended on Monday morning. The curfew will resume each night, from 10 p.m. until 7 a.m.

Battles also broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, with reports from U.K. defence officials early Monday suggesting heavy fighting continues around both Kharkiv and Chernihiv.