Ukraine, Russia set for more talks as civilians in besieged cities see no sign of respite

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Ukraine and Russia were preparing on Monday for the first face-to-face peace talks in more than two weeks, but a senior U.S. official said Russian President Vladimir Putin did not appear ready to make compromises to end the war.

Ukrainian officials also played down the chances of a major breakthrough at the talks, which were expected to start Tuesday in Istanbul after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke to Putin on Sunday.

But the fact that they were taking place in person at all — for the first time since an acrimonious meeting between foreign ministers on March 10 — was a sign of shifts behind the scenes as Russia's invasion has become bogged down.

On the ground, there was no sign of respite for civilians in besieged cities, especially the devastated port of Mariupol, whose mayor said 160,000 people were still trapped inside and Russia was blocking attempts to evacuate them.

But the mayor of Irpin, near Kyiv, said Ukrainian forces had seized back full control of the town. "We have good news today — Irpin has been liberated," Oleksandr Markushyn said, noting that further attacks were expected and the city would defend itself. Reuters could not immediately verify the information.

In Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city and one of its hardest hit, people were sweeping rubble out of a classroom on the third story of a school, where a wall had been blown out by a missile before dawn.

"This is a civilian target. It's a school!" said Oleksandr, who had been sheltering with his mother on a lower floor of the school after their own neighbourhood was hit. "They've not been able to take the city, so they've decided to destroy it."

Russia and Ukraine said their delegations would arrive in Turkey on Monday, a day before the talks are set to begin.

Ukrainian officials have recently suggested Russia could now be more willing to compromise, as any hope it may have held of imposing a new government on Kyiv slipped away in the face of stiff Ukrainian resistance and heavy Russian losses.

But a senior U.S. State Department official said Putin did not give that impression. "Everything I have seen is he is not willing to compromise at this point," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity after Ukraine's president sketched out a potential way to end the crisis over the weekend.

Russia's military signalled last week it was shifting focus to concentrate on expanding territory held by separatists in Eastern Ukraine, a month after having committed the bulk of its huge invasion force to a failed assault on the capital Kyiv.

But Ukraine said it saw no sign Russia had given up a plan to surround the capital, where the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said 100 people had been killed, including four children, and 82 multi-storey buildings had been destroyed. It was not possible to verify the figures.

When the sides last met in person, Ukraine accused Russian Foreign Affairs Minister Sergei Lavrov of ignoring its pleas to discuss a ceasefire, while Lavrov said a halt to fighting was not even on the agenda.