Ukraine says evacuations stall amid Russian shelling

Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians attempting to flee to safety were forced to shelter from Russian shelling that pummeled cities in Ukraine’s center, north and south, leaving corpses in the streets

LVIV, Ukraine -- Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian civilians attempting to flee to safety were forced to shelter from Russian shelling that pummeled cities in Ukraine’s center, north and south, leaving corpses in the streets. As Ukraine officials described a “catastrophic” situation during failed evacuation efforts in Kyiv’s suburbs, officials from both sides planned a third round of talks Monday.

On the outskirts of the capital Kyiv, a roller suitcase sat upright next to dead bodies. A Russian rocket attack in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, left a car collapsed, a pile of rubble and another man dead. Ukrainian officials said the shelling only worsened as darkness fell Sunday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy vowed to fight on, urging his people in a weekend television address to take to the streets to “drive this evil out of our cities, from our land.”

“Instead of humanitarian corridors, they can only make bloody ones,” Zelenskyy later said Sunday, referring to an attempt to evacuate civilians that fell apart because of Russian bombing. “Today a family was killed in Irpin. Man, woman and two children. Right on the road. As in a shooting gallery.”