KYIV, Ukraine — Russian forces Wednesday pressed ahead with a wide-ranging but slow-moving offensive targeting key Ukrainian cities, menacing the capital of Kyiv with a miles-long military convoy, launching deadly strikes on the second-largest city of Kharkiv and apparently breaching a strategic Black Sea port city with tanks and troops.
On the seventh day of an offensive marked by fierce Ukrainian resistance in the face of Russian firepower, the Kremlin said a delegation was ready to hold evening talks with Ukrainian representatives at an undisclosed location. An initial session Sunday on the Ukraine-Belarus border produced no breakthroughs.
With President Joe Biden vowing in his Tuesday night State of the Union address to make Russian President Vladimir Putin pay a heavy price for the unprovoked attack on Ukraine, its defenders — a motley mix of regular army troops and ad hoc civilian militias — braced for an expected full-scale attack on Kyiv, a city of 3 million people.
