SULAIMANI (ESTA) — China’s foreign ministry said on Monday all sides should remain calm and avoid further escalation, after Russian President Vladimir Putin put his country’s nuclear deterrent on high alert.
Spokesperson of the Chinese foreign ministry Wang Wenbin reiterated China’s view that all countries’ legitimate security concerns should be taken seriously.
Putin put Russia’s nuclear deterrent 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 centers.
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.
As missiles rained down, nearly 400,000 civilians, mainly women and children, have fled into neighboring countries, a U.N. relief agency said.
On Monday, Russia forces seized the towns of Berdyansk and Enerhodar in southeastern Ukraine and the area around a nuclear power plant, according to the Interfax news agency.
After four days of fighting and a Russian advance that has gone more slowly than some expected, talks between Ukraine and Russia started on Monday at the border with Russian ally Belarus, Reuters cited a senior Ukrainian official as saying.
The goal was an immediate ceasefire and the withdrawal of Russian forces, the Ukrainian president’s office said.
At least 102 civilians in Ukraine have been killed since Thursday, with a further 304 wounded, but the real figure is feared to be “considerably higher”, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet said on Monday.
A senior U.S. defense official said Russia had fired more than 350 missiles at Ukrainian targets since Thursday, some hitting civilian infrastructure, according to Reuters.
Rolling protests have been held around the world against the invasion, including in Russia, where almost 6,000 people have been detained at anti-war protests since Thursday, the OVD-Info protest monitor said.
