Ukraine said on Thursday Moscow had snubbed its plea for humanitarian access to rescue hundreds of thousands of civilians trapped under bombardment, as the opposing sides yielded nothing at the highest level talks since the Russian invasion began.
Russia's war in Ukraine entered its third week with none of its stated objectives reached, despite thousands of people killed, more than two million made refugees and thousands cowering in besieged cities under relentless bombardment.
After meeting Russia's Sergei Lavrov in Turkey, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Lavrov had refused to promise to halt firing so aid could reach civilians, including Kyiv's main humanitarian priority - evacuating hundreds of thousands of people trapped in the besieged port of Mariupol.
"I made a simple proposal to Minister Lavrov: I can call my Ukrainian ministers, authorities, president now and give you 100% assurances on security guarantees for humanitarian corridors," he said.
"I asked him 'can you do the same?' and he did not respond."
At his own simultaneous news conference in a separate room, Lavrov showed no sign of making any concessions, saying the operation was going to plan and repeating Russian demands that Ukraine be disarmed and accept neutral status, reports Reuters.
Lavrov said Kyiv appeared to want meetings for the sake of meetings, and that a ceasefire was not meant to be on the agenda in Turkey.
Russia calls its actions a special military operation to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls neo-Nazis. Kyiv and its Western allies say this is a baseless pretext to invade a country of 44 million people.
Aid agencies say humanitarian help is most urgently needed in Mariupol, where 400,000 people have been trapped for more than a week with no food, water or power. The city council said the port had come under fresh air strikes on Thursday morning, a day after Moscow bombed what Ukraine called a functioning maternity hospital there.
Lavrov said the building was no longer used as a hospital and had been occupied by Ukrainian "radicals". The Kremlin did not initially repeat that denial and said the incident was being investigated.
"What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?" President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a televised address late on Wednesday, after posting footage of the wreckage.
Ukraine said a convoy trying to reach the city had again been turned back by Russian fire on Thursday, and accused Moscow of deliberately blocking aid. Daily attempts at a local humanitarian ceasefire have failed since Saturday.
Lavrov repeatedly lashed out at the West, accusing Western countries of inflaming the situation by arming Ukraine. Asked if the conflict could lead to nuclear war, he said: "I don't want to believe, and I do not believe, that a nuclear war could start."
