Zelensky made an outraged call for fighter jets and tanks to help defend his country from Russian invading troops.  Russia now says its main focus is to take control of the eastern Donbass region, a seeming setback to its previous, more expansionist goals, but fears of a divided Ukraine.
Speaking after US President Joe Biden said in a scathing speech that Russian President Vladimir Putin could not stay in power – words that the White House immediately sought to downplay – Zelensky criticized the “Western ping-pong for who and what how to deliver the jets “.  and other weapons, while Russian missile strikes kill and trap civilians.
“I spoke with the defenders of Mariupol today.  I am in constant contact with them.  “Their determination, their heroism and their stability are astonishing,” Zelenski told a video camera, referring to the besieged southern city that has suffered some of the greatest deprivations and horrors of war.  “If only those who think for 31 days how to deliver dozens of jets and tanks had 1% of their courage.”
Zelensky also told independent Russian journalists on Sunday that his government would consider declaring neutrality and offering security guarantees to Russia, echoing previous statements.  That would include keeping Ukraine nuclear-free, he said.
He told reporters that the issue of neutrality – and the agreement to stay out of NATO – should be put to Ukrainian voters in a referendum after the withdrawal of Russian troops.  He said a vote could be held within months of the troops’ withdrawal.
Russia quickly banned the interview.  Roskomnadzor, which regulates communications for Moscow, issued the ban, saying that measures could be taken against the Russian media outlets involved, including “those foreign media outlets acting as foreign agents.”
Russia-based stores appeared to comply with the ban, although the interview was published abroad.
Zelensky responded by saying that Moscow was afraid of a relatively short conversation with journalists.  “It would be funny if it were not so tragic,” he was quoted as saying by the Ukrainian news agency RBK Ukraina.
At the Oscar ceremony in Los Angeles, attendees expressed their support for Ukraine by remaining silent for 30 seconds.  Some arrived wearing blue and gold ribbons, in the colors of the Ukrainian flag.  Actor Sean Penn had launched an unsuccessful campaign to get Zelensky – a former actor – to speak at the ceremony.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has stopped in many areas.  Its goal of quickly encircling the capital, Kyiv, and forcing its surrender has stalled against strong Ukrainian resistance – reinforced by weapons from the US and other Western allies.
Moscow says it is focusing on destroying the entire eastern Donbass region, which is partly controlled by Russian-backed separatists since 2014. A senior Russian military official said on Friday that troops were being redirected eastward from other parts of the country. .
Russia has supported separatist rebels in Luhansk and neighboring Donetsk since the uprising broke out shortly after Ukraine annexed the Crimean peninsula.  In talks with Ukraine, Moscow urged Kyiv to recognize the independence of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s military intelligence service, accused Russia of seeking to divide Ukraine into two, comparing it to North and South Korea.
“The occupiers will try to pull the occupied territories into a single quasi-state structure and put them against an independent Ukraine,” Budanov said in a statement released by the Defense Ministry.  He predicted that the Ukrainian guerrilla war would derail such plans.
A Ukrainian spokesman for talks with Russia on ending the war, David Arahamia, said in a Facebook post that the countries would meet in Turkey on Monday.  However, the Russians later announced that talks would begin on Tuesday.  The parties have met in the past without reaching an agreement.
“Ukraine ‘s priorities in the talks will be” sovereignty and territorial integrity, “Zelensky told his nation overnight.
“We are really looking for peace,” he said.  “There is an opportunity and a need for a face-to-face meeting in Turkey.”
Zelensky also signed a law banning reporting of troop and equipment movements that have not been announced or approved by the military.  Journalists who break the law could face between three and eight years in prison.  The law does not differentiate between Ukrainian and foreign reporters.
Ukraine says that in order to defeat Russia, the West must provide fighter jets, not just missiles and other military equipment.  A proposal to transport Polish planes to Ukraine via the United States has been rejected amid NATO concerns that they will be drawn into direct combat.
In his sharp remarks, Zelensky accused Western governments of “being afraid to prevent this tragedy.  “I’m afraid to just make a decision.”
His appeal was echoed by a priest in the western city of Lviv, who was hit by rockets a day earlier.  The airstrikes proved that Moscow, despite claims that it intended to shift the war to the east, was willing to strike anywhere in Ukraine.
“When diplomacy does not work, we need military support,” said the Reverend Yuri Vaskiv, who said frightened parishioners had stayed away from his Greek Catholic church.
On the way to Kyiv, residents of a village passed the wreckage of the ongoing Russian attacks.  Locals in Byshiv, about 35 km from Kyiv.  they walked through buildings torn down and destroyed by bombing to save what they could, such as books, shelves and framed photographs.
Standing in a kindergarten classroom, teacher Svetlana Grybovska said too many children had fallen victim.
“It’s not right,” Gribovska told Britain’s Sky News.  “Children are not to blame for anything.”
Russia has confirmed that it used air cruise missiles to hit a fuel depot and a defense plant in Lyiv, near the Polish border.  Another missile strike from the sea destroyed a warehouse in Plesetske just west of Kiev, where Ukraine was storing air defense missiles, said Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry.
Repeated airstrikes by Russia have shaken the city, which has become a haven for some 200,000 people who have fled the bombed-out cities.  Lviv, which has largely escaped bombing, was also home to more than 3.8 million refugees fleeing Ukraine after the February 24 invasion of Russia.
In Kharkov, Ukrainian firefighters used axes and chainsaws to dig through concrete and other debris on Sunday, searching for victims of a Russian military attack on the regional administration building.  A body was found Saturday, a firefighter said.  At least six people were killed in the March 1 attack – the first time Russian forces had hit the center of Kharkov, once home to 1.5 million people.
On Sunday night, a rocket attack hit an oil base in the northwestern Volyn region.
Along with the millions of people who have fled Ukraine, the invasion has driven more than 10 million people from their homes, almost a quarter of Ukraine’s population.  Thousands of civilians are believed to have been killed.
Zelensky also told Russian journalists on Sunday that he spoke regularly with his troops and their families and had offered his troops in Mariupol the option to leave the city.
“They said, ‘We can not.  “There are injured, we will not leave the injured,” Zelenski said.  In addition, they said, “We will not leave the dead.”
Zelensky said the bodies of Ukrainians and Russians were found unaccounted for on the streets and sidewalks of Mariupol.
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Andrea Rosa in Kharkov, Nebi Qena in Kyiv, Cara Anna in Lviv and Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report.
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