Planned negotiations. The Russian army continues its all-out offensive in Ukraine, bombarding the country’s second city Kharkiv and tightening its grip on the capital Kiev, while a third round of Russian-Ukrainian negotiations was scheduled for the day, without much hope of success .
Markets up sharply. The aggravation of the conflict and the possibility of an embargo on Russian oil caused Monday morning a feverish outbreak on the international markets, with vertiginous rises in oil and gold and a heavy fall in the stock markets in Asia.
Intense bombardments. Intense aerial bombardments hit the city of Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine overnight, targeting in particular a sports complex of a local university and civilian buildings, according to an AFP journalist. According to the Ukrainian general staff, the Russian forces are concentrating their efforts on Kharkiv, Cherniguiv (north), Sumy (northeast) and Mykolayev (south) and “accumulating their resources to launch an assault” on Kiev.