LVIV, Ukraine — On land, in the air and across the sea, the Ukrainian military and civilian soldiers continued to bedevil and bog down Russian forces on Tuesday, protecting the borders of key cities and inflicting heavy losses against the larger and better equipped Russian army.
But as Russian forces largely rely on long-range missiles, the invasion has caused widespread and often indiscriminate damage, creating a humanitarian catastrophe that has left hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians with no heat, water or electricity, and struggling to find a path to escape. While the prospect of a cease-fire and “humanitarian corridors” was again being discussed on Tuesday, there was little evidence that conditions on the ground would allow for large-scale evacuations from areas of the heaviest fighting.
While the Pentagon and other allies largely agreed with the Ukrainian assessment that the Russian advance has been slowed, they cautioned that the Russians would soon regroup. Russia’s military is eight times the size of Ukraine’s and it has vastly superior firepower at its disposal. Here are the latest developments:
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The U.N. refugee agency said that the number of people who have fled Ukraine since the Russian invasion began has reached two million.
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President Volodymyr Zelensky, taunting President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and showing confidence in the Ukrainian defense of the capital, Kyiv, released a video that opened with cellphone footage showing his exact location. “I’m staying in Kyiv. In my office,” he said. “I’m not hiding. And I’m not afraid of anyone.”
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The Ukrainian military claimed to have shot down three Russian fighter jets and a cruise missile, an assertion that was backed up by several loud explosions in the night sky over Kyiv. It was a sign that Ukraine’s air defense systems and air force are still functioning nearly two weeks into the war.
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Ukrainian soldiers have killed more than 3,000 Russian troops, according to conservative estimates by American officials. Ukraine has shot down military transport planes carrying Russian paratroopers, downed helicopters and blown holes in Russia’s convoys using American anti-tank missiles and armed drones supplied by Turkey, these officials said, citing confidential U.S. intelligence assessments.
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Officials at the United Nations said that in just 11 days of fighting, there have been 1,207 civilian casualties in Ukraine, including 406 fatalities. That includes 27 children killed and 42 children injured, and “countless more have been severely traumatized.” It is likely a vast undercount, according to officials.
