Russia-Ukraine live updates: Negotiations resume, as Ukraine denounces proposed evacuation routes

TALLINN, Estonia — Russian President Vladimir Putin may “not stop” in Ukraine, Lithuania’s president warned on Monday as he welcomed Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

President Gitanas Nauseda spoke before talks with the top U.S. diplomat, who visited the Lithuanian capital as part of a European tour aimed at illustrating Western unity against Russia’s invasion.

“Frankly deterrence is no longer enough and we need forward defense here in place because otherwise it will be too late Mr Secretary,” Nauseda said, according to news reports. “Putin will not stop in Ukraine if he will not be stopped.”

Baltic nations including Lithuania have long warned of Russia’s regional ambitions and urged NATO to strengthen its eastern defenses. In recent weeks, as Russia built up its troop footprint around Ukraine in preparation for his assault, the Western alliance has sent additional troops to countries including Poland, Romania and Estonia.

Speaking to reporters later alongside Lithuania’s foreign minister, Blinken said that some 400 additional U.S. troops would soon be arriving in Lithuania.

European officials have described Putin’s attack as a watershed moment for Europe.

“Russia’s reckless aggression against Ukraine once again proves that it is a long-term threat to the European security, the security of the entire alliance, no matter how and when the war in Ukraine ends,” Nauseda said, according to a State Department transcript. “This is a very good opportunity to rethink … the alliance response.”

Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis urged the world to enact more far-reaching sanctions than those that have shaken the Russian economy since the Ukraine assault began.

“We have to close all the possible gaps,” he said. “Energy resources that we are using allows Russia to fund its military operation, and we cannot pay for oil and gas with Ukrainian blood.”

Blinken also visited Riga, Latvia, on Monday.

Oil and gold prices spiked and stocks tumbled Monday amid fears the United States and its European allies are weighing a ban on imports of Russian crude.

Russia and Ukraine were set to return to the negotiating table Monday as the war enters its 12th day, with Russian forces continuing to bombard Ukrainian cities amid a deepening humanitarian crisis. Western governments and multinational corporations have steadily ratcheted up sanctions designed to isolate Russia economically, cutting it off from the global financial infrastructure and walking away from investments. And the White House said Friday it is weighing a ban on imports of Russian oil, which accounts for about 10 percent of the global supply.

Fears of a possible energy crisis could portend a volatile week for the stock market.

The Dow Jones industrial average was down more than 400 points, or 1.2 percent, in morning trading. The tech-heavy Nasdaq dumped 1.8 percent, while the broader S&P 500 shed 1.4 percent.

Investors flocked to safe haven assets such as gold and silver, which were up 0.7 percent and 0.4 percent respectively. Government bonds, another safe haven, were also boosted. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note was up 0.05 percent to 1.773 percent. (Bond yields move inversely to prices.)

Cboe’s volatility index, known as Wall Street’s “fear gauge,” jumped 11 percent Monday; it has climbed 100 percent since the beginning of the year.

Oil prices reached 13-year highs Monday as it appeared increasingly possible that international sanctions would not spare Russia’s energy industry. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading up 3.3 percent to $122 a barrel after having swelled past $130. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, was up 1.4 percent, at $117.13.

The upward march in oil prices has already inflated what drivers in the United States pay at the pump. The U.S. average for a gallon of gas stood at $4 on Monday morning, up 40 cents over the past week.

Boeing said it has stopped buying titanium from Russia amid its invasion of neighboring Ukraine, a spokesperson said, adding to a widespread flight of Western business that threatens to leave Russia economically isolated for years.

The company has not commented on the future of its Russian investments, including a titanium-production joint venture it opened in 2000. But it said it has been working to diversify its sourcing of important metals and has enough titanium stored away to keep producing aircraft without Russia’s help.

“Boeing has substantial titanium inventory due in part to an initiative several years ago to diversify our global sources,” a Boeing spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We have suspended purchasing titanium from Russia. Our inventory and diversity of titanium sources provide sufficient supply for airplane production, and we will continue to take the right steps to ensure long-term continuity.”

The company uses Russian titanium in its 737, 767, 787, 777 and 777x airplanes for things like fasteners, landing gear and flight-control structures.

It reaffirmed that relationship as recently as November when it signed a memorandum of understanding with Russia’s VSMPO-AVISMA, which describes itself as the world’s largest titanium producer. The company is chaired by Sergey Chemezov, a Russian businessman often described as a close associate of President Vladimir Putin.

Video shows damage to an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv on Monday morning. The person filming says the windows and doors have been blown out. Seven seconds into the video he says, “This is what it all looks like — so that you understand,” as he begins a tour of the damage.

The video cuts to show an older woman with blood streaming down her face, which The Post decided not to publish due to the graphic nature of the footage.

Mykolaiv Mayor Oleksandr Senkevych told Sky News that civilian buildings were hit by Russian bombs Sunday night. And Ukraine’s State Emergency Service posted to Telegram on Monday morning that shelling overnight caused fires in residential areas.

As Russian and Ukrainian delegations sat down for a third round of talks in Belarus, the Kremlin reiterated Monday its demands that Ukraine give up Crimea and a large slice of eastern Ukraine as a condition for Russia to stop its attacks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Saturday that Ukraine risked losing its statehood unless it stopped fighting and accepted his demands. He has also insisted that Ukraine accept neutrality, give up its bid to join NATO and carry out total demilitarization.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia also expects Ukraine to enshrine neutrality in its constitution, Reuters reported. Moscow demands that Ukraine recognize Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, as Russian territory, and two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, conditions unacceptable to Kyiv.

While Ukraine is open to neutrality, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out an agreement that would compromise the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Peskov said Ukraine’s negotiators were told “that all this can be stopped in a moment,” if they accepted the demands.

Putin told European Council President Charles Michel in a phone call Monday that Europe should save lives by pressuring Kyiv “to respect humanitarian law.” Russia has provided no evidence for its daily claims that Ukraine is firing on civilians or using them as human shields.

Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said the negotiating process was “very difficult” and that both sides agreed not to announce details until they reached an accord. “We wouldn’t like to provoke some wrong things at this stage by voicing some raw things,” he said.

Shortly before the talks, Podolyak discounted rumors alleging Russian proposals to install “toxic” pro-Kremlin Ukrainians in political positions in Kyiv as part of a settlement. Podolyak recorded a video saying the rumors were “fakes,” citing speculation about ousted former pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych and a former pro-Kremlin Ukrainian prime minister, Yuri Boyko.

ISTANBUL — The foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine are scheduled to meet in Turkey as early as Thursday, in their first meeting since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine late last month, Turkey’s foreign minister announced Monday.

During a news briefing in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that he hoped a meeting between Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba would take place Thursday in the southern Turkish city of Antalya, which is set to host the Antalya Diplomatic Forum, an annual gathering that begins Friday.

Cavusoglu said that the meeting between the foreign ministers, which he would also attend, was agreed upon after a phone call between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday.

“We hope this meeting will be a turning point,” he said.

Turkey has been desperate to offer itself as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, whose conflict has laid bare Ankara’s delicate position as a partner to both sides.

Turkey is dependent on Moscow’s goodwill because of extensive energy and commercial ties, as well as Russia’s ability to cause trouble for Ankara in Syria, where both countries are engaged in the civil war. At the same time, Erdogan has pursued an increasingly close relationship with Ukraine centered on Turkey’s provision to Kyiv of armed drones that are being used to fight Russian troops.

On Monday, the Kremlin reiterated demands that Ukraine give up Crimea and a large slice of eastern Ukraine as a condition for Russia to stop its attacks. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia also expects Ukraine to enshrine neutrality in its constitution, Reuters reported. Moscow demands that Ukraine recognize Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014, as Russian territory and two separatist regions in eastern Ukraine as independent states, conditions unacceptable to Kyiv.

ODESSA, Ukraine — The Black Sea port city of Odessa is expecting a possible Russian attack from the east, where Moscow’s forces have already captured the city of Kherson, and from the eight Russian warships located just outside of Ukraine’s territorial waters, Mayor Gennadiy Trukhanov said Monday.

“The aggressor is not far from Odessa,” Trukhanov told The Washington Post. “For 10 days, the city has been living with this tension. But on the other hand, it’s given us time to more thoroughly prepare.”

Trukhanov said an attack from the west, where Russian forces are located in the Russian-backed separatist enclave of Transnistria along a swath of the border with Moldova and Ukraine, is also a possibility.

But “according to forecasts and estimates of our military, the aggressor’s forces there are small,” so the main threat remains an incursion from the sea or from the east, he said.

Odessa, considered a cultural and tourism hub in Ukraine, is unrecognizable right now. The downtown’s cobblestone streets are lined with sandbag barricades and antitank metal hedgehogs. All restaurants are closed. Sirens are heard throughout the day, but they tend to pass without incident.

The main bombardment here has so far been in Odessa’s southwestern shore towns, about 40 miles out from the city center. Booming thuds can occasionally be heard downtown, but Trukhanov said the sounds were from Ukraine’s air-defense and coastal artillery systems firing on aerial targets that could be trying to test Odessa’s fortification.

Meanwhile, Trukhanov always has a loaded pistol with him. “Odessa is a symbol of Ukraine’s sovereignty,” Trukhanov said. “It’s our southern outpost. And the enemy understands this, which is why he’s so eager to seize Odessa.

“In my opinion, the city of Odessa is the most patriotic in Ukraine,” he added. “Our patriotism is international. We have 130 nationalities here, and they all love Odessa. We love our city, so we’ll defend it together — the Jews, the Greeks, the Ukrainians and those Russians who live here.”

Feeling Ukraine’s pain: Under pressure from lawmakers, the Biden administration appears increasingly amenable to barring the importation of Russian oil to the United States in retaliation for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, even if it risks hitting Americans where it hurts: at the gas pump.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki warned on Thursday that banning Russian oil imports “would raise prices at the gas pump for the American people” and could also “pad the pockets” of Russian President Vladimir Putin by raising the price of oil.