Russia continues to step up its attacks in Ukraine amid reports it is preparing to move in on the capital, Kyiv, and a humanitarian disaster looms over several besieged cities more than two weeks into Moscow's unprovoked invasion of its neighbor.
Ukrainian officials said on March 11 that they were hopeful some humanitarian corridors would be opened to allow civilians a chance to flee the intensifying fighting, especially in the southern city of Mariupol, where people have been without water and power for more than a week and attempts to arrange a local cease-fire and safe passage out have failed repeatedly.
"We hope it will work today," Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said in a televised statement.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it would open humanitarian corridors out of Kyiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Mariupol, and Chernihiv. But similar moves over the previous days had very limited success because of continued Russian shelling despite claims of daylong cease-fires.
Vereshchuk said later on March 11 that Russian shelling prevented evacuees from leaving the port city of Mariupol again, while elsewhere Russian forces also stopped some buses of people trying to flee the Kyiv region.
In a video address, Vereshchuk said some planned evacuations were successful, including 1,000 people who were evacuated from the village of Vorzel in the Kyiv region.
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry on March 11 accused Russian forces of abducting the mayor of Melitopol, a city in southeastern Ukraine that fell under Russian control during the invasion.
Russia has not commented on the fate of Mayor Ivan Fedorov. Ukraine says Russian forces kidnapped him after falsely accusing him of terrorism.
The Red Cross has said more than 400,000 people are trapped in Mariupol without humanitarian aid and evacuation corridors, and the city faces "apocalyptic" conditions.
"They have a clear order to hold Mariupol hostage, to mock it, to constantly bomb and shell it," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address to the nation on March 10.
Russia has been pounding cities around the country and the attacks appeared to widen overnight, with reports of air strikes on airports in the western part of the country. Local authorities in Ivano-Frankivsk and Lutsk reported bomb explosions near their airports.
Ukraine's armed forces said Russian aircraft fired at a Belarusian settlement near the border with Ukraine from Ukrainian air space on March 11 to try to drag Belarus into Moscow's war on Ukraine.
The Ukrainian Air Force said the state border service received information that Russian aircraft had taken off from an airfield in Belarus, crossed into Ukrainian airspace, and then fired at the village of Kopani.
WATCH: With infrastructure damaged and some ruins still smoldering, residents remain defiant as Russian armed forces maneuver in the vicinity of the Ukrainian capital. Current Time visited Pushcha-Vodytsya, a small spa town just a few kilometers outside Kyiv, on March 10 and spoke to locals.
"This is a PROVOCATION! The goal is to involve the Armed Forces of the Republic of Belarus in the war with Ukraine!" Ukraine's Air Force Command said in an online statement.
The Ukrainian military said two other Belarusian settlements were also targeted in the same operation.
Ukraine's Deputy Interior Minister Yevheniy Yenin said in an interview that Russia is trying everything possible to prompt Belarus to open a new front in Moscow's war against Ukraine.
"We also understand that the Belarusian government has been doing everything possible to avoid joining this war," Yenin added.
Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Heraschenko said that three Russian air strikes hit the eastern industrial city of Dnipro on March 11, killing at least one person. State emergency services said the strikes were close to a kindergarten and an apartment building.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces had “reached a strategic turning point," though he did not elaborate.
“It’s impossible to say how many days we will still need to free our land, but it is possible to say that we will do it," he said via video from Kyiv.
Meanwhile, Russian troops were seen to be moving to encircle Kyiv after days of slowly edging toward the capital.
Satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies showed a 64- kilometer-long line of vehicles, tanks, and artillery outside Kyiv had been redeployed, with armored units seen in towns near the Antonov Airport north of the city. Some vehicles moved into forests, Maxar reported, with towed howitzers nearby in position to open fire.
Satellite Photos Show Massive Russian Column Near Kyiv Spreading Out Into Villages, Forests
The British Defense Ministry said it appeared that after logistical issues stifled the progress of Russian troops in the days after the invasion was launched on February 24, Moscow was likely to renew its offensive in the coming days.
"Russia is likely seeking to reset and reposture its forces for renewed offensive activity in the coming days. This will probably include operations against the capital Kyiv," it said.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said about 2 million people had left the city and its environs.
Corpses In The Street: Mariupol Is Being Devastated By Relentless Russian Attacks
The Ukrainian armed forces' General Staff said in a statement that Russian troops were advancing toward Kyiv from the northwest and east but were repulsed from Chernihiv as Ukrainian forces regained control of Baklanova Muraviyka.
In Moscow, President Vladimir Putin said on March 11 that he backed a plan to allow foreigners to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine, with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu saying that "most of those who want and who asked [to fight] are citizens of Middle East countries and Syrians."
Since 2015, Russian forces have backed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad against various groups opposed to his rule, including Islamic State.
WATCH: The Ukrainian port city of Odesa has been turned into a "fortress," according to a correspondent for RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service.
International efforts to isolate and sanction Russia are under way, particularly after a deadly air strike on a maternity hospital in Mariupol that Western and Ukrainian officials called a war crime.
Ukraine accused Russian forces of hitting another medical facility on March 11, this time a psychiatric hospital near the eastern Ukrainian town of Izyum.
The regional governor called the bombardment "a brutal attack on civilians." Emergency services said no one was hurt as the patients were already sheltering in the basement.
Russia has said it is not targeting civilian installations, but pictures, video, and eyewitness accounts have shown persistent attacks on residential buildings and other nonmilitary sites, raising calls from Western and Ukrainian officials for an investigation into war crimes by Moscow.
Amid mounting global outrage over the attack on the Mariupol hospital which claimed three lives, including that of a young girl, top diplomats from Moscow and Kyiv failed to make progress on a possible cease-fire or even humanitarian corridors for civilians.
"From everything that we know and have witnessed, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin shows no sign of engaging in serious diplomacy," U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris said at a news conference with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis during a visit to Bucharest on March 11.
WATCH: Devastating Russian military attacks on civilian residential areas northwest of the Ukrainian capital are driving more people to make the difficult journey to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, U.S. President Joe Biden said on March 11 that in unison with the G7 group of wealthy nations, Washington will revoke Russia's "permanent normal trade relations" status, commonly referred to as most-favored nation status, to punish President Vladimir Putin over his invasion of Ukraine.
"The free world is coming together to confront Putin," Biden said in remarks at White House.
European Union leaders meeting in France said they were ready to impose harsher economic sanctions on Russia and might give Ukraine more funds for arms. But they rejected Ukraine's request to join the bloc.
Regarding further sanctions, French President Emmanuel Macron said: "Nothing is off the table. Nothing is taboo. We'll do whatever we deem necessary to stop Russia."
On March 10, the EU continued to tighten sanctions on those "implicated in the Russian aggression in Ukraine," agreeing on new measures targeting another 14 oligarchs, 146 members of Russia's upper house of parliament, and their families.
WATCH: As Ukrainians flee Russia's invasion, Current Time spoke to people on the move in Kyiv and Lviv who hope to find a safe haven inside or outside the country.
The number of people to have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion continues to grow, with the head of the UN refugee agency estimating on March 11 that the figure had reached 2.5 million people.
"We also estimate that about 2 million people are displaced inside Ukraine. Millions forced to leave their homes by this senseless war," Grandi wrote on Twitter.
Paul Dillon, spokesman for the UN's International Organization for Migration, said some 116,000 nationals from other countries were among the 2.5 million refugees.
Dillon also said that more than 1.5 million refugees had gone to neighboring Poland.
