The 21st-century iron curtain that Ukraine’s fearless president warned of early on in Russia’s war on Ukraine is turning into an iron fist as Moscow pummels the outskirts of Kiev and steps up attacks elsewhere, leading to an increasingly hazardous state of play in the country and an urging from the U.S. for any American citizens still in Ukraine to leave the country immediately. 

A tweet from the embassy in Kiev this morning read in part, “We urge U.S. citizens to depart Ukraine now via ground transport if safe. Border crossings are open. Consider routes & risks; roads may be crowded, exposed to combat or have damaged infrastructure.” 

America temporarily closed that embassy last month and moved a scaled-down operation to Lviv, 300 miles to the west. As of late February, U.S. officials estimated that up to 30,000 Americans were living in Ukraine, though it was not immediately clear how many remain as of today with the war now nearing its third week.

The warning came as news broke early Monday morning of Russian strikes pummelling suburbs northwest and also east of the capital, which, according to the regional administration chief, Oleksiy Kuleba, killed a councilor from the town of Brovary. Speaking on Ukrainian television, Mr. Kuleba also said there were Russian strikes overnight on the northwest towns of Irpin, Bucha, and Hostomel, which have been scenes of some of the heaviest fighting so far as Russian forces batter the fringes of Kiev. 

In the meantime, the Associated Press reports that in a Facebook post the Ukrainian general staff said their forces are targeting Russian bases and their logistical abilities as the war enters its 19th day. The general staff also accused Russian forces of setting up firing positions and military equipment in churches and other civilian infrastructure so that Ukrainian forces are unable to fire back.

Heavy combat outside Kiev and eastern Ukraine comes amid news that Russian and Ukrainian officials will meet via video conference on Monday morning in the latest round of talks between Kiev and Moscow. The Kyiv Independent reported that the Ukrainian and Russian delegations were scheduled to restart negotiations at 10:30 a.m., Kyiv local time. 

Although even cautious optimism may seem like wishful thinking as Russian forces batter Ukraine from nearly every direction, Euronews reported that an adviser to President Zelensky, Mykhailo Podoliak, tweeted that Moscow had stopped issuing “ultimatums” to Kiev and has started to “carefully listen to our proposals.”

On the broader military front, things were looking less pacific. The British defense ministry said Russian naval forces have “established a remote blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea coast, effectively isolating Ukraine from international maritime trade,” and that “Russian forces advancing from Crimea are attempting to circumvent Mykolaiv as they look to drive west towards Odessa.”

While both developments would mark an escalation in Vladimir Putin’s bid to completely crush Ukraine, cracks may be appearing in the Russian machine: In recent days Moscow has requested military aid and equipment from China, U.S. officials told the Washington Post. The newspaper also reported the spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington said that “he’s never heard of that” request.

The British defense ministry assesses that from Kharkiv in the north and besieged Mariupol in the south, Russian forces are attempting to surround Ukrainian forces in the eastern portion of the country — but also tweeted that Russia “is paying a heavy price for each advance as the Ukrainian Armed Forces continues to offer staunch resistance” across the country. 

The western regions are now in Moscow’s sights, too: Only yesterday, Russians fired an estimated eight missiles that struck the Center for International Peacekeeping and Security, about an hour’s drive northwest of Lviv and just 15 miles from the Ukrainian-Polish border, as the Sun’s Caleb Larson reported from Lviv. 

At least 35 people were killed in the Sunday morning strike, and another 134 sustained injuries. London’s Evening Standard reported that in an overnight address following a hospital visit to see wounded soldiers, Mr. Zelensky repeated his call for NATO to impose a no-fly zone, warning it was “only a matter of time before Russian missiles fall on your territory.”

Despite or because of the continuous Russian onslaught on eastern Ukraine, the situation in the center grows more fraught by the hour. While many towns on the periphery of the capital are under assault, more Russian fury may yet be in store for Kiev itself. The capital’s residents in recent days have transformed it into a vast fortress and it is already coming under attack, albeit for the moment in piecemeal fashion. 

The Kyiv Independent reported that a nine-story apartment building in the city was on fire this morning following pre-dawn shelling by Russian forces; firefighters were working to put out the blaze. Reports that two people were killed in that attack were not independently confirmed. 

Local officials also reported that Russian shelling struck the Antonov Serial Production Plant in Kiev. According to CNN, Russian forces last month destroyed the world’s largest plane, the Antonov AN-225, which was parked at the Hostomel Air Base outside Kiev. That airbase came under Russian attack on at least one prior occasion since the Russian invasion began, in a botched raid that Moscow admitted resulted in the deaths of five Russian paratroopers, the Daily Mail reported.