Street fighting rages in Ukraine as talks mooted

Street fighting raged in Ukraine's second-biggest city on Sunday after Russian forces pierced through Ukrainian lines, as both sides said they were ready for talks to halt a conflict that has forced an estimated 260,000 people to flee their homes.

Machine gun fire and explosions could be heard in Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine and an AFP journalist saw the wreckage of a Russian armoured vehicle smouldering and several others abandoned.

On the fourth day of an invasion by Russia that has sent shockwaves around the world, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turned down Moscow's offer of a meeting in Belarus, which has allowed Russian troops passage to attack Ukraine.

Zelensky said Ukraine had proposed Warsaw, Bratislava, Budapest, Istanbul and Baku as possible alternative locations for any talks.

"Any other city in a country from whose territory missiles do not fly would suit us," Zelensky said.

"The past night in Ukraine was brutal," he said. "They fight against everyone. They fight against all living things -- against kindergartens, against residential buildings and even against ambulances."

Ukraine has reported 198 civilian deaths, including three children, since the invasion began.

President Vladimir Putin has defied crippling Western sanctions on Russia's economy and international pariah status for his country to press ahead with the air, ground and sea assault.

Apart from the attack on Kharkiv, located near the Russian border, Moscow also claimed it was "entirely" besieging the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and the city of Berdyansk in the southeast.

Ukrainian officials also said that a gas pipeline in eastern Kharkiv and an oil depot near the capital Kyiv were targeted overnight.

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