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An airstrike on a hospital in the port of Mariupol killed three people, including a child, the city council said Thursday, and Russian forces intensified their siege of Ukrainian cities, even as the top diplomats from both sides met for the first time since the war began, Associated Press reported.

The attack a day earlier in the besieged southern city wounded 17 people, including women waiting to give birth, doctors and children buried in the rubble. Bombs also fell on two hospitals in another city west of the capital, Kyiv.

The World Health Organization said it has confirmed 18 attacks on medical facilities since the Russian invasion began two weeks ago.

As the war entered its third week, Western officials said Russian forces have made little progress on the ground in recent days, but they have intensified the bombardment of Mariupol and other cities, trapping hundreds of thousands of people, with food and water running short. Temporary cease-fires to allow evacuations have often faltered, with Ukraine accusing Russia of continuing their bombardments. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 35,000 people managed to get out on Wednesday from several besieged towns, according to Associated Press.

The Mariupol city council posted a video Thursday showing buses driving down a highway, with a note saying that a convoy bringing food and medicine was on the way despite several days of thwarted efforts to reach the city.

Images from the city, where hundreds have died and some victims have been buried in a mass grave, have drawn condemnation from around the world. Britain called the attack on a children’s hospital a war crime. Two other hospitals were also hit in Zhytomyr, a city west of Kyiv, Mayor Serhii Sukhomlyn said on Facebook. He said there were no injuries.

“Everyone is working to get help to the people of Mariupol. And it will come,” said Mariupol Mayor Vadym Boychenko, Associated Press reported.

On the western edge of Kyiv, artillery fire could be heard Thursday, Deputy Interior Minister Vadym Denysenko said. He told Ukrainian TV channel Rada that residents had a “rather difficult” night on the outskirts of the capital in which Russian forces started by targeting military sites but then hit residential areas.

Russia’s war in Ukraine entered its third week on Thursday with none of its key objectives reached despite thousands of people killed, more than two million made refugees, and thousands forced to cower in besieged cities under relentless bombardment, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian forces including citizen-soldiers who only last month never dreamed of firing a weapon in anger were holding out in Kyiv and other frontlines, while Russian troops, tanks and artillery made slow progress from the north, south and east.

Moscow’s stated objectives of crushing the Ukrainian military and ousting the pro-Western elected government of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy remained out of reach, with Zelenskiy unshaken and lethal Western military aid pouring across the Polish and Romanian borders.

Western-led sanctions designed to cut the Russian economy and government from international financial markets were beginning to bite, with the Russian sharemarket and rouble plunging and ordinary Russians rushing to hoard cash, according to Reuters.

Zelenskiy accused Russia of carrying out genocide after Ukrainian officials said Russian aircraft bombed a children’s hospital on Wednesday, burying patients in rubble despite a ceasefire deal for people to flee the besieged city of Mariupol.

The attack, which authorities said injured women in labour and left children in the wreckage, underscored U.S. warnings that the biggest assault on a European state since 1945 could become increasingly attritional after Russia’s early failures.

The White House condemned the hospital bombing as a “barbaric use of military force to go after innocent civilians”.

Russian had earlier pledged to halt firing so at least some trapped civilians could escape the port city, where hundreds of thousands have been sheltering without water or power for more than a week. Both sides blamed the other for the failure of the evacuation, Reuters reported.

“What kind of country is this, the Russian Federation, which is afraid of hospitals, is afraid of maternity hospitals, and destroys them?” Zelenskiy said in a televised address late on Wednesday.

Zelenskiy repeated his call for the West to tighten sanctions on Russia “so that they sit down at the negotiating table and end this brutal war”. The bombing of the children’s hospital, he said, was “proof that a genocide of Ukrainians is taking place”.

The Donetsk region’s governor said 17 people were wounded in the attack.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, asked by Reuters for comment, said: “Russian forces do not fire on civilian targets.” Russia calls its incursion a “special operation” to disarm its neighbour and dislodge leaders it calls “neo-Nazis.”

Ukraine’s foreign ministry posted video footage of what it said was the hospital showing holes where windows should have been in a three-storey building. Huge piles of smouldering rubble littered the scene, according to Reuters.

The U.N. Human Rights body said it was verifying the number of casualties at Mariupol. The incident “adds to our deep concerns about indiscriminate use of weapons in populated areas,” it added through a spokesperson.

Among more than 2 million total refugees from Ukraine, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said on Wednesday that more than 1 million children have fled the country since the invasion started on Feb 24. At least 37 had been killed and 50 injured, it said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said houses had been destroyed all across Ukraine. “Hundreds of thousands of people have no food, no water, no heat, no electricity and no medical care,” it said, Reuters reported.

Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba said that the current coalition would remain intact till the upcoming elections.

Speaking at a programme organised in Birgunj on Thursday, Prime Minister Deuba said that the five-party alliance would remain intact till the forthcoming elections.

Saying that none of the parties would garner a majority if they contested the elections alone, Prime Minister Deuba, who is also the President of the Nepali Congress, said that the party would contest the three tier of elections with the parties in the alliance.

“Nepali Congress will not garner a majority if it contests the elections alone. That is why, the party should forge alliance with other parties for the upcoming elections,” he said.

In a different context, the Prime Minister said that the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is in the interest of the nation.

Saying that the MCC is a grant project, Prime Minister Deuba opined that it would help develop the country and also create job opportunities.

Stating that Nepal is situated in between the two big neighbours, the Prime Minister said that Nepal should maintain a balanced relationship with both the countries.

Since the parliamentary endorsement of the MCC compact, China has stepped up its engagements with Nepali politicians. Chinese Ambassador Hou Yanqi has started reaching out to politicians, and as of this writing had met CPN (Maoist Center) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Speaker Agni Sapkota.

Her leg-work comes ahead of the Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s impending Nepal visit at March-end, in what will be the first high-level visit from China since the formation of the Deuba government in July 2021. The Chinese foreign minister’s visit is being seen meaningfully as it will come hot on the heels of the compact’s endorsement—something that China did not want (See story here).

Ruling Nepali Congress spokesperson and former foreign minister Prakash Sharan Mahat says Nepal’s message to Wang on the compact will be simple: it is a purely development project and it will not create any problem in Nepal’s relation with China.

Following the compact’s endorsement, China is expected to push its pending BRI projects in Nepal. Mahat says the government is also ready to implement the BRI projects that are beneficial for Nepal. “Under the BRI, we expect more grant and nominal interests on loans,” says Mahat.

In a Feb 7 press conference, Foreign Minister Narayan Khadka had said there were some pending issues with China. Perhaps he was referring to the tightening of border points and Nepali students enrolled in Chinese universities being stranded in their own country due to China’s strict Covid-19 protocols.

Foreign policy analyst Milan Tuladhar who also served as foreign policy advisor to former Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal says it is inappropriate to link Wang’s visit to the compact. “There are many pending bilateral issues like the long delay in cross-border railway, problems at border points and implementation of past agreements,” he says. Not everything, he adds, needs to be related to the MCC compact.