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Russia fired missiles at an airport near Lviv on Friday, a city where hundreds of thousands found refuge far from Ukraine’s battlefields, as Moscow tries to regain the initiative in its stalled campaign against Ukraine, Reuters reported.

US President Joe Biden was due to talk with Chinese president Xi Jinping later on Friday, in an attempt to starve Russia’s war machine by isolating Moscow from the one big power that has yet to condemn its assault.

More than three weeks since President Vladimir Putin launched an invasion to subdue what he calls an artificial state undeserving of nationhood, Ukraine’s elected government is still standing and Russian forces have not captured a single big city.

Russian troops have taken heavy losses while blasting residential areas to rubble, sending more than 3 million refugees fleeing. Moscow denies it is targeting civilians in what it calls a “special operation” to disarm its neighbour.

“Russian forces have made minimal progress this week,” Britain’s defence ministry said in a daily military intelligence update, according to Reuters.

“Ukrainian forces around Kyiv and Mykolaiv continue to frustrate Russian attempts to encircle the cities. The cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Sumy and Mariupol remain encircled and subject to heavy Russian shelling.”

At least three blasts were heard near Lviv’s airport on Friday morning, with videos on social media showing large explosions and mushroom-shaped plumes of smoke rising.

Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovy, said several missiles has struck an aircraft maintenance facility, destroying buildings but causing no casualties.

The city, in Western Ukraine near the Polish border, is hundreds of miles from Russia’s advance and has been one of the main destinations for Ukrainians forced to flee battle zones.

Russia has stepped up missile attacks on scattered targets in western Ukraine in recent days in what Ukrainian officials see as a bid to widen the conflict beyond areas where their troops are now bogged down, Reuters reported.

Russia has been intensively shelling eastern Ukrainian cities, especially Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv and Mariupol, a southern port under siege for three weeks where residents have been sheltering with no access to food or water.

One of those killed in Chernihiv was Jimmy Hill, 68, an American working in Ukraine as a university lecturer, trapped in the besieged city looking after his Ukrainian partner who was hospitalised with illness. He was gunned down by Russian snipers while waiting in a bread line, and his body was found in the street, his family said.

In his last Facebook post, he wrote that his partner was in intensive care. “Intense bombing! still alive. Limited food. Room very cold.”

Kyiv has so far been spared a major assault, even as long columns of troops bore down from the northwest and east, halted at the gates in heavy fighting that destroyed suburbs. Residents in the capital have endured nightly deadly missile attacks. In the latest, one person was killed when parts of a Russian missile hit a residential building. Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko said 19 people were injured including four children, according to Reuters.

The Election Commission has endorsed and published the election calendar for the local level elections.

According to the calendar, two days—April 24 and 25— have been fixed for the registration of candidates.

The final name of candidates would be published on April 28 after completing the procedures such as registration of complaints and investigation into the complaints.

Likewise, the candidates can withdraw the candidates on April 29. The final list of the candidates would be published on April 29 in the evening and distribute election symbols on April 30.

The voting would take place from 8 am to 5 pm on May 13.

The silence period will come into force from May 10, 24 hours before the election.

Japan and Australia on Friday slapped fresh sanctions on Russian entities as punishment for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, which the West says has been stalled by staunch resistance but continues to take a devastating toll on civilians, Reuters reported.

Western sources and Ukrainian officials said Russia’s assault has faltered since its troops invaded on Feb. 24, further dashing Moscow’s expectations of a swift victory and the removal of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government.

A U.S. Department of Defense official said there had been no shelling on Ukraine reported in the past 24 hours, and anecdotal indications morale in some Russian units was flagging.

“Some of that is, we believe, a function of poor leadership, lack of information that the troops are getting about their mission and objectives, and I think, disillusionment from being resisted as fiercely as they have been,” the official said.

Despite battleground setbacks and punitive sanctions by the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin has shown little sign of relenting, according to Reuters.

His government says it is counting on China to help Russia withstand blows to its economy.

The United States, which this week announced $800 million in new military aid to Kyiv, is concerned Beijing is “considering directly assisting Russia with military equipment to use in Ukraine,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

President Joe Biden, who described Putin as a “murderous dictator”, will make clear to China’s President Xi Jinping in a call Friday that Beijing “will bear responsibility for any actions it takes to support Russia’s aggression,” Blinken told reporters.

The pair are due to speak at 9 a.m. Eastern time (1300 GMT), the White House said.

China has refused to condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine or call it an invasion. It says it recognises Ukraine’s sovereignty but that Russia has legitimate security concerns that should be addressed.

A Chinese foreign ministry official met this week with Russia’s ambassador to China to exchange views on counter-terrorism and security cooperation, the Chinese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he was thankful to US President Joe Biden for the additional military aid but said he would not say specifically what the new package included because he didn’t want to tip off Russia, Associated Press reported.

“This is our defense,” he said in his nighttime video address to the nation. “When the enemy doesn’t know what to expect from us. As they didn’t know what awaited them after Feb. 24,” the day Russia invaded. “They didn’t know what we had for defense or how we prepared to meet the blow.”

Zelenskyy said Russia expected to find Ukraine much as it did in 2014, when it seized Crimea without a fight and backed separatists as they took control of the eastern Donbas region. But Ukraine is now a different country, with much stronger defenses, he said.

He said it also was not the time to reveal Ukraine’s tactics in the ongoing negotiations with Russia. “Working more in silence than on television, radio or on Facebook,” Zelenskyy said, according to the Associated Press. “I consider it the right way.”