Peace talks hit a dead end

President Vladimir Putin said yesterday peace talks with Ukraine had hit a dead end, using his first public comments on the conflict in more than a week to vow that his troops would win and to goad the West for failing to bring Moscow to heel.

He said Moscow would achieve its goals as Russian troops massed for a new offensive amid allegations of rape, brutality against civilians and possible use of chemical weapons.

Ukrainian officials urged civilians to flee eastern areas ahead of the anticipated offensive, while the battle for the southern port city of Mariupol was reaching a decisive phase, with Ukrainian marines holed up in the Azovstal industrial district.

Addressing the war in public for the first time since Russian forces retreated from northern Ukraine after they were halted at the gates of Kyiv, Putin promised that Russia would achieve all of its "noble" aims in Ukraine.

In the strongest signal to date that the war will grind on for longer, Putin said Kyiv had derailed peace talks by staging what he said were fake claims of Russian war crimes and by demanding security guarantees to cover the whole of Ukraine.

"We have again returned to a dead-end situation for us," Putin, Russia's paramount leader since 1999, told a news briefing during a visit to the Vostochny Cosmodrome 3,450 miles (5,550 km) east of Moscow.

Asked by Russian space agency workers if the operation in Ukraine would achieve its goals, Putin said: "Absolutely. I don't have any doubt at all."

Russia, he said, would "rhythmically and calmly" continue its operation.

Putin said Russia had no choice but to fight because it had to defend the Russian speakers of eastern Ukraine and prevent its former Soviet neighbour from becoming an anti-Russian springboard for Moscow's enemies, reports Reuters.

The West has condemned the war as a brutal imperial-style land grab targeting a sovereign country. Ukraine says it is fighting for its survival after Putin annexed Crimea in 2014 and on February 21 recognised two of its rebel regions as sovereign.

Putin dismissed the West's sanctions, which have tipped Russia towards its worst economic contraction since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union, as a failure.

"That Blitzkrieg on which our foes were counting did not work," Putin said.

He dismissed Ukrainian and Western claims that Russia had committed war crimes as fakes.

Ukrainian Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar, meanwhile, said the government was checking unverified information that Russia may have used chemical weapons while besieging Mariupol.

"There is a theory that these could be phosphorous munitions," Malyar said in televised comments.

The withdrawal of Russian forces from the outskirts of Kyiv brought more allegations of war crimes, including executions and rape of women.

United Nations official Sima Bahous told the Security Council on Monday: "We are increasingly hearing of rape and sexual violence."

Kateryna Cherepakha, president of rights group La Strada-Ukraine, told the council via video: "Violence and rape is used now as a weapon of war by Russian invaders in Ukraine."

Russia's deputy UN ambassador denied the allegations.