Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Saturday (March 19) for comprehensive peace talks with Moscow to stop its invasion of Ukraine, saying it would otherwise take Russia “several generations” to recover from its losses in the war.

Now is the time for meaningful talks. That was the message from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy to Moscow on Saturday (March 19) as he called on Russia to stop its invasion.

This is the only chance for Russia to reduce harm from its mistakes, he said.

Adding that it would otherwise take Russia “several generations” to recover from the war.

Since President Vladimir Putin launched the assault on February 24, Russian forces have taken heavy losses and their advance has largely stalled.

But they have laid siege to cities, blasting urban areas to rubble.

And in recent days have intensified missile attacks on scattered targets in western Ukraine, away from the main battlefields in the north and east of the country.

The port city of Mariupol has been hit particularly hard.

Officials there say fighting has reached the city center and that heavy shelling has prevented humanitarian aid from getting in.

In cars with smashed windows, held together by tape, these evacuees managed to escape the besieged city, arriving in Zaporizhzhia.

”There is no Mariupol,” this lady says, adding she had sat in a cellar for 10 days with no water or electricity.

“Our homes are destroyed. Bombs landed in the yards, and in every flat the windows were blown out. So we took our parrot, the dog, and together with the whole family we got in the car and drove. There were lots of people dying on the streets, dead bodies were lying on the streets.”

Efforts to evacuate civilians were also underway in the eastern region of Luhansk, its governor said on Saturday.

“A ‘regime of silence’ has been agreed for March 19”, Serhiy Gaidai said in a message on Telegram, adding a humanitarian corridor had been opened.

Luhansk lies in Ukraine’s coal-rich Donbass region that has been partly controlled by Russia-backed separatists since 2014.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday it had used hypersonic missiles to destroy a large weapons depot in Ukraine’s western Ivano-Frankivsk region.

Missiles also destroyed Ukrainian military radio and reconnaissance centers near the port of Odessa, the Interfax news agency quoted the ministry as saying.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports.

Moscow calls its actions in Ukraine “a special operation” to “demilitarize” and “de-Nazify” its southern neighbor.

Kyiv and Moscow reported some progress in talks this week towards a political formula that would guarantee Ukraine’s security, while keeping it outside NATO — one of Russia’s main demands.

Though each side has accused the other of dragging out the talks.

Louisa Naks reports via our partners at Reuters