Russia Calls on Foreign Diplomats to Leave Kiev Immediately

Moscow issued an urgent warning to the international community on Monday, calling on diplomats and foreign nationals in the Ukrainian capital Kiev to leave immediately, before carrying out what it described as a "series of organized strikes" against strategic defense targets. The Russian Foreign Ministry revealed that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov spoke by phone with his US counterpart Marco Rubio, urging Washington to evacuate its diplomatic staff from the US embassy in Kyiv, along with inviting other countries with diplomatic missions to take similar actions. The two witnessed a bloody escalation in the pace of confrontations, with six people killed by Ukrainian strikes on the Russian border areas of Belgorod and Bryansk, while Russian attacks killed four civilians in the areas of Kharkiv and Kramatorsk in eastern Ukraine. In a new human tragedy, four people were killed in the town of Gorlevka in the Donetsk region, among them Two children were born in 2012 and 2013, according to the Moscow-appointed local administration, while a Russian missile attack on the Kharkiv region killed two people and injured 19 others. These developments come on the heels of intense Russian bombing targeting Kiev, in which Ukraine confirmed Moscow's use of nuclear-capable Orishnik ballistic missiles, while U.S.-mediated diplomatic talks continue to falter amid this ongoing military escalation.