United States President Joe Biden has said his remark that Russian President Vladimir Putin should not remain in power reflected his own moral outrage at Russia's invasion of Ukraine and did not mark a shift in Washington's policy.
Mr Biden faced pressure to speak about the comment after it generated a flood of questions as to whether the United States had changed to a policy seeking regime change in Moscow.
"I wasn't then nor am I now articulating a policy change. I was expressing moral outrage that I felt, and I make no apologies," Mr Biden told reporters at the White House.
He said his outburst, made at the end of a major address about Ukraine in Warsaw on Saturday, had been prompted by an emotional visit he had with families displaced by Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
At the end of his speech in the Polish capital, Mr Biden added an unscripted line, saying that Mr Putin "cannot remain in power." Administration officials rushed to clarify afterward that the White House was not advocating for regime change in Russia.
Mr Biden on Monday said that he was "not walking anything back" by clarifying the remark. Asked whether the remark would spur a negative response from Mr Putin, Mr Biden said, "I don’t care what he thinks. ... He’s going to do what he’s going to do."
But Mr Biden once again suggested Mr Putin should not be leading Russia.
If Mr Putin "continues on the course that he’s on, he’s going to become a pariah worldwide and who knows what he becomes at home in terms of support," Mr Biden said.
However, Mr Biden did not rule out meeting with Putin, saying "it depends" on what he wants to talk about.
Biden earlier this month described Mr Putin as a "war criminal" for his role in a conflict in which many Ukrainian civilians have been killed.
He said his remark on Saturday about Mr Putin was intended for a Russian audience.
"The last part of the speech was talking to Russian people," Mr Biden said. "I was communicating this to not only the Russian people, but the whole world. This is just stating a simple fact that this kind of behaviour is totally unacceptable. Totally unacceptable."
Mariupol in 'catastrophic' situation
Ukraine warned on Monday the humanitarian crisis in the pulverised city of Mariupol was now "catastrophic", with thousands dead, as fighting surged around Kyiv ahead of new face-to-face peace talks with Russia in Turkey.
A senior Ukrainian official told news agency AFP Monday that around 5,000 people have been buried in the besieged city of Mariupol.
But the burials stopped 10 days ago because of continued shelling," Tetyana Lomakina, a presidential adviser now in charge of humanitarian corridors, told AFP by phone, adding that as many as 10,000 people may have died since the start of the Russian invasion.
Russian attacks near Kyiv cut power to more than 80,000 homes, officials said, underscoring the peril facing the capital despite an apparent retreat in Moscow's war aims to focus on eastern Ukraine.
"The enemy is trying to break through the corridor around Kyiv and block transport routes," Ukraine's deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar said.
"To capture Kyiv is essentially a captured Ukraine, and this is their goal."
Ukrainian soldiers stand next to debris from a Russian tank after recent fights in the town of Trostsyanets, some 400km east of capital Kyiv, Ukraine, on Monday, 28 March, 2022. Source: AAP, AP / Efrem Lukatsky
Mr Guterres told reporters he had asked UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths "immediately to explore with the parties involved the possible agreements and arrangements for a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine."
He said he hoped Mr Griffiths would go to both Moscow and Kyiv as soon as possible after he returns from a mission to Afghanistan.
20,000 Ukrainians killed
About 20,000 Ukrainians have been killed in Russia's month-old invasion and 10 million have fled their homes, according to Kyiv, and several cities are still coming under withering bombardment.
Ukraine Prosecutor-General Iryna Venediktova said Monday there was proof that Russian forces have used banned cluster bombs in the southern Odesa and Kherson areas.
A UN treaty concluded in 1997 baned the use of anti-personnel mines, but neither Russia nor the United States signed, although Ukraine did.
Humanitarian needs are direst in the southern port city of Mariupol, where Ukraine said that about 160,000 civilians remain encircled by Russian forces, desperate for food, water and medicine.
Ukraine's foreign ministry said the situation there was "catastrophic" and Russia's assault from land, sea and air had turned a city once home to 450,000 people "into dust".
The Ukrainian government also estimated Monday that the economic damage from the Russian invasion had reached nearly $565 billion (A$754 billion), including immediate damage plus expected losses in trade and economic activity.
Bodies unburied
Ukraine says that one Russian strike on a theatre-turned-shelter in Mariupol is feared to have killed some 300 people.
Unburied bodies line streets and residents cowering in basement shelters have been forced to eat snow to stay hydrated, local lawmaker Kateryna Sukhomlynova told AFP.
France, Greece and Turkey are hoping to launch a mass evacuation of civilians out of Mariupol within days, according to French President Emmanuel Macron, who is seeking agreement from Russia's Vladimir Putin.
A destroyed building in Mariupol, Ukraine, on 28 March, 2022. Source: AAP / TASS/Sipa USA
On Monday, Mr Biden announced that the US will allocate billions of dollars in aid to Ukraine, tax the wealthy and lower its deficit under a budget proposal unveiled on Monday.
His budget proposals, which must be approved by Congress, include a $6.9 billion (A$9.2 billion) infusion of funding for Ukraine to assist in defending against Russia's invasion, as well as to aid NATO. Another $1 billion (A$1.3 billion) would go towards Washington's efforts to counter Moscow's influence.
Peace 'without delay'
Russia has de-facto control over the southern peninsula of Crimea that it annexed in 2014, and the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk in the eastern Donbas region.
In the Lugansk city of Rubizhne, one person was killed and another wounded by overnight Russian bombardment, according to regional Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian forces on Monday recaptured Malaya Rohan, a small village on the outskirts of Ukraine's second-largest city Kharkiv in the northeast.
Ukraine launched its attack on the Russian-controlled village last week, but it took several days to root out Moscow's troops hiding in cellars and nearby forests, the military said.
Firefighters work to extinguish a fire in a warehouse that was hit by Russian artillery shelling, in Kharkiv, northeast Ukraine, on 28 March 2022. Source: AAP, EPA / Roman Pilipey
Ukrainian forces have also "liberated" the Kyiv suburb of Irpin, Interior Minister Denys Monastyrsky said late on Monday in televised remarks.
"In fact, this is now happening in parallel: the armed forces are advancing, the police are advancing, and immediately a sweep is going on completely through the streets... Therefore, the city has now been liberated, but it is still dangerous to be there," Mr Monastyrsky said.
The town's mayor, Oleksandr Markushin, had earlier on Monday announced on his Telegram channel that Russian troops had been driven out of the town on the strategic northwestern entrance to Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the first round of in-person talks since 10 March — due to open in Istanbul on Tuesday after near-daily video contacts — must bring peace "without delay".
Ukrainian "neutrality", and the future status of Donbas, could be in the mix for the Istanbul meeting. Ukraine's delegation said it had been delayed and the talks would open on Tuesday.
"We understand that it is impossible to liberate all territory by force, that would mean World War III, I fully understand and realise that," Mr Zelenskyy said.
But he stressed: "Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity are beyond doubt. Effective security guarantees for our state are mandatory."
Mr Putin has called Moscow's military goals "demilitarisation and denazification of Ukraine", as well as the imposition of neutral status.
Russia last week appeared to scale back its campaign when senior general Sergei Rudskoi said the first phase of the war was over and the "main goal" was now on controlling Donbas in the east.
The head of Ukraine's Lugansk separatist region says it may hold a referendum on becoming part of Russia.
Western analysts say Ukraine's unexpectedly dogged resistance, coupled with logistical and tactical failures by the Russians, explain any reorientation by Moscow.
Many in Ukraine remain suspicious that Russia could use this week's talks as an opportunity to regroup and fix the problems bedevilling its military.
UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss said Monday that any peace deal between Kiev and Moscow must not "sell Ukraine out" and should include provisions to automatically re-trigger sanctions if Russia acts aggressively.
