Beijing urges global effort to back peace bid

State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi has renewed a call for the international community to step forward and encourage Russia and Ukraine to stick with negotiations despite the difficulties encountered in three rounds of talks.

Wang made clear China's position in virtual meetings on Thursday with French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian and Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio. The discussions with his European peers mark the latest stage in China's intensive diplomatic efforts to push forward a political settlement of the Ukraine crisis.

Wang, when he met with Di Maio via video link, said dialogue between the parties is the only viable means to achieve a lasting cease-fire between Russia and Ukraine.

Wang also described talks on Thursday between the foreign ministers of Russia and Ukraine in Turkey as a positive step toward peace. He said the international community should encourage the two sides to strive for peace.

He vowed that China would continue to make efforts to defuse the situation and promote peace.

During his talks with Le Drian, Wang said China hopes the international community will create the necessary environment and conditions for the talks between Russia and Ukraine to make progress.

Wang also noted that China has proposed a six-point initiative to prevent a massive humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

China would push the United Nations Security Council to form a consensus on avoiding a humanitarian crisis through consultations with all sides, he added.

Given that countries around the world have become a shared community that is indivisible, Wang said unlimited sanctions would damage the stability of the international supply chains, intensify food and energy crises and harm the livelihoods of people amid a sluggish global economic recovery.

With the conflict now in its third week, attention has been focused on the plight of civilians at risk.

At least 35,000 civilians were evacuated from besieged Ukrainian cities on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

In a video address late on Wednesday, the Ukrainian leader said three humanitarian corridors had allowed residents to leave the cities of Sumy, Enerhodar and areas around the capital Kyiv.

The evacuations came after Moscow and Kyiv agreed on Wednesday to open more corridors, offering a glimmer of hope for terrified civilians trapped in bombarded cities.

More than 5,000 people were evacuated a day earlier from Sumy, a city near the Russian border and that has been the scene of heavy fighting.

The International Organization for Migration, the United Nations' migration agency, said more than 2.3 million people had fled Ukraine by Thursday.

In another consequence of the conflict, Ukraine's nuclear regulator Ukrenergo said on Wednesday that power had been cut to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, but the International Atomic Energy Agency claimed there was "no critical impact on safety".

The news from the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster came as the IAEA said data transmission was also lost at the Zaporizhzhia atomic plant, Europe's largest.

Agencies contributed to this story.