Zelenskyy advisor says there won't be peace talks with Russia if its forces take Mariupol

• Russian forces continue to bombard the strategic port city of Mariupol as Russia refocuses its war efforts on eastern Ukraine.
• An advisor to Zelenskyy said if Putin's forces capture the besieged city, it would end peace talks.

An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that there won't be peace talks with Russia if President Vladimir Putin's forces capture the southern port city of Mariupol.

Oleksiy Arestovych said in a briefing that Russia's ongoing war against Ukraine has entered its second phase — a renewed offensive in eastern Ukraine's Donbas region — and will play out in one of three scenarios.

Russian forces will fight to hold ground and maintain territorial dominance in the region or troops will withdraw from the area, Arestovych said in his speech.

The third option is that peace negotiations will resume, Arestovych said. But he added that "there may be no peace talks" if Russian forces capture besieged Mariupol.

"Then our main course of action will be the complete destruction of the enemy, relying on Western aid and the fact that the Russians have no one to get the aid from," Arestovych said.

Mariupol has for weeks been the target of a devastating Russian shelling campaign, which has bombed civilian areas including schools, theaters, shelters, and hospitals.

Ukrainian officials estimate that around 21,000 civilians have died there. Arestovych said Russian forces surrounding Mariupol continue to attack the city, but have failed to completely capture it.

Earlier on Tuesday, Russian forces bombed a steel plant in the southeastern part of the city where Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were holding out.

Russian forces have ordered the remaining pockets of Ukrainian resistance in Mariupol to surrender — a request that has been denied.

The city is strategic because it would unlock a vital land bridge from Russian-controlled Crimea to eastern Ukraine's Donbas region, where Russia's renewed offensive began on Monday after it failed to capture the capital city Kyiv.

UK intelligence said last week that Ukraine's resistance in Mariupol had tied up a significant number of Russian troops and equipment ahead of the renewed Donbas offensive.

Translations by Oleksandr Vynogradov.