Moscow, 18 March 2022 (dpa/MIA) — Russia and Ukraine have come closer on the "key issue" of Ukraine's possible neutrality or NATO membership, says Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky, but there were still some points to be resolved before the presidents of the two countries could meet. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly offered to meet Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Moscow has so far been reserved to the idea. On the question of a possible "demilitarization" of Ukraine, they were "somewhere in the middle." He neither wanted to nor was he allowed to give details. The two sides were still far apart on the administration of the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, where the self-declared separatist republics are located. The first meeting of the delegations took place on Feb. 28 in Belarus. Currently, the negotiations are via videoconference. Putin updated German Chancellor Olaf Scholz about the talks on Friday. The Russian leader complained that "the Ukrainian side is delaying the process with ever new unrealistic proposals," according to the Kremlin. During the phone call, Putin complained of Ukrainian attacks in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said in a statement. According to Moscow, Ukrainian missile launchers targeted residential areas in the cities of Donetsk and Makeyvka, resulting in a "significant number of human casualties." "These war crimes have been ignored by the West," the statement read. Russia, which invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, has been repeatedly accused of deliberately striking civilian targets in the war. Scholz, who initiated the call, pressed for a ceasefire in the conflict as quickly as possible, according to the Kremlin's read-out. Putin claimed to be doing everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. He made the same assurances in a Friday call with French President Emmanuel Macron. In a different call, Chinese President Xi Jinping said China and the US should work together for peace. "The crisis in Ukraine is something we don't want to see," Xi told US President Joe Biden, according to Chinese state broadcaster CCTV. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and the world's most important economies, both countries should not only advance Sino-American relations, but also "assume international responsibility" and "make efforts for peace" around the world, Xi was cited as saying. For his part, Biden warned China against providing support to Russia and abetting a humanitarian catastrophe. According to the Élysée Palace, Macron expressed great concern about the situation in Mariupol, a city in Ukraine's east that is surrounded by Russian forces, and again demanded an immediate ceasefire. Two days after the heavy bombing of a theater in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, hundreds of people are still buried under the rubble, according to Zelensky. "Despite the shelling, despite all the difficulties, we will continue the rescue work," he said in a video message from Kyiv on Friday. On Thursday, 130 people were rescued from the building. It is still unclear how many people were injured or killed. Ukraine says the building was struck by targeted Russian bombing. Russia blames Ukrainian nationalists. The UN's World Food Programme warned on Friday that the "last reserves" of food and water were running out in Mariupol. The city has experienced some of the most desperate scenes of the war. Civilians are under relentless bombardment and have had little or no access to electricity, heat and running water since early March. Aid convoys have been unable to reach the city and there are reports of shortages of basic goods and medicines. Russian forces hit areas near Lviv's airport in western Ukraine early on Friday, according to Mayor Andriy Sadovy and witnesses. The attack was later confirmed by the Defense Ministry in Moscow. The airport itself was not directly struck, but an aircraft repair facility was destroyed, Sadovy wrote on Telegram. No casualties were initially reported. According to Kyiv, at least 35 people died and 134 were injured in an attack on the Yavoriv military training area not far from Lviv last Sunday. One person was killed and 19 wounded in an attack on a residential neighborhood in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Among the wounded in Podil district were four children, he said in a video posted on Telegram on Friday. He accused Russian troops of shelling residential buildings, kindergartens and a school. One person was killed and several injured in the east of Kyiv on Thursday when, according to the local authorities, debris from an intercepted missile hit a high-rise building. More than 220 people have died in Kyiv since the Russian attack began more than three weeks ago, including 60 civilians, the deputy head of the Kyiv city administration, Mykola Povoroznyk, said. Ukraine still controls key areas of the country which Russian forces are trying to take, Zelensky asserted. Separatist leaders in eastern Ukraine's Luhansk region have said the Ukrainian army shelled five settlements in the self-declared republic five times within a 24-hour period, Russian news agency TASS reported. The Russian military on Friday said it has brought 90% of Ukraine's eastern Luhansk region under its control. The Russian army said it had destroyed 183 drones, 1,406 tanks and armored vehicles, 138 rocket artillery mounts, 535 artillery pieces and 1,200 vehicles of the Ukrainian armed forces since the war's start. In total, 13 million people in Ukraine are affected by the fighting, according to UN figures. The number of Ukrainians who have fled abroad since the Russian attack three weeks ago is now put by the UN at 3.2 million. In addition, there are 2 million displaced persons inside Ukraine. More than 2 million refugees from Ukraine, most of them women and children, have arrived in Poland since the start of the war, the Polish Border Guard said.