Massive Russian Convoy Approaches Kyiv

As Russian forces closed in on Ukraine's capital Monday, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in the Hague said he was launching an investigation of possible war crimes in the 5-day-old conflict. Karim Khan said he had told his team to "explore all evidence preservation opportunities," the Guardian reports. Ukraine is not an ICC member, but it has granted jurisdiction to the court, Khan said. The alleged war crimes—for which there appears to be ample evidence—include the indiscriminate use of cluster munitions and attacks on residential buildings in cities including Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-biggest city. Shelling of Kharkiv intensified Monday, and authorities said at least seven people had been killed and dozens injured, the AP reports.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday that shelling had been stepped up during talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials, which ended without a major breakthrough. "Synchronizing of the shelling with the negotiating process was obvious," Zelensky said in a video address late Monday. The AP reports that as talks wrapped up, blasts could be heard in Kyiv and a massive 17-mile convoy of Russian tanks and other vehicles was less than 20 miles from the capital, according to satellite imagery from Maxar Technologies.

In his address, Zelensky accused Russia of committing a war crime in Kharkiv, the BBC reports. "Dozens of eyewitness accounts prove that this is not a single false volley, but a deliberate destruction of people," he said of the artillery attacks. He said that starting Tuesday, visa-free travel will be granted to any foreigners who want to come to Ukraine and help repel the Russian invasion. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)