Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky , has called for direct talks with the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, saying it was “the only way to stop this war”.

Speaking at a press conference, the Ukrainian president addressed Putin:

We are not attacking Russia and we do not plan to attack it. What do you want from us? Leave our land.

Referring to the Russian leader receiving world leaders at a now-famous enormously long table, Zelensky said:

Sit down with me. Just not 30 metres away like with [the French president, Emmanuel Macron].

He also called on the west to increase military aid to Ukraine, warning that the rest of Europe would be under threat if Russia was allowed to advance.

If you do not have the power to close the skies, then give me planes!

If we are no more, then God forbid, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia will be next. Believe me.

Russia and Ukraine agreed on Thursday to the need for humanitarian corridors to help civilians escape Moscow's eight-day-old invasion, the first apparent progress in talks, as the United States added to Western sanctions on more oligarchs.

Thousands are thought to have died or been wounded as the biggest attack on a European state since World War Two unfolds, creating 1 million refugees, hits to Russia's economy and fears of wider conflict in the West unthought-of for decades.

Russian forces have continued to surround and attack Ukrainian cities, including Mariupol, the main port in the east which has been under heavy bombardment, with no water or power. Officials say they cannot evacuate the wounded.

After talks at an undisclosed location, Russia said "substantial progress" had been made while the Ukrainian side pointed to an understanding on helping ordinary people, but not the results Kyiv had hoped for.

Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said a temporary halt to fighting in select locations was also possible.

"That is, not everywhere, but only in those places where the humanitarian corridors themselves will be located, it will be possible to cease fire for the duration of the evacuation," he said.

They had also seen eye-to-eye on the delivery of medicines and food to the places where the fiercest fighting was taking place. The negotiators will meet again next week, the Belarusian state news agency Belta quoted Podolyak as saying.