LVIV/KYIV: The number of Ukrainian refugees was expected to reach 1.5 million on Sunday as Russia continued its attack 11 days after invading Ukraine and Kyiv pressed for further Western action, including more sanctions and weapons.

Moscow and Kyiv traded blame over a failed ceasefire plan that would have let civilians flee Mariupol and Volnovakha, two southern cities besieged by Russian forces.

Another round of talks was tentatively planned for Monday as Ukrainians who could escape spilled into neighbouring Poland, Romania, Slovakia and elsewhere.

In a televised address on Saturday night, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on people in areas occupied by Russian troops to go on the offensive and fight.

“We must go outside and drive this evil out of our cities,” he said, vowing to rebuild his nation. “My confidence in this is reinforced by the energy of our resistance, our protest.”

Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces were carrying out a wide-ranging offensive in Ukraine and had taken several towns and villages, Russian news agency Interfax said.

Ukraine’s military said armed forces “are fighting fiercely to liberate Ukrainian cities from Russian occupiers,” counter-attacking in some areas and disrupting communications.

The general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said the military shot down two Russian planes and five helicopters on Saturday and also carried out air strikes against 15 motorised brigades. Reuters had no way to corroborate the claim.

In Kherson, southern Ukraine, the only regional capital to have changed hands since the invasion, several thousand people demonstrated on its main square on Saturday, chanting “Kherson is Ukraine” and demanding Russian forces withdraw.

Eyewitnesses cited by Interfax said Russian troops fired automatic rifles into the air in an unsuccessful attempt to disperse the crowd and later left.

Concerns over nuclear dangers remained after Russia seized Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, with a top U.S. official saying on Friday that Russian troops were 20 miles (32 km) from Ukraine’s second largest nuclear facility.

Reuters