Ukraine and its Western allies on Wednesday dismissed a Russian military pullback from near Kyiv as a ploy to refit troops after heavy losses, even as invading forces bombard cities elsewhere and press on with the obliteration of besieged Mariupol.

Nearly five weeks into an invasion in which it has failed to capture any major cities, Russia said it would curtail operations near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv "to increase mutual trust" for peace talks.

President says positive signs from talks ‘do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells’ after first day of face-to-face negotiations in Istanbul

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said there was no reason to believe Russia’s announcement that it would reduce military activity near Kyiv, the capital, as well as in the northern city of Chernihiv, given what’s happening on the ground.

“We can call those signals that we hear at the negotiations positive,” he said in his nightly video address to the Ukrainian people. “But those signals don’t silence the explosions of Russian shells.”

Peace talks did not offer any breakthroughs - Russia



Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been briefing the media on the talks held with Ukraine in Turkey yesterday, and played down any hopes of a breakthrough.

Yesterday, Russia said it intended to scale back its military activity in Kyiv and Chernihiv, and Ukraine said it would consider becoming a "neutral" state.

"What is positive is that the Ukrainian side has at least started to specifically formulating and putting on paper what it is proposing. Until now we had not managed to achieve that," Peskov said.

"As regards the rest, we cannot, put it this way, at present state there have been any breakthroughs, anything very promising," he said, in remarks reported by the Interfax news agency.