Russia’s military said Tuesday that it will “fundamentally” reduce activities near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city, as talks drew closer to a possible cease-fire.
After multiple rounds of failed discussions to end the conflict, which has degraded into a violent attrition battle, Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin claimed the action was meant to improve trust in the talks.
To “build mutual trust and establish circumstances for further negotiations,” Fomin claimed Moscow had agreed to “fundamentally… drawback military activities in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv.”
That appeared to be a show of goodwill, but it also comes at a time when Russia’s troops have been slowed and have struggled to make significant ground gains in the face of heavy Ukrainian resistance, thwarting Russian President Vladimir Putin’s goal of a swift military victory.
Ukraine’s military said it had seen Russian troop withdrawals near Kyiv and Chernihiv, but the Pentagon said it couldn’t confirm Russia’s assertion.
Earlier discussions, either in person or by video in Belarus, failed to make progress in ending the more than the month-long conflict that has killed thousands and displaced over 10 million Ukrainians, including over 4 million from their homeland.
BACK STORY
Russian-Ukraine war stalemated, a new round of talks hope to put an end to the crisis.
Another round of talks aimed at ending the crisis in Ukraine was set for Tuesday, as the fighting on the ground appeared to be at a standstill, with the two sides trading control of a town in the east and a suburb of Kyiv.
President Volodymyr Zelensky announced late Monday that Ukrainian forces had retaken Irpin, northwest of Kyiv, from Russian troops who were regrouping to retake the territory.
In his nightly video message to the nation, Zelensky added, “We still have to battle, we still have to persevere.” “We are unable to communicate our feelings at this time.” We can’t boost expectations just to avoid burning out.”
The Ukrainian president stated ahead of the talks in Istanbul that his country is ready to declare neutrality, as Moscow has wanted, in statements that could give the discussions a boost.
Over the weekend, Zelensky said that a deal may be reached on “the complex subject of Donbas,” Ukraine’s hotly contested eastern territory. It’s unclear how this squares with his assertion that “Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity are unquestionable.”
Russia has long insisted that Ukraine abandon any plans to join NATO, which it regards as a danger. For his part, Zelensky has stated that any agreement must include Ukraine’s own security guarantees.
As the battle continued across the country, the mayor of Irpin, which has seen some of the most intense fighting, declared the city “liberated” from Russian forces.
According to a senior US defense official, the Ukrainians have also retaken the town of Trostyanets in the east, south of Sumy.
The person, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss U.S. intelligence assessments, said Russian soldiers remained mostly in defensive positions near Kyiv, the country’s capital, and were making little forward progress elsewhere.
According to the official, Russia appears to be focusing less on-ground operations near Kyiv and more on the Donbas, a primarily Russian-speaking region where Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting for eight years.
With its soldiers mired down in several sections of the nation, Russia appeared to tone back its war objectives late last week, stating that its main goal was to regain control of the Donbas.
The possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s face-saving exit strategy has sparked suspicions in Ukraine that the Kremlin is attempting to partition the country and force it to give up a slice of its land.
The Ukrainian army has driven the Russians back in other areas in recent days.
After fighting a few days ago, reporters discovered the carcass of a Russian rocket launcher, a burned Russian truck, the body of a Russian soldier, and a wrecked Ukrainian tank in Makariv, near a major highway west of the capital.
The reporters saw fortifications abandoned by Ukrainian soldiers who had retreated further west in the nearby settlement of Yasnohorodka, but no Russian troops.
In barely over a month of the war, Russia has destroyed more than 60 religious structures across Ukraine, with the majority of the damage focused in Kyiv and in the east, Ukraine’s military stated in a post-Tuesday.
The Orthodox Church, which is the country’s main faith, was the hardest hit, but mosques, synagogues, Protestant churches, and religious schools were also damaged, according to the report.
On Monday, Ukraine’s national telecommunications operator, Ukrtelecom, was nearly totally taken offline due to a cyberattack. Yurii Shchyhol, the head of Ukraine’s state service for special communication, blamed “the adversary” without identifying Russia, and said most clients were cut off from phone, internet, and mobile service to ensure that Ukraine’s military was covered.
The governor of western Ukraine’s Rivne region said an oil store was damaged by a missile on Monday, the second attack on oil facilities in the region near the Polish border.
