Ukraine war: Russia says it will curb Kyiv assault as peace talks progress
Russia has announced it will “drastically reduce” military combat operations in two key areas of Ukraine “to boost mutual trust” in peace talks.
The decision to scale back operations around the capital, Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv is the first sign of tangible progress from talks.
But it is unclear how extensive any reduction in military activity might be, and Ukraine remains skeptical.
The US and UK also said the pledge should be treated with caution.
On Tuesday, Russia’s deputy defense minister, Alexander Fomin, said the country would “radically, by several times reduce the military activity” around Kyiv and Chernihiv.
He added that there had been progress on”the neutrality and non-nuclear status” of Ukraine, which are two key concerns for Moscow.
But Russia’s pledge to scale back its forces was met with skepticism. “Ukrainians are not naive people,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an overnight video address.
“We can say that the signals… are positive, but those signals do not drown out the explosions or Russian shells,” he added.
“We’ve only seen a small number begin to move away from Kyiv,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, adding that people should be “prepared to watch for a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine”.
The UK Defence Ministry also warned that Russia will likely “seek to divert combat power from the north to their offensive in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east”.
Russia has already refocused its campaign on Ukraine’s eastern regions. It has suffered a series of setbacks to the north of the capital, Kyiv, and is also seeking to capture a land corridor that stretches along the south coast to the Russian border.
The discussions lasted around three hours. Very little was leaked, and nearly all media were kept away in a packed area on the pavement outside.
The negotiators said they had proposed to Russia that Ukraine adopt a neutral status in exchange for security guarantees – an international mechanism where guarantor countries would act to protect Ukraine in the future.
In return, Kyiv would not join Nato, a key Russian demand. This was not a new pledge, but it was spelled out in the clearest detail yet.
Many are skeptical about what Russia’s announcement about reducing military operations actually means; whether it’s a pledge to pull back or merely an acceptance it has already failed in those areas and will instead turn its full force further east.
Western countries, therefore, are saying they will judge Russia by its actions and not its words.
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