The Kremlin has played down hopes of a breakthrough following peace talks, while the US says Vladimir Putin has been misled by military advisers reluctant to reveal the scale of losses suffered in Russia's invasion of Ukraine:
Ukrainian officials called Russia out for having said on Tuesday it would curtail operations near Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv "to increase mutual trust" for peace talks.
A soldier walks past a shopping centre in Kyiv, Ukraine, that was destroyed by shelling in late March.Ukraine and Western leaders had cautioned that Moscow's apparent peace gesture at Tuesday's talks in Istanbul was a cover for reorganizing forces that had failed to take Kyiv. News agency Reuters could not verify the situation in Chernihiv. Russia's defence ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment.
Over the past week, Ukrainian forces have recaptured towns and villages on the outskirts of Kyiv, broken the siege of the eastern city of Sumy and pushed back Russian forces in the southwest. The Donbas region, where Russia says it will now focus its efforts, includes Mariupol, where heavy fighting was again reported on Wednesday. The port city, which had a pre-war population of more than 400,000 people, has been laid waste after a month of Russian siege and the United Nations says thousands of people may have died there.
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