Russia bombards areas the place it pledged to cut back

Russian forces bombarded areas round Kyiv and one other metropolis simply hours after pledging to cut back operations in these zones to advertise belief between the 2 sides, Ukrainian authorities mentioned Wednesday.

The shelling — and intensified Russian assaults on different components of the nation — tempered optimism about any progress within the talks aimed toward ending the punishing struggle.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy mentioned he careworn to US President Joe Biden that the struggle is at a “turning level.” He thanked the US for an additional $500 million in aid announced Wednesday, but also said Ukraine needs more help to resist the Russian invasion.

“If we really are fighting for freedom and in defense of democracy together, then we have a right to demand help in this difficult turning point. Tanks, aircraft, artillery systems. Freedom should be armed no worse than tyranny,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation, which he delivered standing in the dark outside the dimly lit presidential offices in Kyiv.

The Russian military announced Tuesday that it would de-escalate near the capital and the northern city of Chernihiv in order to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations.” But the announcement was met with deep suspicion from Zelenskyy and the West.

Soon after, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian shelling hit homes, stores, libraries and other civilian sites in and around Chernihiv and on the outskirts of Kyiv. Russian troops also stepped up their attacks on the Donbas region in the east and around the city of Izyum, which lies on a key route to the Donbas, after redeploying units from other areas, the Ukrainian side said.

Olexander Lomako, secretary of the Chernihiv city council, said the Russian announcement turned out to be “a complete lie.”

“At night they didn’t decrease, but vice versa increased the intensity of military action,” Lomako said.

Five weeks into the invasion that has left thousands dead on both sides, the number of Ukrainians fleeing the country topped a staggering 4 million, half of them children, according to the United Nations.

“I do not know if we can still believe the Russians,” Nikolay Nazarov, a refugee from Ukraine, said as he pushed his father’s wheelchair at a border crossing into Poland. “I think more escalation will occur in eastern Ukraine. That is why we cannot go back to Kharkiv.”

Zelenskyy said negotiations with Russia were continuing, but for now they were only “words without specifics.”

“We know that this is not a withdrawal but the consequences of being driven out,” Zelenskyy said of Russia’s pledge. “But we also are seeing that Russia is now concentrating its forces for new strikes on Donbas, and we are preparing for this.”

Zelenskyy also said he had recalled Ukraine’s ambassadors to Georgia and Morocco, suggesting they had not done enough to persuade those countries to support Ukraine and punish Russia for the invasion.

“With all due respect, if there won’t be weapons, won’t be sanctions, won’t be restrictions for Russian business, then please look for other work,” he said.

Zelenskyy has rarely gone a day without addressing the parliament of another country and speaking to a number of world leaders.

In other developments

—President Joe Biden announced an additional $500 million in aid for Ukraine.

—US intelligence officials have determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin is being misinformed by his advisers about the poor performance of Moscow’s forces in Ukraine, according to a US official.

—The German government said it received assurances from Russia that European companies won’t have to pay for Russian gas in rubles. That prospect had raised fears that Russia could cut them off. Also, Poland announced steps to end all Russian oil imports by the end of the year.

— The U.N. is looking into allegations that some residents of the besieged and shattered southern city of Mariupol have been forcibly taken to areas controlled by Russian forces or to Russia itself.

At a round of talks held Tuesday in Istanbul, the faint outlines of a possible peace agreement seemed to emerge when the Ukrainian delegation offered a framework under which the country would declare itself neutral — dropping its bid to join Nato, as Moscow has long demanded — in return for security guarantees from a group of other nations.

Top Russian officials reacted positively, with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov saying Ukraine’s willingness to accept neutrality and look outside Nato for security represents “significant progress,” in response to Russian information companies.

After the Kremlin’s announcement that it could cut back a few of its army operations, Zelenskyy reacted by saying that when coping with the Russians, “you possibly can belief solely concrete outcomes.”

That evaluation was echoed by Biden and by British Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab, who famous suspicions that Russia intends to regroup and assault once more.

The skepticism appeared well-founded on Wednesday.

Oleksandr Pavliuk, head of the Kyiv area army administration, mentioned Russian shells focused residential areas and civilian infrastructure within the Bucha, Brovary and Vyshhorod areas across the capital.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov mentioned the army additionally focused gasoline depots in two cities in central Ukraine with air-launched long-range cruise missiles. And Russian forces hit a Ukrainian particular forces headquarters within the southern Mykolaiv area, he mentioned, and two ammunition depots within the Donetsk area.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby mentioned that during the last 24 hours, the US has seen some Russian troops transferring north away from Kyiv into Belarus however doesn’t view this as a withdrawal, simply an effort by Moscow to resupply after which reposition the troops.

Top Russian army officers have mentioned in current days that their principal purpose now’s the “liberation” of Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland within the east, the place Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.

Western officers say Moscow is reinforcing its troops within the Donbas.

Some analysts have prompt that the obvious scaling again of the Kremlin’s struggle goals and pledge to de-escalate could merely be an effort to place a constructive spin on actuality: Moscow’s floor troops have been thwarted — and have taken heavy losses — of their bid to grab the capital and different cities.

Meanwhile, a missile destroyed a part of an condo block within the rebel-controlled metropolis of Donetsk early Wednesday, and two folks had been reported killed. Separatists blamed Ukrainian forces for the assault.

“I was just sitting on the couch and — bang! — the window glass popped, the frames came off. I didn’t even understand what happened,” mentioned resident Anna Gorda.

The UN meals help company mentioned it’s offering emergency help to 1 million folks in Ukraine.

It mentioned the meals contains 330,000 freshly baked loaves of bread for households within the closely bombarded jap metropolis of Kharkiv.

“Children are suffering, and our city, and everything,” Tetyana Parmynska, a 28-year-old from the Chernihiv region now at a refugee centre in Poland, said as man played songs on a battered piano decorated with a peace emblem. “We have no strength anymore.”

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