KYIV, UKRAINE — Russia announced Tuesday it will significantly scale back military operations near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city, as the outlines of a possible deal to end the grinding war came into view at the latest round of talks.
Ukraine’s delegation at the conference, held in Istanbul, laid out a framework under which the country would declare itself neutral and its security would be guaranteed by an array of other nations.
Moscow’s public reaction was positive, and the negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, five weeks into what has devolved into a bloody war of attrition, with thousands dead and almost 4 million Ukrainians fleeing the counxjmtzywtry.
Amid the talks, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin said Moscow has decided to "fundamentally … cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv" to "increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations."
He did not immediately spell out what that would mean in practical terms.
The announcement was met with skepticism from the U.S. and others.
While Moscow portrayed it as a goodwill gesture, its ground troops have become bogged down and taken heavy losses in their bid to seize Kyiv and other cities. Last week and again on Tuesday, the Kremlin seemed to lower its war aims, saying its "main goal" now is gaining control of the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
U.S. President Joe Biden, asked whether the Russian announcement was a sign of progress in the talks or an attempt by Moscow to buy time to continue its assault, said: "We’ll see. I don’t read anything into it until I see what their actions are."
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to "deceive people and deflect attention."
Western officials say Moscow is reinforcing troops in the Donbas in a bid to encircle Ukraine’s forces. And Russia’s deadly siege in the south continues, with civilians trapped in the ruins of Mariupol and other bombarded cities.
"There is what Russia says and there is what Russia does, and we’re focused on the latter," Blinken said in Morocco. "And what Russia is doing is the continued brutalization of Ukraine."
Even as negotiators gathered, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces blasted a gaping hole in a nine-storey government administration building in a strike on the southern port city of Mykolaiv, killing at least 12 people, emergency authorities said. The search for more bodies in the rubble continued.
"It’s terrible. They waited for people to go to work" before striking the building, said regional governor Vitaliy Kim. "I overslept. I’m lucky."
Ukraine’s military said it has noted withdrawals of some Russian forces around Kyiv and Chernihiv. But Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told CNN the U.S. hasn’t seen anything to corroborate a significant pullback from the capital.
Rob Lee, a military expert at the U.S.-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, tweeted of the Russian announcement: "This sounds like more of an acknowledgment of the situation around Kyiv where Russia’s advance has been stalled for weeks and Ukrainian forces have had recent successes. Russia doesn’t have the forces to encircle the city."
The meeting in Istanbul was the first time negotiators from Russia and Ukraine talked face-to-face in two weeks. Earlier talks were held in person in Belarus or by video.
Among other things, the Kremlin has demanded all along that Ukraine drop any hope of joining NATO.
Ukraine’s delegation offered a detailed framework for a peace deal under which a neutral Ukraine’s security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including the U.S., Britain, France, Turkey, China and Poland, in an arrangement similar to NATO’s "an attack on one is an attack on all" principle.
Ukraine said it would also be willing to hold talks over a 15-year period on the future of the Crimean Peninsula, seized by Russia in 2014.
Vladimir Medinskiy, the head of the Russian delegation, said on Russian TV that the Ukrainian proposals are a "step to meet us halfway, a clearly positive fact."
He cautioned that the parties are still far from reaching an agreement, but said: "We know now how to move further toward compromise. We aren’t just marking time in talks."
In other developments:
— In what appeared to be a coordinated action to tackle Russian espionage, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Ireland and North Macedonia expelled scores of Russian diplomats.
— The head of the UN nuclear watchdog agency arrived in Ukraine
to try to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear facilities. Russian forces have taken control of the decommissioned Chornobyl plant, site in 1986 of the world’s worst nuclear accident, and of the active Zaporizhzhia plant, where a building was damaged in fighting.
— Russia has destroyed more than 60 religious buildings across the country in just over a month of war, with most of the damage concentrated near Kyiv and in the east, Ukraine’s military said.
— In the room at the Istanbul talks was Roman Abramovich, a longtime Putin ally who has been sanctioned by Britain and the European Union. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Chelsea soccer team owner has been serving as an unofficial mediator approved by both countries. But the mystery surrounding his role has been deepened by news reports that he may have been poisoned during an earlier round of talks.
Over the past several days, Ukrainian forces have mounted counterattacks and reclaimed ground on the outskirts of Kyiv and other areas.
Ukrainian soldiers gathered in a trench for photos with Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, who said that Ukraine had retaken control of a vast majority of Irpin, a key suburb northwest of the capital that has seen heavy fighting.
"We defend our motherland because we have very high morale," said Syrskyi, the commander in charge of the defence of Kyiv. "And because we want to win."
Ukrainian forces also took back Trostyanets, south of Sumy in the northeast, after weeks of occupation that left a landscape of Russian bodies, burned and twisted tanks and charred buildings.
Putin’s ground forces have been thwarted not just by stronger-than-expected Ukrainian resistance, but by what Western officials say are Russian tactical missteps, poor morale, shortages of food, fuel and cold weather gear, and other problems.
Repeating what the military said last week, Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said Tuesday that "liberating Donbas" is now Moscow’s chief objective.
While that presents a possible face-saving exit strategy for Putin, it has also raised Ukrainian fears the Kremlin aims to split the country and force it to surrender a swath of its territory.
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RELATED IMAGESview larger image
Ukrainian soldiers of the 103rd Separate Brigade of the Territorial Defense of the Armed Forces fire their weapons during a training exercise at an undisclosed location, near Lviv, western Ukraine, Tuesday, March 29, 2022. (AP Photo/Nariman El-Mofty)
In this photo provided by Turkish Presidency, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, centre, gives a speech to welcome the Russian, left, and Ukrainian delegations ahead of their talks, in Istanbul, Turkey, on March 29, 2022. (Turkish Presidency via AP)
Ukrainian servicemen ride atop a tank near the town of Trostsyanets, Ukraine, on March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana)
