Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country's capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off the streets in one town out of fear that Russian forces might have booby-trapped them before leaving.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned in his nightly video address hours earlier that departing Russian troops were creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed."
Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched on Saturday as Ukrainian soldiers — backed by a column of tanks and other armoured vehicles — used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance, fearing they might have been rigged to explode. Locals said the dead — the AP counted at least six — were civilians who were killed by departing Russian soldiers without provocation.
Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in Eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian fighters reclaimed several areas near the capital after forcing the Russians out or moving in after them, officials said.
The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than four million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelensky said he expects departed towns to endure missile strikes and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
"It's still not possible to return to normal life, as it used to be, even at the territories that we are taking back after the fighting. We need [to] wait until our land is demined, wait till we are able to assure you that there won't be new shelling," the president said during his nightly video address, though his claims about Russian mines couldn't be independently verified.
There was no immediate word Saturday on the latest round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators, which took place on Friday by video. During a round of talks earlier in the week, Ukraine said it would be willing to abandon a bid to join NATO and declare itself neutral — Moscow's chief demand — in return for security guarantees from several other countries.
Mariupol evacuations
Moscow's focus on Eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azov is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russia-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross planned to try Saturday to get into Mariupol to evacuate residents. The Red Cross said it could not carry out the operation on Friday because it did not receive assurances the route was safe. City authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.
The humanitarian group said a team with three vehicles and nine Red Cross staff members was headed to Mariupol on Saturday to help facilitate the safe evacuation of civilians. It said its team planned to accompany a convoy of civilians from Mariupol to another city.
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"Our presence will put a humanitarian marker on this planned movement of people, giving the convoy additional protection and reminding all sides of the civilian, humanitarian nature of the operation," it said in a statement.
Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said 765 Mariupol residents reached Zaporizhzhia on Saturday in private vehicles.
The Mariupol city council said earlier Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometres west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.
Evacuees boarded about 25 buses in Berdyansk and arrived around midnight to Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as the destination under previous ceasefires announced — and then broken — to get civilians out and aid into Mariupol.
The city's capture would give Moscow an unbroken land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. But its resistance has also has taken on symbolic significance during Russia's invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think-tank Penta.
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An adviser to Zelensky, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with Russian lawyer and activist Mark Feygin that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents "in coming days."
About 500 refugees from Eastern Ukraine, including 99 children and 12 people with disabilities, arrived in the Russian city of Kazan by train overnight. Asked if he saw a chance to return home, Mariupol resident Artur Kirillov answered, "That's unlikely, there is no city anymore."
Cites recaptured, under attack
On the outskirts of Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armoured vehicles from both armies were left in streets and fields, and scattered military gear covered the ground next to an abandoned Russian tank.
Ukrainian forces recaptured the city of Brovary, about 20 kilometres east of the capital, Mayor Ihor Sapozhko said Friday night. Shops were reopening and residents were returning but "still stand ready to defend" their city, he added.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted in Odesa, Ukraine's largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
Ukraine's state nuclear agency reported a series of blasts on Saturday that injured four people in Enerhodar, a city in southeastern Ukraine that has been under Russian control since early March, along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Ukraine's human rights ombudsman said on the Telegram instant messaging service that the four were badly burned when Russian troops fired light and noise grenades and mortars at a pro-Ukraine demonstration.
On Friday, the Kremlin accused Ukraine of launching a helicopter attack on a fuel depot on Russian soil.
Ukraine denied responsibility for the fiery blast at the civilianxjmtzyw oil storage facility on the outskirts of the city of Belgorod, about 25 kilometres from the Ukraine border. If Moscow's claim is confirmed, it would be the war's first known attack in which Ukrainian aircraft penetrated Russian airspace.
