By PTI
BRUSSELS: NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says Russia does not appear to be scaling back its military operations in Ukraine but is instead redeploying forces to the eastern Donbas region.
Russia promised during talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that it would de-escalate operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the West were skeptical.
Stoltenberg told reporters Thursday that “Russia has repeatedly lied about its intentions,” and must be judged on its actions alone, not the word of its leaders.
“According to our intelligence, Russian units are not withdrawing but repositioning. Russia is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas region,” he said.
At the same time, he said pressure is being kept up on Kyiv and other cities and “we can expect additional offensive actions bringing even more suffering.”
The US says Russia has begun to reposition less than 20% of its troops that had been arrayed around Kyiv.
The Pentagon says that most moved north, although some crossed into Belarus where they could be resupplied and sent back into Ukraine.
A convoy of buses headed to Mariupol on Thursday in another attempt to evacuate people from the besieged port city, while Russia pressed its attacks in several parts of Ukraine ahead of a planned new round of talks aimed at ending the fighting.
After the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area, the Red Cross said its teams were travelling to Mariupol with relief and medical supplies and hoped to help pull civilians out of the beleaguered city on Friday.
Previous attempts at establishing a similar humanitarian corridor have fallen apart.
Russian forces, meanwhile, shelled suburbs of the capital that Ukraine recently retook control of, a regional official said.
New attacks in the area where Moscow had promised to de-escalate further undermined hopes of a resolution to end the war on the eve of a new round of talks.
A day earlier, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian shelling on the outskirts of Kyiv and around another city where it had vowed to ease up.
Russia’s Defense Ministry also reported new strikes on Ukrainian fuel stores late Wednesday, and Ukrainian officials said there were artillery barrages in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv over the past day.
Despite the fighting raging in those areas, the Russian military said it committed to a cease-fire along the route from Mariupol to the Ukraine-held city of Zaporizhzhia from Thursday morning.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said 45 buses would be sent to collect civilians who have suffered some of the worst deprivations of the war.
Food, water and medical supplies have all run low during a weekslong blockade and bombardment of the city.
Civilians who have managed to leave have typically done so using private cars, but the number of drivable vehicles left in the city has also dwindled and fuel stocks are low.
The International Committee of the Red Cross, which is helping run the evacuation, said its teams have already left for Mariupol.
“It’s desperately important that this operation takes place,” the Red Cross said in a statement.
“The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it.”
As the new evacuation attempt was announced, evidence emerged that a Red Cross warehouse in the city had been struck earlier this month amid intense Russian shelling of the area.
In satellite pictures from Planet Labs PBC, holes can be seen in the warehouse’s roof, along with a painted red cross on a white background.
The aid organisation said no staff have been at the site since March 15.
Talks between Ukraine and Russia were set to resume Friday by video, according to the head of the Ukrainian delegation, David Arakhamia, six weeks into a bloody war that has seen thousands die and a staggering 4 million Ukrainians flee the country.
But there seemed little faith that the two sides would resolve the conflict soon, particularly after the Russian military’s about-face and its most recent attacks.
Russia had promised during talks in Istanbul this week that it would de-escalate operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the West were sceptical.
Soon after, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian shelling was hitting homes, stores, libraries and other civilian sites in or near those areas.
Britain’s Defense Ministry also confirmed “significant Russian shelling and missile strikes” around Chernihiv.
On Thursday, the area’s governor, Viacheslav Chaus, said Russian troops were on the move but may not be withdrawing.
Meanwhile, the U.S. said that Russia had begun to reposition less than 20% of its troops that had been arrayed around Kyiv.
Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said Wednesday that troops from there and some other zones began moving mostly to the north, and some went into neighbouring Belarus.
Kirby said it appeared Russia planned to resupply them and send them back into Ukraine, but it is not clear where.
Still, fighting continued in Kyiv suburbs.
Regional governor Oleksandr Palviuk said on social media that Russian forces shelled Irpin and Makariv, and that there were battles around Hostomel, all to the west or northwest of the capital.
Pavliuk said there were Ukrainian counterattacks and some Russian withdrawals around the suburb of Brovary to the east.
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Thursday that “Russian forces continue to hold positions to the east and west of Kyiv despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units. Heavy fighting will likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days.”
As Western officials search for clues about what Russia’s next move might be, a top British intelligence official said Thursday that demoralised Russian soldiers in Ukraine were refusing to carry out orders and sabotaging their own equipment and had accidentally shot down their own aircraft.
In a speech in the Australian capital of Canberra, Jeremy Fleming said Russian President Vladimir Putin had apparently “massively misjudged” the invasion.
Although Putin’s advisers appeared to be too afraid to tell the truth, the “extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime,” said Fleming, who heads the GCHQ electronic spy agency,.
U.S. intelligence officials have given similar assessments that Putin is being misinformed by advisers too scared to give honest evaluations.
With Russian troops bogged down in many places and thwarted in their attempts to quickly take the capital, Zelenskyy has said his country’s defense was now at a turning point, as he continued to plead with his international partners to provide more equipment.
“Freedom should be armed no worse than tyranny,” he said in his nightly video address to the nation on Wednesday.
He continued his appeal Thursday, asking Australian lawmakers in an online address for armoured vehicles and called for Russian vessels to be banned from international ports.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison had earlier told him Australia would provide additional military assistance including tactical decoys, unmanned aerial and unmanned ground systems, rations and medical supplies.
Zelenskyy then called on lawmakers in Netherlands to be prepared to stop importing Russian energy, to halt trade with Russia and to provide more weapons.
Zelenskyy said the continuing negotiations with Russia were only “words without specifics.”
He said Ukraine was preparing for concentrated new strikes on the Donbas, the predominantly Russian-speaking industrial heartland where Moscow-backed separatists have been battling Ukrainian forces since 2014.
Top Russian military officials say their main goal now is the “liberation” of the Donbas, though some analysts have suggested that the announcement of the focus on the region may merely be an effort to put a positive spin on reality since Moscow’s ground forces have become stalled and taken heavy losses.
The Kremlin has expressed “regret” and “concern” over US officials’ reports that the Russian president is being misinformed by advisers about his military’s performance in Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Thursday that “neither the State Department nor the Pentagon possess the real information about what is happening in the Kremlin.”
“They simply don’t understand what’s going on in the Kremlin, they don’t understand President Putin, they don’t understand the mechanism of decision-making, they don’t understand the way we work,” Peskov said.
“It is not just regrettable, it elicits concern, because this complete lack of understanding leads to erroneous decisions, tragic decisions that could have very bad consequences,” he added.
US intelligence officials said Putin is being misinformed by advisers about his military’s poor performance in Ukraine, according to the White House.
The advisers are scared to tell him the truth, the intel says.
White House communications director Kate Bedingfield said Wednesday the US believes Putin was being misled not only about his military’s performance but also “how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions because, again, his senior advisers are too afraid to tell him the truth.”
Britain’s defense ministry says Russia continues to pound Chernihiv in northern Ukraine, despite Moscow’s claim to have scaled back its offensive around that city and Kyiv.
The Ministry of Defense says “significant Russian shelling and missile strikes have continued.”
It said on Thursday that “Russian forces continue to hold positions to the east and west of Kyiv despite the withdrawal of a limited number of units. Heavy fighting will likely take place in the suburbs of the city in coming days.”
The UK intelligence update also said heavy fighting continues in the southern port of Mariupol, which has been besieged by Russia for weeks, but that Ukrainian forces remain in control of the center of the city.
Demoralised Russian soldiers in the Ukraine were refusing to carry out orders and sabotaging their own equipment and had accidentally shot down their own aircraft, a U.K. intelligence chief said on Thursday.
Jeremy Fleming, who heads the GCHQ electronic spy agency, made the remarks at a speech in the Australian capital Canberra.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had apparently “massively misjudged” the invasion, he said.
“It’s clear he misjudged the resistance of the Ukrainian people. He underestimated the strength of the coalition his actions would galvanise. He underplayed the economic consequences of the sanctions regime, and he overestimated the abilities of his military to secure a rapid victory,” Fleming said.
“We’ve seen Russian soldiers, short of weapons and morale, refusing to carry out orders, sabotaging their own equipment and even accidentally shooting down their own aircraft,” Fleming added.
Although Putin’s advisers were believed to be too afraid to tell the truth, the “extent of these misjudgments must be crystal clear to the regime,” he said.
Fleming warned that the Kremlin was hunting for cyber targets and bringing in mercenaries to shore up its stalled military campaign in Ukraine.
He praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s “information operation” for being highly effective at countering Russia’s massive disinformation drive spreading propaganda about the war.
While there were expectations that Russia would launch a major cyberattack as part of its military campaign, Fleming said such a move was never a central part of Moscow’s standard playbook for war.
A Red Cross warehouse in the besieged Ukrainian port city of Mariupol has been struck amid intense Russian shelling of the area.
Satellite pictures from Planet Labs PBC analyzed by The Associated Press on Thursday show clear damage to the warehouse’s roof along the Kalmius River near its mouth on the Sea of Azov.
A red cross had been painted on the top of the warehouse.
At least one hole from suspected shelling could be seen in an image taken March 21.
Some four holes in the roof were clearly visible in images taken Wednesday.
The red cross had been on the warehouse’s roof from at least late August 2021, according to satellite images.
The International Committee of the Red Cross distributed all the supplies from inside the warehouse earlier in March and no staff have been at the site since March 15, the aid group said in a statement.
The Special Forces Unit “Azov,” a Ukrainian National Guard unit fighting in Mariupol whose members include far-right activists, has accused Russian forces of firing on the building.
Russia did not immediately acknowledge the allegation.
Mariupol, home to some 430,000 people before the war, has seen intense fighting for weeks amid Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Russian attacks have struck a maternity hospital, fire department locations and civilian homes.
Turkey’s top diplomat says Ankara is working to bring the Ukrainian and Russian foreign ministers together again for talks.
In an interview with Turkey’s A Haber channel, Mevlut Cavusoglu said the meeting could happen within two weeks.
His comments came days after Turkey hosted Ukrainian and Russian negotiators for face-to-face talks in Istanbul.
Cavusoglu said decisions taken during the talks had not fully been put into effect on the ground.
“After this meeting some decisions were taken, especially concerning the reduction of tensions,” Cavusoglu said.
“But we do not see these decisions being reflected on the field – for example, the removal of Russian soldiers from some areas.”
Asked about the presence of sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich in the negotiations, Cavusoglu said the businessman was engaged in “useful” efforts to end the fighting.
“Abramovich has been sincerely making efforts to end the fighting since the first day of the war,” he said.
During the talks in Istanbul Tuesday, Ukraine set out a detailed framework for a peace deal under which the country would remain neutral but its security would be guaranteed by a group of third countries, including the US, Britain, France, Turkey, China and Poland.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency visited a nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on Wednesday to meet Ukrainian officials and provide technical assistance.
Rafael Mariano Grossi said the IAEA is not involved in political talks with the Russians.
“We are trying to be very active in order to ensure that as soon as possible, the situation is regressed, and the facilities are back in the hands of the Ukrainians,” Grossi said.
Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors at four plants, one of which (Zaporizhzia) is under the Russian military’s control.
Ukraine also is home to the decommissioned Chernobyl plant, the site of the 1986 nuclear accident, with the Russian military seized early in the war.
As of Tuesday, eight reactors were operating and the rest were shut down for regular maintenance.
