West Sceptical Of Russia's Vow To Ease Assault On Kyiv

Russia will scale back military operations around Kyiv and the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv in a bid to “increase mutual trust”, Moscow said at the conclusion of the first day of talks in Istanbul yesterday to end the month-long Russian war against Ukraine.

- Borzou Daragahi

It is the first meaningful concession by the Kremlin since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine on 24 February, although it was met by scepticism and caution.

“In order to increase mutual trust and create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and achieving the ultimate goal of agreeing and signing [an] agreement, a decision was made to radically, by a large margin, reduce military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv directions,” Moscow’s deputy defence minister Alexander Fomin said.

Mr Putin’s hopes for a swift military victory have been thwarted by strong resistance, with Ukrainians recapturing territory even as civilians are trapped in besieged cities, and some analysts noted that Russia’s promise to reduce fighting mostly covered areas where it has been losing ground.

Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, suggested Mr Fomin’s statement could be an attempt to “deceive people and deflect attention”, while a spokesperson for Boris Johnson said that the government would judge Mr Putin “by his actions, not by his words”.

In negotiations, Ukraine said it is willing to remain neutral and give up any ambition to join Nato in exchange for security guarantees and the creation of an eight-nation council that would come to its aid if it were ever attacked again.

Ukrainian negotiators said the eight members of the board could include the US, UK, Turkey, Poland, Canada and Israel, and that talks had already begun to seek their cooperation.

Kyiv’s proposals mentioned a 15-year consultation period on the future of the Crimean peninsula, which was seized by Russia in 2014, that would come into force only in the event of a total ceasefire.