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Russia has decided to “dramatically” scale back its military activities in the Kyiv area, a top defence ministry official said following a fresh round of peace talks with Ukrainian counterparts in Istanbul.
Alexander Fomin, Russia’s deputy defence minister, said the move was intended to “increase mutual trust” as he announced it in Turkey after face-to-face talks concluded on Tuesday.
In order to “create the necessary conditions for future negotiations”, Russia’s defence ministry had decided to “dramatically reduce military activities in the directions of Kyiv and Chernihiv”, Fomin said in a video shared by Russian state media.
The decision had been taken as “negotiations over the preparation of an agreement on Ukraine’s neutrality and non-nuclear status, as well as on the provision of security guarantees for Ukraine, are entering a practical stage”, he said.
More details would be released after the Russian delegation returned to Moscow, Fomin said. He also called on Ukraine to follow Geneva Conventions on the humane treatment of prisoners of war.
Talks concluded
The talks in Istanbul concluded on Tuesday afternoon in an Ottoman-era palace on the shore of the Bosphorus. Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants the talks to pave the way for Ukraine’s and Russia’s leaders to meet.
Among those present was Roman Abramovich, the Russian owner of Chelsea Football Club who suffered poisoning symptoms when attempting to broker talks in Kyiv earlier this month.
While negotiators had sketched the outlines of a potential ceasefire and moves towards a political settlement, diplomats in Kyiv, Moscow and the west said they remained sceptical about any imminent breakthrough.
The Russian military announcement follows statements made last week by the leadership of the Russian armed forces announcing Moscow was entering a “new phase” in the war in Ukraine.
Members of the general staff of the Russian armed forces said on Friday that Russia would now be focusing on battles in the east of the country, where it has been expanding the territories under the control of its troops together with the forces of the Luhansk and Donetsk breakaway republics, and fighting for dominance in the south-eastern city of Mariupol.
Push back
Before the talks began on Tuesday, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, used a late-night address to praise his forces for retaking Irpin, a suburb of Kyiv and an important gateway to the capital, the latest in a series of counter-attacks that pushed back Russian forces.
“The occupiers are pushed away from Irpin. Pushed away from Kyiv,” said Zelenskiy. “However, it is too early to talk about security in this part of our region. The fighting continues. Russian troops control the north of Kyiv, have the resources and manpower.”
Ukraine’s precise gains have not been independently verified but the UK said Zelenskiy’s forces had made progress in “localised counter-attacks” to the north-west of Kyiv, including at Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel. “These attacks have had some success and the Russians have been pushed back from a number of positions,” said the Ministry of Defence in an intelligence update on Tuesday.
If confirmed, the recapture of Irpin would mark a significant moment for Ukraine’s forces. The suburb of Kyiv has been the scene of heavy fighting since the war began.
Humanitarian corridors
Moscow and Kyiv are discussing a pause in hostilities and humanitarian corridors as part of a possible deal that would involve Ukraine abandoning its drive for Nato membership in exchange for security guarantees and the prospect of joining the EU, according to people familiar with the talks.
With Russia’s month-long ground offensive largely stalled, Moscow has signalled its willingness to pull back from some of its most difficult initial demands. But Ukraine and its western backers fear Russian president Vladimir Putin may be using the talks as a ruse to resupply his forces in preparation for a fresh offensive.
Draft ceasefire documents do not include reference to “denazification”, “demilitarisation” and legal protection for the Russian language in Ukraine, according to four people briefed on the discussions. Moscow is also prepared to let Kyiv join the EU if it remains militarily non-aligned, the people said.
David Arakhamia, head of Zelenskiy’s party in parliament and a member of Kyiv’s negotiating team, told the Financial Times before the talks that the parties were close to agreement on the security guarantees and Ukraine’s EU bid but urged caution about prospects for a breakthrough, saying that many points were “unresolved”.
Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said the country’s negotiators would “not trade people, land and sovereignty” during talks.
Territorial gains
With the war in its second month, Russia has increasingly concentrated on making advances in the east, aiming to envelop Ukrainian forces there while throwing troops into the grinding battle for the port of Mariupol on the Sea of Azov.
In addition to the counter-attacks around Kyiv, Ukraine claimed battlefield momentum in the Sumy region north-west of its second city Kharkiv, and near the city of Izyum in the east, saying it had retaken the settlements of Kamyanka and Topolske. Ukrainian forces are also making advances in the southern Kherson region.
Most of the territorial gains are limited in scale and cannot be independently verified. But the Pentagon on Monday confirmed that Ukrainian forces had recaptured the town of Trostyanets, north-west of Kharkiv.
Vadym Denysenko, an adviser to Ukraine’s interior minister, said on Tuesday that Kyiv “still remains one of the main goals of this war for Putin”.
In an update on operations on Tuesday, Ukraine’s military claimed Russia’s troops were “weakened” and “disoriented”, with some units cut off from supply lines and the main forces. It said Russia was resorting to “indiscriminate artillery fire and rocket-bomb attacks” to offset the “decline in the combat potential of enemy units”.
On Tuesday morning, a Russian rocket wrecked the building of the Mykolayiv regional administration, said governor Vitaliy Kim.
According to a UK intelligence briefing, the Wagner Group, the private Russian military organisation whose mercenaries have fought in Ukraine and Syria and are established in Mali and the Central African Republic, had been “deployed to eastern Ukraine” and was expected to send more than 1,000 fighters.
“Due to heavy losses and a largely stalled invasion, Russia has likely been forced to reprioritise Wagner personnel for Ukraine at the expense of operations in Africa and Syria,” it said. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2022