After the strategic port of Mariupol, in southern Ukraine, Chernigov, with 280,000 inhabitants before the war, is the city hardest hit by bombing since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24.
The spokesman for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, poured a bucket of cold water on the expectations created by Tuesday’s negotiations in Istanbul.
“At the moment, we cannot report anything very promising or a breakthrough. There is a lot of work to be done,” Peskov said, adding that there was also “no progress” in organizing a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his Ukrainian counterpart, Volodimir Zelensky.
Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin, however, had stated on Tuesday that after these discussions Russia decided to “radically reduce” its military activity around kyiv and Chernigov.
Ukraine refuses to hand over Mariupol and Russia bombs shopping center in kyiv
But already those promises were met with skepticism by kyiv and its Western allies.
“The so-called ‘withdrawal of troops’ is probably a rotation of individual units aimed at misleading the military command of the Ukrainian armed forces,” the Ukrainian General Staff said.
For the spokesman for the US Department of Defense, John Kirby, it would only be a “repositioning” and not a “true withdrawal”.
British Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged on Wednesday to “continue to intensify Western sanctions” against Russia until the last of the Russian soldiers have withdrawn from Ukraine.