Ukraine and its Western allies were skeptically awaiting a military withdrawal around kyiv and another major Ukrainian city on Wednesday, announced by Moscow after peace talks in which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky nevertheless saw “positive” signs. “.
“We can say that the signals we are hearing in the negotiations are positive, but they do not make us forget the explosions or the Russian shells,” Zelensky said in a video message on Tuesday.
And after about five weeks of war, thousands of victims and millions of refugees, caution was also required within the Ukrainian general staff.
“The so-called + withdrawal of troops +, is probably a rotation of individual units, which aims to deceive the military command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, he judged in a press release Tuesday evening.
The warning sirens were heard several times in kyiv overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday before being canceled, a sign of the concern that still reigns in the Ukrainian capital after the announcements of the Russian forces.
After talks in Istanbul, Russian Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin announced on Tuesday that Moscow would “radically reduce (its) military activity in the direction of kyiv and Cherniguiv” in the north of the country.
But for the spokesman for the US Department of Defense, John Kirby, it is only a “repositioning” and not a “real withdrawal”. “We can confirm that we have seen a small number of ‘troops’ starting to reposition,” he said. But “we must be ready to see a major offensive against other areas of Ukraine” and “that does not mean that the threat against kyiv is over”.
“It is very likely that Russia will seek to transfer its strike power from the north to the (separatist) regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the east,” the British Ministry of Defense said on its Twitter account. .
This was confirmed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu. Russia has achieved its “goal”: “the military potential of the Ukrainian Armed Forces has been significantly reduced, which makes it possible to focus attention and efforts on the main goal, the liberation of Donbass.”
– Judge on paper –
And for the Western allies of kyiv, it will be necessary above all to judge on paper.
“We’ll see if they keep their word,” US President Joe Biden told reporters on Tuesday, shortly after meeting with French, British, German and Italian leaders. “There seems to be a consensus that you have to see what they have to offer,” he added.
In London, a spokesman for Prime Minister Boris Johnson did not say otherwise. London will judge “Putin and his regime by his deeds, not his words,” he said. The UK will hold a donors’ conference on Thursday to mobilize more lethal weapons for Ukraine.
Earlier, these Western leaders had warned against any “slack” on the Russian invasion, and expressed “their determination to continue to increase the cost paid by Russia for its brutal attack on Ukraine.
Global stock markets were nonetheless hopeful, closing sharply higher on Tuesday after these Russian announcements, which sent oil prices down and the rouble jump.
After three hours of negotiations in Istanbul, the head of the Russian delegation and representative of the Kremlin, Vladimir Medinski, reported “substantial discussions” and said that kyiv’s “clear” proposals for an agreement would be “considered very shortly and submitted to President Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian negotiator explained for his part that kyiv was calling for an “international agreement” signed by several guarantor countries which “will act in a similar way to Article 5 of NATO and even in a more firm way”. Article 5 of the Atlantic Alliance treaty stipulates that an attack against one of its members is an attack against all.
– “Temporarily excluded” –
Mr. Arakhamia cited, among the countries that Ukraine would like to have as guarantors the United States, China, France and the United Kingdom – permanent members of the UN Security Council – but also Turkey, the Germany, Poland and Israel.
kyiv also asks that this agreement in no way prohibit Ukraine’s entry into the EU, and proposes that Crimea and the Donbass territories under the control of pro-Russian separatists be “temporarily excluded”.
To resolve the specific question of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, kyiv proposes “fifteen years” of separate Russian-Ukrainian talks, according to another Ukrainian negotiator, Mykhaïlo Podoliak.
On the ground, the hoped-for calm is long overdue. A Russian strike hit Tuesday morning the building of the regional administration of Mykolaiv, a city near Odessa which has nevertheless experienced a respite in the bombardments in recent days.
At least twelve people died and 33 others injured, according to a new assessment given by President Zelensky during a videoconference intervention before the Danish Parliament. AFP journalists saw rescuers pull two bodies from the rubble, and the building was gutted to its full height.
The situation also remains very difficult around kyiv where the population is fleeing the villages east of the capital, where the inhabitants assure that the Russian forces continue to carry out a brutal occupation there.
“The Russian soldiers came and asked if they could ‘host’ five or six people for the night,” said Valerii Koriachenko, 50, his lower lip quivering with emotion.
“They lifted the safety catch on the rifle and + politely asked + us to leave anywhere, saying that they lived there now”, he says, adding that they even took their “socks and underwear”.
– Humanitarian corridors –
In the west of the country, Russian forces also bombed the military airfield of Starokostiantyniv on Tuesday, destroying all fuel stocks in this city, announced its mayor Mykola Melnytchouk.
In the south, three humanitarian corridors were set up on Tuesday, including from the besieged city of Mariupol, after a suspension of civilian evacuations on Monday, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on Telegram.
Mr. Zelensky on Tuesday accused the Russians of “crimes against humanity” in Mariupol, a strategic port city on the Sea of Azov which the Russian army has been trying to seize since the end of February, where around 160,000 people are still believed to be stuck.
“They even blow up shelters when they know full well that civilians are hiding there, women, children and old people,” he added. According to Tetyana Lomakina, adviser to the Ukrainian presidency, “about 5,000 people” were buried there, but there could actually be “around 10,000 dead”.
Following a telephone exchange with French President Emmanuel Macron, Vladimir Putin made the surrender of the Ukrainian forces defending the city a condition for the evacuation of civilians from Mariupol.
“To find a solution to the difficult humanitarian situation in this city, Ukrainian nationalist fighters must stop resisting and lay down their arms,” said the Russian president.
The French presidency for its part considered that the conditions for launching in the coming days a humanitarian operation to help the inhabitants of Mariupol “are not met at this stage”.
Another subject of concern is the situation of nuclear power plants in Ukraine. The International Atomic Energy Agency said its director general was in Ukraine “for discussions with government officials” to provide “technical assistance” to ensure the safety of these facilities.
And at the UN, Russia was accused on Tuesday by the United States before the Security Council of having caused a “world food crisis”, even of running the risk of “famine”, by having started a war against Ukraine, the “breadbasket of Europe”.
burx / ob / roc