Russia has bombarded suburbs of Kyiv and the besieged city of Chernihiv, hours after Moscow offered to scale back “dramatically” its military action in Ukraine as part of a peace deal.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has demanded Ukrainian troops surrender the city of Mariupol before Moscow will allow a humanitarian evacuation of the devastated southern port city, where thousands are feared dead.
After a telephone call with Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday night, Kremlin officials said Mr Putin would “think about” a proposal by the French president to give Mariupol’s residents access to food, water and medicines and “leave the city if they wish to”.
“This extremely degrading humanitarian situation is linked to the siege of the city by the Russian armed forces,” said the Élysée Palace in a statement.
A precondition to any new Mariupol evacuation plan, the Kremlin said, was that “Ukrainian nationalist militants stop resisting and lay down their arms”.
Five weeks after the Russia invasion, more than four million people have fled Ukraine, according to the UN, more than 90 per cent of them women and children.
Written confirmation
After a separate phone call on Wednesday, German chancellor Olaf Scholz asked Mr Putin for written confirmation of a proposal to allow Russian energy buyers continue to pay their bills in euro and US dollars.
Backing away from a threat to only accept payment in roubles, refused by G7 leaders, Mr Putin said the non-sanctioned Gazprom bank would carry out the conversion into the Russian currency.
Amid reports of a Russian strike on a Red Cross tent in Mariupol, Ukrainian officials accused Moscow on Wednesday of breaking promises made just one day earlier in Istanbul.
“They’re saying reducing intensity, they’ve actually increased the intensity of strikes,” said Vladyslav Atroshenko, mayor of Chernihiv, to CNN.
After reports of fresh barraging of Kyiv suburbs, the mayor of nearby Irpin said up to 300 civilians and 50 soldiers had been killed there before it was taken back from Russian forces earlier this week.
A Moscow defence ministry spokesman said its forces were regrouping in Ukraine as part of a pivot away to allow the “liberation” of the breakaway Donbas region announced last week.
Ukrainian defence forces have confirmed increased Russian activity in eastern Donetsk, another breakaway region.
Peace deal
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said there was a “lot of work” ahead on a peace deal and that Moscow “cannot state that there was anything too promising or any breakthroughs” at the Istanbul talks.
Ahead of Friday’s EU-China summit, Ukraine’s foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba demanded a fifth package of EU sanctions to be drawn up “as soon as possible and be as tough as possible”.
On Wednesday the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva heard of 1,189 confirmed civilian deaths, including 98 children, in Ukraine and “credible allegations” that Russian forces had used cluster munitions at least 24 times in populated areas, contradicting Moscow claims it is not targeting civilians.
“Homes and administrative buildings, hospitals and schools, water stations and electricity systems have not been spared,” said UN high commissioner for human rights Michelle Bachelet, drawing on 77 incidents verified by 60 UN human rights monitors in Ukraine.
In a nod to the Geneva convention’s rules of war, she said these cases of civilian targeting “strongly indicate that the fundamental principles of distinction, proportionality and precaution have not been sufficiently adhered to”.
