Russia vows to ‘radically reduce’ military activity in northern Ukraine

Russia has pledged to drastically cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine to help advance peace talks, but experts and western diplomats expressed doubts that the move was more than a ploy to dress up setbacks on the ground.

Russia’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said after talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to “increase mutual trust, create the right conditions for future negotiations and reach the final aim of signing a peace deal with Ukraine”, and that the Kremlin would “radically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv”.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address early on Wednesday: “We can say the signals we are receiving from the talks are positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells.

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