Scepticism and distrust at Russia’s vow to scale back activity near Kyiv

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has expressed skepticism at Russia’s announcement it will significantly scale back military operations near Ukraine’s capital and a northern city.

“Yes, we can call those signals that we hear at the negotiations positive. But those signals don’t silence the explosions of Russian shells,” Mr Zelensky said.

“Of course we see the risks. Of course we don’t see any basis for trusting the words voiced by those or other representatives of the state that is continuing to fight for our destruction.”

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Negotiations are expected to resume on Wednesday, five weeks into what has devolved into a bloody war of attrition, with thousands dead and almost 4 million Ukrainians fleeing the country.

“Ukrainians are not naive people,” Mr Zelenskyy said. “Ukrainians have already learned during the 34 days of the invasion and during the past eight years of war in the Donbas that you can trust only concrete results.”

Ukraine’s delegation at the conference, held in Istanbul, has laid out a framework under which the country would declare itself neutral and its security would be guaranteed by an array of other nations.

Amid the talks, Russian Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin said Moscow has decided to “fundamentally… cut back military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv” to “increase mutual trust and create conditions for further negotiations”.

He did not immediately spell out what that would mean in practical terms. The announcement was met with scepticism from the UK, US and other nations as well as Ukraine.

Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab warned that Russia’s announcement should be treated with caution. He said UK