Ukraine war live: Russian troop withdrawal 'designed to mislead' says Ukraine military

euronews.com:

With Russia's war in Ukraine into its second month, there has been movement at peace talks in Turkey.

As Moscow's military offensive stalls in the face of strong Ukrainian resistance, Putin's forces have been continuing to pound targets from afar.

Planned humanitarian corridors to evacuate besieged and terrorised civilians have faltered. Millions of people have fled their homes, while thousands of civilians and military personnel have been killed in the fighting, which has left widespread devastation.

See a summary of Tuesday's developments in our blog below, and watch the report in the video player above.

Russia's pledge to scale back some military operations in Ukraine drew skepticism from President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In his nightly video message he said there was no reason to believe Russia's announcement that it would reduce military activity near the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv, given what's still happening on the ground.

“We can call those signals that we hear at the negotiations positive,” he said “but those signals don’t silence the explosions of Russian shells.”

Zelenskyy said it was Ukrainian troops who forced Russia’s hand into making some concessions at the talks in Istanbul, but added: "we shouldn’t let down our guard” because the invading army can still carry out attacks.

“Ukrainians are not naïve people," he 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.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has arrived in China for two days of talks on Afghanistan.

This is the first visit to China by the Kremlin's diplomatic chief since his country invaded Ukraine on 24 February. Beijing has since refused