Russia says it will cut off operations near the Ukrainian capital following peace talks in Turkey. Seven were killed and 22 were injured in a rocket attack on an administration building in Mykolaiv, Zelensky said. Ukrainian forces are regaining control of the Irpin suburb of Kiev, in the northeastern city of Trostanyets, officials say. More than 60 religious buildings have been destroyed by Russia since the start of the war, the Ukrainian military says. What questions do you have about Russia’s attack on Ukraine? Email them at [email protected]

Russia’s deputy defense minister said Moscow had decided to “… fundamentally cut” operations near the capital and another major city to “boost mutual trust” in talks aimed at ending the fighting. Alexander Fomin said Russian forces would cut off “military activity in the direction of Kiev and Chernihiv.” Fomin’s statement came on Tuesday after another round of talks between Russia and Ukraine in Istanbul and appeared to be the first major concession made by the Russians since launching their invasion of Ukraine more than a month ago. The Ukrainian army’s general staff said earlier that it had withdrawn from the area around Kyiv and Chernihiv. More follow. This is an emergency update. An earlier version of the story can be found below. The first face-to-face talks in two weeks between Russia and Ukraine began in Turkey on Tuesday, raising shaky hopes of progressing to end a war that has led to a bloody campaign of destruction. An adviser to the Ukrainian president said the meeting in Istanbul focused on ensuring a ceasefire and guarantees for Ukraine’s security – issues that have been the focus of previous failed negotiations. Ahead of the talks in Istanbul, the Ukrainian president said his country was ready to declare its neutrality, as requested by Moscow, and was open to compromises on the disputed eastern Donbass region – comments that could spur negotiations. . But he warned that the “ruthless war” was continuing, and even when negotiators rallied, Russian forces struck an oil depot in western Ukraine and a government building in the south. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the two sides that gathered for talks that they had a “historic responsibility” to stop fighting. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan meets with Russian and Ukrainian delegations ahead of peace talks at Dolmabahce’s presidential office in Istanbul on Tuesday. (Arda Kucukkaya / Anadolu Agency / Getty Images) “We believe that there will be no losers in a just peace. Prolonging the conflict is not in anyone’s interest,” Erdogan said as he greeted the two delegations sitting on opposite sides. peace table.
Putin’s goal of a quick military victory was thwarted by fierce Ukrainian resistance – but again hopes were not high for a major breakthrough. British Foreign Secretary Liz Tras, reflecting skepticism among Ukraine’s western allies, said she believed the Russian president was “not serious about the talks”.

Zelensky urges more support

In a dead-end battle, Ukrainian forces have recaptured Irpin, a key suburb northwest of the capital, Kiev, President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Monday. But he warned that Russian troops were regrouping to retake the area. “We still have to fight, we have to endure,” Zelensky said in his overnight video address to the nation. “This is a ruthless war against our nation, against our people, against our children.” CLOCKS Ahead of talks in Turkey, Zelensky offers Ukraine neutrality:

Zelensky offers Ukraine neutrality without signs of Russian diplomacy

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is ready to discuss whether the country will take a neutral stance as part of a peace deal with Russia. But there is no indication that the Kremlin is serious about engaging in diplomacy to end the war soon. 2:14
He also attacked Western countries, which he has repeatedly accused of failing to go far enough to impose sanctions on Moscow or support Ukraine with weapons. As a result, Ukrainians paid with their lives, he said. “If one is afraid of Russia, if one is afraid to make the necessary decisions that are important to us, especially to get planes, tanks, necessary artillery, missiles, this makes these people responsible for the destruction created by Russian troops and in the cities. he told us. “Fear always makes you an accomplice.”

The bombing continues in the west, south

A rocket hit an oil depot in western Ukraine late Monday, the second attack on an oil plant in an area that has escaped the worst fighting. On Tuesday morning, an explosion struck a hole in a nine-story administration building in Mykolaiv, a port city in the south that Russia had tried unsuccessfully to seize. At least three people were killed and 22 were injured in the rocket attack, the Ukrainian emergency services said. Firefighters are transporting a dead body from the rubble of the government building that was hit by rockets in Mykolaiv on Tuesday. (Bulent Kilic / AFP / Getty Images)
An open hole appeared in the center of the building in a photo posted on the governor’s Telegram channel, Vitaliy Kim. He said most people had fled the building and rescuers were looking for a handful of missing persons. “It’s awful. They were waiting for people to go to work,” he said before hitting the building. “I slept. I’m lucky.”

More than 10 million Ukrainians were displaced

Previous Russia-Ukraine talks, conducted in person or by video in Belarus, have failed to make progress in ending a more than a month-long war that has killed thousands and displaced more than 10 million Ukrainians from their homes – including four million from their country. Russia has long urged Ukraine to abandon all hopes of joining NATO, something Moscow sees as a threat. Zelensky showed at the weekend that he was open to it, saying Ukraine was ready to declare its neutrality, but stressed that the country needed its own security guarantees as part of any deal. Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said ending the war depended on “international security guarantees for Ukraine”. An elderly couple walks next to a damaged bridge during the evacuation from the city of Irpin, outside Kyiv, on Monday. (Oleksandr Ratushniak / Reuters)
Also in the Istanbul room were Roman Abramovich, a longtime ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and EU sanctions. mediator approved by both countries – but the mystery of his role has been deepened by reports that he may have been poisoned during a previous round of talks. The investigative news agency Bellingcat reported on Monday that Abramovich and two Ukrainian officials had suffered eye pain and skin irritation from chemical weapons poisoning after attending peace talks on March 3. The British government said the allegations were “very worrying”, but Peshkov said they “did not correspond to reality”. In addition to Irpin, Ukrainian forces regained control of the Trostyanets, south of Sumy in the northeast, after weeks of Russian occupation that have left a war-torn landscape. Ukrainian troops stand by the wreckage of a Russian tank after recent fighting in the city of Trostyanets, about 400 kilometers east of the Ukrainian capital Kiev, on Monday. (Efrem Lukatsky / The Associated Press)
Arriving in the city on Monday a little later, the Associated Press saw the bodies of two Russian soldiers lying abandoned in the forest and the Russian tanks were burned and twisted. A red “Z” meant a Russian truck, with its windshield broken, near stacked boxes of ammunition. Ukrainian forces stacked on a tank that shone the signs of victory. Stunned residents lined up among the charred buildings asking for help. It was not clear where the Russian troops went, under what conditions they fled and whether the city would remain free of them.

Evacuation efforts from Mariupol continue

Ukraine, meanwhile, said it would try to evacuate civilians from three southern cities on Tuesday. Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the humanitarian corridors would be operated from heavily bombed Mariupol, as well as from Enerhodar and Melitopol. The last two cities are under Russian control, but Verestsuk did not say to what extent Moscow had agreed on the corridors, except that 880 people had left Mariupol a day earlier without an agreement. Residents of the area gathered outside a building damaged in the fighting in the besieged southern port city of Mariupol, Ukraine, on Monday. (Alexander Ermochenko / Reuters)
In other developments:

The head of the United Nations nuclear watchdog has arrived in Ukraine to try to ensure the safety of the country’s nuclear facilities. Russian forces have taken control of the decommissioned Chornobil plant, which was hit by the worst nuclear accident in the world in 1986, and the active Zaporizhia plant, where a building was damaged in battle. The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said the war “puts Ukraine’s nuclear power plants and other radioactive installations in unprecedented danger.” Russia has destroyed more than 60 religious buildings across the country in just over a month of war, with most of the damage concentrated near Kyiv and in the east, the Ukrainian military said in a statement on Tuesday. He said the Orthodox Church – the religion of the majority of the country – was the most affected, but that mosques, synagogues, Protestant churches and religious schools were also destroyed. Bloomberg News reports that it has suspended operations in Russia and Belarus. Customers in both countries will not be able to access Bloomberg’s financial products, and trading in Russian securities has been shut down in line with international sanctions, he said. Bloomberg Philanthropies promised 40 million US dollars, …