Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia has began a “slow but noticeable” withdrawal from the country’s north.
In an address on Saturday, Mr Zelensky also warned that Russian troops were creating “a complete disaster” outside capital Kyiv as they were leaving mines across “the whole territory”, including around homes.
Attempts to evacuate Ukrainian civilians from Mariupol on Friday were abandoned as it was “impossible to proceed”, a humanitarian rescue charity said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) had planned to lead a convoy of 54 buses and cars, filled with Ukrainian civilians, out of the besieged port city. But it had to return to Zaporizhzhia “after conditions made it impossible to proceed”, it said.
The charity added: “We will try again tomorrow. It’s critical the parties respect agreements and provide the necessary security guarantees.”
Meanwhile, Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out an attack on a fuel depot in the Russian city Belgorod, an incident the Kremlin warned has set an “unfavourable” tone for peace talks with Kyiv.
Footage of the alleged attack showed what looks like several missiles being fired from low altitude, although the clip could not be verified.
But Ukraine‘s top security official denied accusations that Ukraine was behind an attack. Security Council secretary Oleksiy Danilov said: “For some reason they say that we did it, but according to our information this does not correspond to reality.”
