“We don’t believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase”. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday March 31 that he did not believe Russia’s promises to reduce its military presence in the direction of kyiv, and that his army was preparing for new fighting in the east of the country, on the 36th day of the Russian invasion, ordered on February 24 by Vladimir Putin.
The leader’s remarks come as Moscow announced a truce for Thursday, quickly accused of “manipulation” by the Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister, in the besieged city of Mariupol, a strategic port between Crimea annexed by Russia and the territories controlled by pro-Russian separatists in the east.
A truce planned from this Thursday morning in Mariupol
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on the evening of Wednesday March 30 a “regime of silence”, i.e. a local ceasefire, from 10 a.m. this Thursday in the besieged Ukrainian port of Mariupol in order to evacuate civilians. This measure should make it possible to open a humanitarian corridor to the Ukrainian city of Zaporijjia with a stopover via the port of Berdiansk, under Russian control.
“For this humanitarian operation to succeed, we propose to carry it out with the direct participation of representatives of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)”, added the ministry in a statement.
Nothing “promising” in the talks
Seeming to go back on announcements made by Moscow following discussions between the belligerents on Tuesday March 29 in Istanbul, the spokesman for the Russian presidency Dmitry Peskov said that he could not “report anything very promising or of any breakthrough”.
“For the time being, we cannot talk about progress and we are not going to do it,” he insisted on Wednesday, specifying that there was “no progress” either in the organization of a possible meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky.
“We don’t believe anyone,” says Zelensky
Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandre Motuzyanyk had earlier stressed that he had noted the departure of certain units from kyiv and Cherniguiv, but “no massive withdrawal of Russian troops from these areas”, contrary to the promise made. the day before by Moscow to “radically reduce” its military activity in this area.
On this subject, “we don’t believe anyone, not a single beautiful phrase,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, adding that Russian forces were regrouping to attack the Donbass region. “We won’t give anything away. We will fight for every meter of our territory,” he said.
The start of withdrawal to Chernobyl
Russian forces are beginning to withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear site, which they took control of on the first day of the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, a senior Pentagon official said on Wednesday.
The Russian army has started to withdraw from Gostomel airport, northwest of kyiv, and “Chernobyl is another area where they are starting to reposition themselves, leaving Chernobyl to go to Belarus”, told the press this senior official having requested anonymity.
For Washington, Putin is misinformed and cold with his staff
The Russian president is poorly informed of the course of the war in Ukraine, and his relations with his own staff have deteriorated, assured the White House on Wednesday, on the basis of declassified American intelligence.
“We have information that Vladimir Putin believes that the Russian military misled him, which has caused ongoing tension between him and his staff,” the executive’s communications director said on Wednesday. American, Kate Bedingfield.
“One of the Achilles’ heels of autocracies is that in these systems, there is no longer anyone who tells the truth to the power in place, or who has the possibility to do so. And I think that is a phenomenon that we now see in Russia”, commented for his part the American Secretary of State Antony Blinken, on a trip to Algeria.