Russia pledges to scale back near Ukraine's capital as talks progress

Moscow: As talks to end the grinding war brought the outlines of a possible deal into view, Russia announced Tuesday it will significantly scale back military operations near Ukraine's capital and a northern city, AP reported.

The Kremlin-backed leader of the Russian province of Chechnya has called for storming the Ukrainian capital. Ramzan Kadyrov's statement came Tuesday as the Russian military announced after a round of talks with Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul, Turkey that it would scale back its combat operations near the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv.

Amid the talks, Russian Deputy Defense 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.

However, the announcement was met with skepticism from the US and others

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed skepticism Tuesday night about Russia's announcement that it would 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," Zelenskyy 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."

The western officials say Russia is building up troops in eastern Ukraine, but it's too soon to say whether Moscow's claim to be scaling back operations around Kyiv is true.

Officials familiar with the intelligence picture said Tuesday that Moscow is reinforcing troops in the Donbas in an attempt to encircle Ukraine's best-trained and best-equipped forces, which are concentrated in the eastern region.

Moscow has said gaining control of the Donbas is now its main military goal in Ukraine.