The hope of a ceasefire will have been fleeting.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, on the contrary, that his army was preparing for new fighting in the east of the country.
"We don't believe anyone, not a single beautiful sentence
," he said, a way of emphasizing that he has no faith in Russia's promises to reduce its military presence.
According to the head of state,
“we also see that there is a build-up of Russian troops for further strikes”
in the Donbass region
.
“We are preparing for it.”
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These movements around the Donbass, now an official objective of Moscow, are confirmed by several Western intelligence services.
Russian forces are repositioning themselves in Ukraine to strengthen their offensive on the industrial region, NATO said on Thursday, on the 36th day of the conflict.
“We expect additional offensive actions which will result in even more suffering,”
lamented Jens Stoltenberg, the organization's secretary general.
Ukrainian General Pavlo "Maestro" assures that
"the enemy is regrouping to attack and put the maximum of forces"
in the east of the country.
The UK also considers it
"very likely"
that the Russians
"seek to transfer their strike power from the north to the breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk in the east"
.
The Russian army also again heavily bombarded the Donetsk region during the night, sometimes with phosphorus bombs, denounced the head of the local military administration.
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Further south, intense fighting also marked Wednesday night in Mariupol before Moscow announced a local ceasefire on Thursday to open a humanitarian corridor.
The International Committee of the Red Cross made a new attempt to evacuate some of the approximately 160,000 civilians still prisoners of the besieged port.
"The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on
it," insisted the organization from Geneva, saying it hoped for a launch on Friday.
The Ukrainian government has for its part announced that it will send 45 buses to help civilians leave for neighboring towns.
In kyiv, the clashes are marking time as Russian forces continue to hold their positions to the east and west of the capital.
They continue to defend themselves against Ukrainian counter-attacks described as
"limited"
by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
London, however, expects
"heavy fighting in the suburbs"
of Kiev in the coming days.
The situation after thirty-six days of combat.
Le Figaro.
On the other hand, Russian forces have begun to withdraw from the Chernobyl nuclear site, which they had taken control of on the first day of the invasion of Ukraine, on February 24, the Ukrainian nuclear agency announced on Thursday.
Talks are expected to resume on Friday according to Ukraine's chief negotiator, David Arakhamia.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Cavusoglu announced Thursday morning that a new meeting between his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts could take place
“within one or two weeks”
.
