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Destroyed Russian tank near Chernihiv in northern Ukraine on March 28
Photo: ANDRZEJ LANGE / EPA
As Russia had already announced, Putin's troops are now withdrawing from northern Ukraine - this has now been confirmed by the government in Kyiv.
This is said to be a rapid retreat, with Moscow's military apparently leaving behind a lot of equipment.
Parallel to the apparent military debacle, Russia appears to want to continue talks with Ukraine.
It is day 38 of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.
The overview:
military situation
It should be a "quick withdrawal," said Ukrainian presidential adviser Mikhail Podoljak to the movements of the Russian military in northern Ukraine.
Putin's troops are currently withdrawing mainly from the regions around the capital Kyiv and Chernihiv in the north of the country.
Because of this, Ukrainian troops were able to recapture "more than 30 towns," said Oleksiy Arestovich, another adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in a video.
The Ukrainian government even reported that the troops had regained complete control of the region around the capital Kyiv.
"Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and the entire Kyiv region were liberated from the invaders," Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Facebook.
However, the withdrawal does not appear to have come without damage for Russia.
The Russian army left "a large number of military vehicles without fuel," Arestovich said.
The information cannot be verified, but it agrees with the analysis of several experts.
Military expert Michael Kofman tweeted: "A significant amount of abandoned equipment is being captured in the Kyiv area that Russian forces are likely to have left behind."
Kyiv believes that the Kremlin's will to focus on southern and eastern Ukraine is behind the withdrawal.
Russia has “chosen a different tactic,” Podoljak explained in the messenger service Telegram.
In fact, Ukraine reported further airstrikes on the cities of Mariupol, Kharkiv and Chernihiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of a further escalation in the port city of Mariupol, which had been under Russian siege for weeks.
Kofman also expects that the Russian military will now concentrate primarily on the Donbass in eastern Ukraine.
“The next decisive battle will take place in Donbass, where Russian units will regroup and try to push back Ukrainian troops.
This front needs to be watched over the coming weeks.
How this battle unfolds will likely influence Moscow's reflections on the prospects for a prolonged war," the expert wrote in a Twitter thread.
humanitarian situation
After the withdrawal of the Russian army from northern Ukraine, the traces of the conflict are becoming increasingly clear.
According to the authorities, almost 300 people have been buried in mass graves in the Kiev suburb of Bucha.
At least 20 new bodies were only discovered there on Saturday.
The victims wore civilian clothes, reports the AFP news agency.
The streets of the small town, which was badly damaged by the fighting, are littered with corpses, said Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk.
In a village north of Kyiv, Ukrainian soldiers also found the body of famous photographer Maks Levin.
One of his pictures was printed on the cover of SPIEGEL a few weeks ago.
Despite the war, thousands of Ukrainians are apparently returning to their homeland from abroad.
In the western Ukrainian metropolis of Lviv alone, 19,000 people crossed the border within 24 hours, local military chief Maxim Kosyzkyj wrote on Facebook.
According to estimates by the UN refugee agency UNHCR, 4.02 million people have fled abroad since the Russian invasion began.
According to the federal police, around 5,300 other refugees from Ukraine were registered in Germany within one day on Saturday.
As the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced on Twitter on Saturday, the police have recorded almost 300,000 war refugees since the start of the Russian war of aggression on February 24.
Most of them are women, children and old people.
That's what the Kremlin says
After an alleged helicopter attack on an oil storage facility near the Russian city of Belgorod, the Kremlin has launched criminal proceedings into a terrorist attack against the Ukrainian military.
Two Ukrainian attack helicopters equipped with heavy offensive weapons illegally entered Russian airspace on Friday and then carried out at least four airstrikes against the fuel complex.
The Ukrainian side did not admit the attack.
Despite the alleged Ukrainian attack, Russia was ready for further talks with Kiev.
Talks with Ukraine have not been easy so far, but the most important thing is that they continue, RIA news agency quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
He also said that Russia would like to continue talks with Ukraine in neighboring Belarus, but Kyiv rejected this idea.
Russia and Ukraine had held several rounds of talks in Belarus over the past month before their delegations met in Istanbul last week.
According to human rights activists, almost 180 people were arrested in Russia on Saturday during nationwide protests against the military operation in Ukraine.
By the afternoon there had been at least 178 arrests in 15 cities, said the non-governmental organization OVD-Info.
Internationally, Moscow has threatened to end cooperation on the International Space Station if the US and other Western countries do not lift their sanctions against Russia.
This is how the West reacts
Poland pushed for further tightening of EU sanctions against Russia.
At a meeting with the President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in a Polish reception center for refugees, the national-conservative Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki pointed out that the rate of the Russian ruble has now returned to the level it was before the attack on Ukraine.
"This means that all economic measures - micro and macroeconomic, financial, budgetary and monetary - have not worked as some politicians would have liked," said Morawiecki.
According to Economics Commissioner Paolo Gentiloni, the European Union is working on new sanctions against Russia.
However, the energy sector will not be affected.
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col/AFP/dpa/Reuters