As talks with Ukraine resume, offer by Russia to reduce attacks is met with skepticism
LVIV, Ukraine — Russian negotiators Tuesday offered to pull back attacks on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv in a step toward ending the war between the two nations, but U.S. and Western officials remained skeptical of Moscow’s true intentions.
The offer came as Russian and Ukrainian officials held a new round of talks and Ukrainian forces continued to mount fierce resistance in northern parts of the country against a relentless campaign of Russian shelling and missile attacks that has destroyed residential neighborhoods, hospitals and fuel storage depots.
But rather than ending the war, it seemed more likely that Russian President Vladimir Putin was merely shifting focus to the eastern and southern parts of Ukraine, where his forces have moved deeper into the separatist Donbas region and battered the coastal town of Mariupol.
“There is what Russia says and there is what Russia does,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said. “We’re focused on the latter, and what Russia is doing is the continued brutalization of Ukraine and its
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