The Russian army left mines around the houses after leaving Kyiv, denounces Zelensky

As they withdraw from the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, Russian troops are creating a “catastrophic” situation for civilians by leaving mines around houses, abandoned equipment, and “even the bodies of those who have died”, President Volodimir Zelensky warned on Saturday.

Ukraine and its Western allies are reporting increasing evidence that Russia is withdrawing its troops from around Kyiv and strengthening them in eastern Ukraine.

Ukrainian fighters recaptured several areas near Kyiv after forcing the Russians out or in after their withdrawal, authorities said.

The apparent change does not necessarily mean that the country will receive temporary relief after more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will soon return. Zelenski said he anticipates that the evicted populations will be attacked from the air and by long-distance cannonades and that the battle in the east of the country will be intense.

“It is still not possible to return to normal life, as it was before, even in the territories that we recovered after fighting,” the president told the nation in a video. “We must wait until our territory is cleared, wait until we can ensure that there will be no new attacks.”

Moscow‘s focus on eastern Ukraine also keeps the besieged southern city of Mariupol in its sights. The port city on the Sea of ​​Azov is in the Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts believe Russian President Vladimir Putin is trying to expand his control thereafter his troops failed to take Kyiv and other major cities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross planned on Saturday to deliver emergency supplies to Mariupol and evict some of its residents. The Red Cross said it was unable to carry out the operation on Friday because it had no assurance that the route was safe. Municipal authorities said the Russians blocked access to the city.

Mariupol, which was surrounded by Russian forces a month ago, has suffered some of the worst attacks of the war, including on a maternity hospital and a theater that housed civilians. About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the pre-war city of 430,000, facing severe shortages of water, food, fuel, and medicine.

Capturing the city would give Moscow a continuous land bridge from Russia to Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula it seized in 2014, but it has also taken on symbolic significance during the Russian invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, director of the Penta center, which does research on Ukraine.

“Mariupol has become a symbol of the Ukrainian resistance and without its conquest, Putin still cannot sit at the negotiating table,” Fesenko added.

The Mariupol city council said on Saturday that 10 empty buses were on their way to Berdyansk, a city 84 kilometers west of Mariupol , to pick up people. Some 2,000 people made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and others in their own vehicles, city officials said.

A Zelensky adviser, Oleksiy Arestovych, said in an interview with a Russian lawyer and activist, Mark Feygin, that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to reach Mariupol and evict residents “in the next few days . “