INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia pledged to scale down fighting around Kyiv and a second major city following peace talks on Tuesday that Ukraine's leader said
showed "positive" signs, but Western allies made clear their doubts over Moscow's intentions.Details filtering from the talks in Istanbul
raised hopes after more than a month of war that has left thousands dead and millions displaced.Kyiv's negotiator David Arakhamia said
there were "sufficient" conditions for President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to meet in a push to end
Europe's worst conflict in decades.On the Russian side, chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky called the talks "meaningful," while the
Russian concerns.Russia, Fomin said, had decided to "radically, by several times reduce the military activity" around Kyiv and the northern
"do not drown out the explosions or Russian shells" and vowed in a video address late Tuesday to keep up defense efforts.But the United
States cast clear doubt on Moscow's words, and vowed with fellow Western powers to keep "raising the costs" on Russia.And by Tuesday
likely a troop rotation intended to "mislead" Ukraine's military.On the ground in the capital, air raid sirens could be heard ringing out
late into the night, with residents ordered to proceed to shelters.Elsewhere in the country, meanwhile, the toll continued to climb, with at
Ukrainian assessment, United States officials said that while small numbers of Russian forces were indeed stepping back from Kyiv, the vast
majority remained."We're not prepared to call this a retreat or even a withdrawal," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said, warning a "major
offensive" may yet be imminent in other areas of Ukraine and that the threat to Kyiv was not over.A spokesman for British Prime Minister
Boris Johnson echoed that message, saying: "We will judge Putin and his regime by his actions and not by his words."United States President
Joe Biden spoke with Johnson and the leaders of France, Germany and Italy, together vowing no let up in the strong economic sanctions
imposed on Moscow."We'll see if they follow through on what they're suggesting," Biden told reporters following the call, when asked if he
believed Russia was simply trying to buy time.The signals from Tuesday's talks nonetheless sent European and United States stock markets
Moscow already signaled it was dialing back its war goals, focusing its military resources on capturing the eastern Donbas region.The
Pentagon assesses that Russia badly underestimated Ukrainian resistance, and that its offensive has stalled near Kyiv and other cities.In
recent days, Ukraine's fighters have notably recaptured the strategic Kyiv suburb of Irpin, and pushed back Russian forces from around
Mykolaiv.But on Tuesday a Russian missile strike on a government building in the southern city left at least 12 dead and 33 wounded,
Ukrainian officials said."I was having breakfast in my apartment," Donald, 69, a retired Canadian postal worker with Ukrainian residency
"I heard a whoosh, then a boom and my windows rattled."Another local resident, Viktor Gaivonenko, who was helping clean up the debris, said:
retain control of the devastated southern port city of Mariupol.Russian forces have encircled the city and are conducting steady and
indiscriminate bombardment, trapping an estimated 160,000 people with little food, water or medicine.At least 5,000 people there have
already died, and the full toll could be as high as 10,000, according to one senior Ukrainian official.France, Greece and Turkey have been
hoping to launch a mass evacuation of civilians from Mariupol within days, but French President Emmanuel Macron, after speaking with Putin
Tuesday, said conditions for the operation were not yet met.Calling the Mariupol siege a "crime against humanity" happening "in front of the
eyes of the whole planet in real time," Zelensky urged allies to keep the sanctions pressure on Moscow "until this war is over."In the
latest round of diplomatic expulsions, Belgium, Ireland and the Netherlands Tuesday announced a total of 42 diplomats would be told to
leave.Responding tit-for-tat, Moscow said it was expelling 10 diplomats from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.And it reiterated that it will
