Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has been briefing the media on the talks held with Ukraine in Turkey yesterday, and played down any hopes of a breakthrough.

Yesterday, Russia said it intended to scale back its military activity in Kyiv and Chernihiv, and Ukraine said it would consider becoming a "neutral" state.

"What is positive is that the Ukrainian side has at least started to specifically formulating and putting on paper what it is proposing. Until now we had not managed to achieve that," Peskov said.

"As regards the rest, we cannot, put it this way, at present state there have been any breakthroughs, anything very promising," he said, in remarks reported by the Interfax news agency.

The big picture

It's been nearly five weeks since Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Following negotiations yesterday Russia announced it was going to drastically reduce military combat operations in the areas around the capital Kyiv and northern city of Chernihiv.

But this was met with scepticism by the Ukrainians as well as the US and UK, who said it should be treated with caution.

Military assessment

The UK's military intelligence says Russia is focusing on eastern regions because of its military struggles, with some units which have suffered heavy losses returning to Russia and Belarus (to Ukraine's north) to resupply and re-organise.

The Institute for the Study of War says Russian forces have given up on seizing Kyiv but that they continue to fight to hold their current position near the city. Russia is also directing some reserves in an effort to gain ground that will link Kharkiv with its front line in Luhansk. And it says Mariupol is likely to fall within days.

On the ground

The Ukrainian governor in Donetsk says there has been Russian shelling along all the cities and towns on the front line that separates the two sides. Shelling is also reported in the Luhansk region.

Despite Russia's pledge yesterday, Chernihiv regional governor VIacheslav Chaus claims Russian forces carried out strikes on the city "all night long" while the sound of artillery could be heard on the edge of Kyiv city centre.

What next?

Russia says it wants to focus on "liberating" the eastern Donbas region (home to Donetsk and Luhansk) and it appears this is where its forces will now focus.

Russian troops are likely to want to create a land corridor along the south coast, linking Crimea with the Russian border. Mariupol, which sits along that route, is strategically important, which is why Russia has been bombing it so heavily, killing large numbers of civilians and creating a humanitarian crisis.

Image source, Maxar

New satellite photos released by the observation company Maxar have shown the scale of the destruction in the besieged south-eastern city of Mariupol.

The photos show residential buildings levelled by Russian shelling, while others show artillery cannons in firing positions on the outskirts of the city.

The city's mayor has told the Reuters news agency that it is thought almost 5,000 people, including about 210 children, have been killed in the city since Russia laid siege to it.

President Vladimir Putin reportedly told his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, that Russian shelling of the city will not end until Ukrainian forces lay down their arms.

Image source, Maxar

Image source, Maxar

Image source, Maxar

Donetsk is one of two areas where fighting between separatists and Ukrainian forces has been taking place since 2014.

Russian forces are shelling nearly all towns and cities along the front line that separates Ukrainian government-controlled territory from areas held by Russian-backed separatists, the regional governor says.

Pavlo Kyrylenko said there had been attacks on Maryinka and Novomykhailivka this morning, posting images of destruction, external, and said the situation could worsen as Russian forces concentrated their efforts to gain control of the Donetsk region.

Image source, Pavlo Kyrylenko

Wyre Davies
BBC News, Zaporizhzhia

Russia says it doesn't target civilians - the buildings in which they live and work, or the people themselves.

Lying in a hospital bed in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, Natalia Mykolaivna makes a mockery of that Russian denial.

What happened to 45-year-old Natalia was deliberate, targeted and without justification. It's a miracle she's still alive.

Clutching the comforting hand of her son, Nikolai, she told me what happened in her hometown of Polohy on the day advancing Russian troops arrived.

"I came out of my house, I was worried about my own mother, so I went to see her," said Natalia, who explained how she was allowed to pass through a Russian army checkpoint.

"I then walked towards my mother's house, raised my hands in the air - saying I'd already been told I could pass - but the soldier fired a burst from his machine gun, hitting me in the legs, everywhere from the waist down."

Natalia was evacuated by neighbours and her family to the hospital in nearby Zaporizhzhia and has since been told by doctors that she survived death "by a millimetre".

Read her story here.

More than four million people have now fled Ukraine to escape Russia's invasion, according to the latest United Nations figures.

The UN refugee agency, the UNHCR, says 4,019,287 Ukrainians had fled across the country's borders since the invasion began on 24 February.

More than 2.3 million Ukrainians are now in Poland.

Negotiations between Russian and Ukraine have "definitely moved forward", according to Ihor Zhovkva, the deputy head of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office.

He said the talks in Istanbul were the first time that, instead of giving ultimatums and their red lines, the Russian side listened to the Ukrainian position.

But he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that Ukraine would not trade "any single inch" of territory, when asked about the eastern regions.

He also said Russia had not withdrawn troops from either Kyiv or Chernihiv despite Russia saying it would scale down its operations in those areas.

Image source, Reuters

A Russian strike on a government building in the southern Ukrainian port city of Mykolaiv yesterday has killed 12 people and injured nearly 30 others, Ukrainian officials say.

Mayor of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevych told the BBC there were no military personnel in the building, "there were only guards… all the other people were just office workers".

Senkevych thinks Russian forces may have been trying to target regional governor Vitaliy Kim, who was not there at the time.

He says: "His media activity, for sure, [is] not helping Russians in the spirit of their troops so I think there was a strike on him."

Read more about what happened here.

Image source, Getty Images

Oleksander Danylyuk, a former Ukraine national security adviser to President Volodymyr Zelensky, says he does not believe Russia's pledge to reduce military operations around Kyiv and Chernihiv.

He says the sound of shelling this morning has confirmed his fears.

While there is no escalation and some troops have moved away from Kyiv, "this is just regrouping", he says.

Russia has already refocused its campaign on Ukraine's eastern regions after suffering a series of setbacks to the north of the capital.

Danylyuk believes Russia will put all its efforts into taking Donetsk and Luhansk, in the east, as Vladimir Putin needs to show a victory.

But he says Russia is "not going to ease their grab" on Kyiv and Chernihiv – "this is just words".

He says Russia has proposed de-escalation for the areas but says this is where Ukrainian troops were already advancing an retaking territories.

"So now if we just continue freeing towns near Kyiv, Russia will accuse us of working against de-escalation," he says.

"As always there are military and diplomatic KGB games all combined, this is just one game," he adds.

Image source, .

Sir Richard Shirreff, the former Nato deputy supreme commander in Europe, says "like most people" he has deep suspicion about Russia's pledge to reduce its attacks on Kyiv and Chernihiv.

"This is almost certainly a recognition that the attempt to advance on multiple axis has failed and is most likely to presage a concentration of force in another area," he says - describing it as a recognition that there is no point reinforcing failure.

"I also wouldn't rule out some form of deception," he says.

"While Putin is in the Kremlin there cannot be peace in Europe," Sir Richard says, describing him as a "bloodstained autocrat".

He says Nato must ensure the war "remains a cold war and not a hot war" with Russia, and says that means Nato preparing for war in every respect.

"We have not yet seen that ramp up in Nato capability which I think is going to be essential if Nato is going to deter any further aggression."

The governor of Ukraine's northern Chernihiv region said he saw no let-up in Russian attacks despite a promise by Moscow to scale down military operations there.

Governor Viacheslav Chaus said on his Telegram channel, "Do we believe in it [the promise]? Of course not".

Chaus said Russian forces have been "carrying out strikes on [the city of] Nizhyn, including air strikes, and all night long they hit [the city of] Chernihiv."

The BBC has not been able to confirm this independently.

Yesterday, the Russians announced they would "drastically reduce" military combat operations around Chernihiv, as well as the capital, Kyiv.

Image source, Luhansk OVA

Russian forces in eastern Ukraine are reported to have shelled residential areas of the Luhansk city of Lysychansk, according to Interfax Ukraine news agency.

Luhansk's regional military head, Serhiy Haidai, wrote on his Telegram channel that the shelling began at around 6:30am local time.

Haidai says “High-rise buildings have been significantly destroyed” and “casualties are reported”.

“Information on the number of dead and wounded is being specified. There is a lot of rubble”.

Syrian fighters are being offer £5,000 a month to fight on the front line for Russia in the war against Ukraine, the BBC has learned.

One Syrian soldier who’s volunteered to fight said he believed Russia was carrying out a massacre in Ukraine, but it was also helping poor Syrians who couldn’t afford to eat.

He said he'd volunteered because of the money on offer. His family doesn’t want him to go, but he was told that they would be paid £37,000 if he was killed.

He said he knew of at least 200 people who had volunteered.

The Ukrainian government and a leading Syrian NGO say 14 recruitment centres have been set up across Syria.

The mayor of Chernihiv, Vladyslav Atroshenko, says Russia's pledge to ease its assaults on Kyiv and Chernihiv would be good news if it could be trusted.

But he tells Lyse Doucet that it was only yesterday when "inhuman artillery shelling of several residential areas of the city took place, where about 35 people were hospitalised, where people lost their legs and some people were killed".

He says he never thought he would have to look for refrigerators to keep bodies in because mortuaries are full, or to have to find carpenters to make additional coffins.

"Often the Russians say one thing, but a different thing actually happens. Only time will show how much truth is in those words. We are treating those words very cautiously at the moment," he adds.

Image source, Reuters

Dmytro Natalukha is a Ukrainian MP in Kyiv who now carries a knife in his belt and a gun over his shoulder.

Security information at the start of the war was that parliamentary leaders were pre-ordered targets.

"So we have been given these guns to take care of ourselves because we don't have any security, nothing," he tells the BBC's chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet.

Natalukha acts as a courier, taking medical supplies to where they are needed.

"We look like civilians, we in fact are civilians and for us it is much easier to sneak into places where military personnel shouldn't be seen and supply them with stuff," he says.

Natalukha, who has a Cambridge University degree, says he is doing what he has to do.

"I lost two friends in the last couple of days, one in Mariupol, another one not far from Bucha.

"In Mariupol, for example, he was operable, but unfortunately they had no instruments to take care of him.

"We have to win, whatever the cost because too many good people have given their lives for this."

The MP says he does not think the capital will fall now. Asked how long he thinks the war will go on he says "until Putin dies, or gets arrested", adding it could be "another couple of months, maybe half a year".

If you're just joining us, here's a recap of the latest developments:

• Explosions have been heard outside Kyiv this morning - we don't know whether they are coming from the Ukrainian or Russian forces
• The UK's Ministry of Defence said Russian units are being forced to return to Russia and Belarus to reorganise - and warned that reduced forces on the ground could mean more missile strikes
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Tuesday's talks - in which Russia said it would scale back operations near Kyiv and Chernihiv - showed some positive signs, but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells

• The Russian pledge has been met with scepticism from many, with US President Joe Biden saying he wasn't reading into it until he sees what their actions are, and European leaders urging the West not to drop its guard

This is Aparna Alluri and Andrew Clarence from Delhi, and Frances Mao in Singapore signing off, handing over to our colleagues Emma Owen, Chris Giles and Doug Faulkner in London.

Image source, Getty Images

Image source, EPA

Russia said, after talks yesterday, that it would be reducing its military operations around the capital, and around the northern city of Chernihiv.

Russia does appear to have lowered its ambitions, claiming it has "generally accomplished" the aims of the invasion's first phase, which it defined as considerably reducing Ukraine's combat potential.

But the war continues in the east and the south, where Russian forces are trying to create a land corridor along the south coast, east from Crimea to the Russian border.

A month into the invasion, Russia declared its main goal was the "liberation of Donbas" - broadly referring to Ukraine's eastern regions of Luhansk and Donetsk.

But beyond his military goals, President Putin's broader demand is to ensure Ukraine's future neutrality. The Ukrainians have offered that in return for security guarantees from allies, as part of a wide-ranging peace plan presented in talks in Turkey.

Read more on Russia's intention.

Explosions have been heard near Kyiv again this morning.

Our chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet said the day began with the wailing of air raid sirens, followed by loud booms from the outskirts of the city that she could feel in the centre of the capital.

And Jeremy Bowen, external, who's also in Kyiv, tweeted that "many sounds of artillery were rumbling from the edge of the city to the centre".

It is unclear if the explosions are Russian or Ukrainian or both, he said.

Yesterday, following talks, Russia said it intended to reduce operations near the capital - a pledge many western leaders said should be treated with caution.

Russia's focus on an offensive in the Donestk and Luhansk region is a "tacit admission" that it is struggling to maintain more than one axis of advance, the UK's Ministry of Defence says.

Units which have suffered heavy losses have been forced to return to Russia and Belarus to resupply and reorganise which has placed pressure on "Russia’s already strained logistics", it says.

The MoD adds that Russian forces will likely compensate for reduced ground manoeuvre capability through mass artillery and missile strikes.

The Ukrainian armed forces have said in a daily update that Russian troops continue to "commit illegal acts" against the local population in Zaporizhzhia in south-eastern Ukraine, and Kherson in the south.

The BBC has not been able to verify the claims but Ukrainian forces said that:

• Russia continues to deploy troops to Ukraine

• Russian forces continue to raid the homes of local residents, detain pro-Ukrainian activists and government officials

The statement comes in the wake of a Russian pledge at peace talks in Istanbul on Tuesday to "drastically scale down" military operations around Kyiv.