JAKARTA - One by one the areas around the capital Kyiv have been recaptured by Ukrainian forces, with Russia set to focus its attacks on the Donbas, raising concerns for the safety of civilians.
The Ukrainians again reclaimed more territory around Kyiv from the Russian army who abandoned the destroyed villages, as well as their own tanks that were left behind when they moved from the capital.
In the hamlet of Dmytrivka west of the capital, smoke was still billowing from the wreckage of armored vehicles, with the bodies of at least eight Russian soldiers lying in the streets, Reuters correspondents saw.
"From one side we heard tanks firing at us, and from the Bucha area, there was heavy mortar fire," resident Leonid Vereshchagin, a business executive, said of a town in the north.
Ukrainian troops are continuing to retake Bucha, its mayor said Friday in a video apparently filmed outside the town hall. The progress followed several days of Ukrainian gains around Kyiv and in the north.
In southwest Ukraine, anti-air defenses thwarted an attack attempt on critical infrastructure at the Black Sea port of Odesa, the Ukrainian military said. Reuters could not immediately verify the account.
However, Odesa governor Maksym Marchenko said three missiles had hit a residential district, causing casualties. He said the missiles were fired from the Iskander missile system in Crimea, Ukraine's southern peninsula that was annexed by Russia in 2014.
"Thanks to the timely and effective response of the air defense forces, the missile did not hit the enemy's intended target," he continued.
Ukraine and its allies say Russian forces have been forced to reorganize themselves after suffering heavy losses due to persistent Ukrainian resistance.
Regional governors in Kyiv and Chernihiv said Russia was withdrawing from areas in the two provinces, some returning across the border to Belarus and Russia.
Russia says the southeastern region of the Donbas, where it has supported the separatists since 2014, is now the focus of its war effort. The port city of Mariupol which was besieged and bombarded by the Sea of Azov has become the main target there.
Conditions on Friday made it impossible to proceed with plans to evacuate civilians from Mariupol, where tens of thousands of people are trapped, the International Committee of the Red Cross said.
Meanwhile, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths will travel to Moscow on Sunday and then to Kyiv, as the UN pursues a humanitarian ceasefire in Ukraine, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told reporters.
In total, 6,266 people were evacuated from Ukrainian cities via humanitarian corridors on Friday, said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian presidential office.
After failing to capture a major city, Russia has described its troop withdrawal near Kyiv as a goodwill gesture in peace talks. Negotiations resulted in a prisoner swap on Friday, Tymoshenko said. with the release of 86 Ukrainian soldiers. Tymoshenko did not say how many Russian soldiers were released.
VOIR éGALEMENT:
In Irpin, a suburb of the northwestern commuter city of Kyiv that has been one of the main battlegrounds for weeks is now back in Ukrainian hands. Volunteers and emergency workers carried the dead on stretchers out of the rubble.
Lilia Ristich is sitting on a metal playground swing with her young son, Artur. Most people have fled, they chose to stay.
He lists neighbors who have been killed, men "buried there, in the courtyard"; a couple with their 12-year-old son, all burned alive.
"I pray that all of this ends and they never come back," he said. "When you hold a child in your arms, it is an eternal fear."
As previously reported, Ukrainian troops managed to launch a counterattack against Russian troops, recapturing two strategic areas that had been bombarded by the Moscow army, as reported earlier.
British military intelligence said on Friday Ukrainian forces had retaken the villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka south of Chernihiv, located along the main supply route between the city and Kyiv.
As quoted by The National News, the success of recapturing the strategic villages of Sloboda and Lukashivka, is considered to be able to help reduce the attack on Chernihiv.
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