Ukraine told not to back down from ‘bully’ Putin amid Russian withdrawal from key airfield near Kyiv

Britain has warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to remain strong in the face of Russian aggression amid fears other allied leaders could push him to agree a rushed peace deal advantageous to Putin.

Progress towards a ceasefire seemingly got started earlier this week when the Kremlin announced it would pull back some of its troops from Kyiv and Chernihiv as negotiations progressed in Turkey. 

But government officials are now concerned that US President Joe Biden, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz may encourage Zelensky to give up significant concessions to reach a peace deal as soon as possible. 

A senior government source told The Times yesterday that the aforementioned allied leaders appeared ‘over-eager’ to secure a peace deal, which could see Putin enjoy weaker sanctions and avoid persecution as a war criminal among other concessions, in return for an end to hostilities in Ukraine.  

‘Some of our allies may be too eager for [Zelensky] to settle,’ the source said, before adding: ‘Ukraine needs to be in the strongest possible position militarily before those talks can take place.’

Zelensky meanwhile is said to have expressed worry to Boris Johnson over Russia’s apparent scale-back of military activity in key regions and posited that Russia’s negotiators may be feigning progress in peace talks to buy time for fighting forces to regroup and reposition.

It comes after Russian forces withdrew from a series of positions around the Ukrainian capital, including Hostomel airbase which is thought to be a key strategic position, and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant which they had held since day one of the invasion.

In his daily video address yesterday evening, Zelensky said the sight of Russian troops retreating was heartening for all Ukrainians, but appeared confident that Russia will simply refocus its military might after regrouping and urged his forces not to let up.

‘We know their intentions. We know what they are planning and what they are doing,’ the Ukrainian leader said. 

‘We know that they are moving away from those areas where we hit them in order to focus on other, very important ones where it may be difficult for us.

‘We all want to win,’ Zelensky added. ‘But there will be battles ahead. We still have to go through a very difficult path ahead to get everything we are striving for.

‘We endured much more than the enemy expected. They said three or five days. They thought that this would be enough for them to seize our entire state. And it’s already 36. And we are standing. And we will continue to fight.’

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg last night voiced his agreement with the assessment of Russia’s tactics: ‘According to our intelligence, Russian units are not withdrawing but repositioning. 

‘Russia is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas region. At the same time, Russia maintains pressure on Kyiv and other cities. So we can expect additional offensive actions bringing even more suffering.’ 

The Ukrainian President also said he spoke with European Council President Charles Michel and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan yesterday, while his adviser spoke with US national security adviser Jake Sullivan and advocated for more military and monetary support. 

Zelensky’s mistrust of the Kremlin and rousing speech encouraging his countrymen to keep fighting comes after Boris Johnson told him not to back down.

The Prime Minister told Zelensky that Putin is a ‘liar and a bully’ who would use talks to ‘wear you down and force you to make concessions’ during a phonecall just days ago.

Johnson has said Western allies must intensify sanctions on Russia until all the Kremlin’s forces withdraw entirely from Ukraine, including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014. 

But government officials appear to have questioned the resolve of other allied leaders to support the Ukrainian war effort.

Zelensky himself previously criticised German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on several occasions, saying that he was ‘mistaken’ in his handling of the situation.

The Ukrainian president said Scholz’s judgment was clouded by his country’s reliance on Russian gas and his earlier refusal to allow even foreign country’s to deliver German-supplied weapons to Ukraine’s armed forces.

He also accused French President Macron of being ‘afraid’ of his Russian counterpart. 

Macron has perhaps been the Western leader most willing to speak with Putin – the pair have shared frequent phonecalls in the weeks before and since the start of the invasion – but no common ground has yet been reached. 

A fresh round of peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegates are set to begin today, though Zelensky has maintained that face-to-face negotiations with Putin may be the best way to bring about an end to the conflict.

Russian forces appeared to leave the village of Hostomel and the nearby airbase on the outskirts of Kyiv after more than a month of fighting.

The airbase – located a mere 12 miles from Kyiv city centre – played host to one of the biggest skirmishes so far in the early days of the invasion, and is thought to be a key strategic position for Russia’s forces to occupy should they want to launch an all out assault on the Ukrainian capital.

The land changed hands several times amid fierce fighting in late February and early March, before Russian forces ultimately overwhelmed the defenders and seized control.

But after the nearby town of Irpin was retaken in a Ukrainian counter attack earlier this week, the Kremlin’s troops today appeared to shut up shop.   

Further north, Russian soldiers also withdrew completely from the region around Chernobyl nuclear power plant in what appears to be another victory for the Ukrainian armed forces.

But Ukrainian and US defence officials have speculated the troops are unlikely to be withdrawing from the conflict altogether, and warned that the Kremlin’s soldiers were likely resupplying before being redeployed to other battle zones.

A US defence official told The Telegraph: ‘Just because they’re going to put more energy there doesn’t mean it’s going to be easy for them.

‘We have continued to see unit cohesion issues, command and control problems, problems with faulty leadership.

‘We continue to believe that this is a repositioning. We certainly haven’t seen any indications that any of these troops are going back home, or that they’re being taken away from the fight forever.’

Ukraine‘s state nuclear company Energoatom announced yesterday afternoon that the Chernobyl nuclear power plant is now back under the control of Ukrainian forces for the first time since the war began on February 24. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meanwhile said the Russian forces which were in control of the Chernobyl nuclear plant have ‘in writing, transferred control’ of the facility to Ukrainian personnel.

The UN’s nuclear watchdog added that it was in close consultations with Ukrainian authorities on sending a first assistance and support mission to Chernobyl in the next few days. 

Ukrainian authorities said that three convoys of Russian forces had left the site toward Belarus, with a small contingent of remaining troops preparing to leave. 

Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said the Russian troops who dug trenches in the forest nearby the plant ‘voluntarily received such doses of radiation that the consequences will be explained to them by doctors in special protective suits.’ 

A Ukrainian official overseeing the exclusion zone around Chernobyl backed up Vereshchuk’s claims, saying that several Russian soldiers were transported to Belarus to receive treatment for radiation poisoning.