Russia-Ukraine War News LIVE Updates: 12 Dead in Airstrike in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv; West Remains Sceptical After Russia Pledges to Deescalate

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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 country’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, reported progress on “the neutrality and non-nuclear status” of Ukraine — two central Russian concerns.

Russia, Fomin said, had decided to “radically, by several times reduce the military activity” around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernigiv.

Zelensky himself sounded a note of cautious optimism following the day’s talks — though he said the “positive” signals “do not drown out the explosions or Russian shells” and vowed in a video address late Tuesday to keep up defence 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 evening Ukraine’s general staff — while confirming Russian units were withdrawing from the Kyiv and Chernigiv regions — said it was most likely a troop rotation intended to “mislead” Ukraine’s military.

At least 12 people were killed and 33 wounded on Tuesday when a Russian missile hit a regional government building in the southern Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv, emergency officials said.

The strike hit the nine-storey building shortly before 9 am local time, destroying the entire central part of the structure.

“The bodies of 12 people have been recovered from the site of the destruction and 33 people have been injured,” Ukraine’s emergencies agency said in a statement on Telegram.

Photos posted by the agency showed rescue workers clearing the rubble and a female medical worker in a red suit helping an injured man lying on a stretcher, his face bloodied.

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