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The governor of Chernihiv region in Ukraine has said there is no let-up in attacks by Russia, despite its pledge to reduce military activities in the region.
The governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told the BBC that he did not believe Russia’s promise, as the number of people who have fled Ukraine surpassed four million according to the United Nations.
“We’ve already seen that there wasn’t even a single time when their military forces kept their word,” Chaus added.
Russian and Ukrainian negotiators made no “breakthroughs” in Tuesday’s peace talks, the Kremlin has said.
“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,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry 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, adding that a lot of work was still to be done.
Meanwhile the United Nations High Commission for Refugees on Wednesday said the the number of Ukrainians fleeing abroad had reached 4,019,287.
More than 2.3 million have arrived in Poland, but many have travelled onward to other countries or back into Ukraine.
Aid workers say the numbers have eased in recent days as many people await developments in the war. An estimated 6.5 million people have also been displaced from their homes within the country.
The British government said on Wednesday it had issued 25,500 visas to Ukrainians under schemes set up to bring in refugees after Russia attacked Ukraine last month.
Data from the Home Office showed that 22,800 visas had been given under the Ukraine family scheme that allows applicants to join family members in the UK, while 2,700 were offered under the sponsorship scheme which permits refugees with a named sponsor to enter.
The data on Wednesday also showed that 28,300 had applied for the sponsorship scheme, while the overall applications stood at 59,500.
