{"id":15184,"date":"2022-04-04T10:18:25","date_gmt":"2022-04-04T09:18:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/?p=15184"},"modified":"2022-04-04T10:55:27","modified_gmt":"2022-04-04T09:55:27","slug":"more-mixed-signals-from-russia-as-ukraine-war-enters-sixth-week","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.worldpolicyconference.com\/fr\/more-mixed-signals-from-russia-as-ukraine-war-enters-sixth-week\/","title":{"rendered":"More Mixed Signals From Russia as Ukraine War Enters Sixth Week"},"content":{"rendered":"
March 31, 20<\/span>22<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Megan Specia,\u00a0<\/span>Anton Troianovski<\/span>\u00a0and\u00a0Steven Erlanger<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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A military funeral for three Ukranian soldiers in Lviv on Thursday.\u00a0<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Mauricio Lima for The New York Times<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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KRAKOW, Poland \u2014 Facing deeper isolation by the day over the\u00a0Ukraine war,\u00a0Russia seemed to slightly recalibrate its stance Thursday, allowing greater humanitarian access to the devastated port city of Mariupol and apparently retreating from a payment confrontation with European gas customers.<\/p>\n

But Western officials said they saw\u00a0little evidence\u00a0to support Russia\u2019s claims that it was greatly reducing its military presence around Kyiv, Ukraine\u2019s capital, and fighting continued unabated in areas around the city on Thursday. In Dnipro, the central city that has become a hub for humanitarian aid to other parts of Ukraine, a Russian attack overnight destroyed an oil terminal, a local official said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRussia maintains pressure on Kyiv and other cities, so we can expect additional offensive actions, bringing even more suffering,\u201d the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said at a news conference.<\/p>\n

Whatever Moscow\u2019s real intentions on the battlefield,\u00a0Russian officials scoffed\u00a0Thursday at American claims a day earlier that subordinates of President\u00a0Vladimir V. Putin, fearing his wrath, were misleading him about how the war was going.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey do not understand President Putin,\u201d said the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov. \u201cThey do not understand the decision-making mechanism and they do not understand the efforts of our work.\u201d<\/p>\n

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A damaged street in Mariupol on Thursday. The city has been cut off from the outside world by heavy Russian bombardment and intense fighting.<\/span>Credit…<\/span>Alexander Ermochenko\/Reuters<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In Mariupol, where the population has, for weeks, been cut off from the outside world by heavy Russian bombardment and intense fighting, a respite appeared possible amid reports that\u00a0a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross<\/a>\u00a0was preparing to try to enter the city. The group hoped to deliver emergency humanitarian aid and begin evacuating residents on Friday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere seems to be a glimmer of hope we might be able to go, so we need to be close,\u201d said Crystal Wells, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross in Geneva.<\/p>\n

Thousands of civilians are believed to have died, and survivors have been trapped in basements without heat or electricity, and desperately short of food, water and other essentials.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n