Britain wants Russian forces to fully withdraw from Ukraine and will judge provisional steps towards a possible peace deal by actions rather than words, a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said.
Asked if Johnson was encouraged by Russia’s promise to scale down military operations around Kyiv and northern Ukraine, his spokesperson said “we will judge Putin and his regime by his actions, not by his words”.
They added that there has been some reduction in Russian bombardment around Kyiv, largely because Ukrainian forces have been “successfully pushing back the Russian offensives” in the northwest of the city.
However, they said fighting continues and there’s heavy bombardment in Mariupol and other areas.
“So we don’t want to see anything less than a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukrainian territory.”
As we reported earlier, the US Secretary of State said America had not seen “signs of real seriousness” from Russia about pursuing peace since it invaded Ukraine.
Source: BBC