Putin Is Using Peace Talks 'As a Breather'—Ukraine Government Adviser

An adviser to the Ukrainian government has said Russian President Vladimir Putin is using peace talks between the two countries as a "breather" and suggested he is covertly mobilizing his forces.

Anton Gerashchenko, adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, took to Twitter on Wednesday as Russia launched new attacks in the Chernihiv region despite saying it would scale down military action there.

Peace talks between Russia and Ukraine have been ongoing and Russian officials indicated on Tuesday that a meeting between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky could be possible as part of those negotiations.

However, Gerashchenko said on Wednesday that Putin was determined to destroy Ukraine, while the Kremlin said there had been no "breakthroughs" in talks on Tuesday.

"Putin is using the talks as a breather," Gerashchenko tweeted. "For covert mobilization and regrouping. He won't make concessions."

"During the negotiations, Ukrainian cities continued to be bombed. After negotiations, massive rocket attacks were carried out almost throughout the entire territory!" he said.

"Putin has not abandoned the goal of destroying Ukraine," Gerashchenko added in another tweet.

"He gave the order to destroy cities, as he does with Mariupol. Now the same is happening with Chernihiv. Encirclement, bombing, total humanitarian catastrophe. Cities are completely blocked, without food, light, medicines," he wrote.

Viacheslav Chaus, governor of Chernihiv, told the BBC on Wednesday that Russia had not kept its word when it said it would reduce military activities in the area.

"They attacked Nizhyn and Chernihiv. Mostly Chernihiv. Again, part of the civilian infrastructure was destroyed," Chaus said.

"Chernihiv still has no electricity, water supply and heat. It won't be easy to restore this infrastructure. None of the military buildings were targeted last night. They kept attacking only civilian infrastructure," Chaus added.

Those claims had not been independently verified when Chaus spoke to the BBC.

In a call with French President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday night, Putin reportedly said that Russian shelling of the besieged city of Mariupol would only stop once Ukrainian forces had surrendered.

Officials at the Élysée Palace said that Putin agreed to "think about" a proposal to evacuate the city that was presented to the Russian president by France, Turkey, Greece and several humanitarian groups.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov indicated on Wednesday that talks between Russia and Ukraine had yet to make substantial progress.

"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," 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.

Newsweek has asked the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.