Humanitarian convoy to Chernihiv hit by Russian shelling: Ukrainian official

A Ukrainian official says that at least one person has been killed and four others have been wounded in the Russian shelling of a humanitarian convoy.

Ukrainian Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova said those who came under the shelling on Thursday were volunteers accompanying a convoy of buses sent to the northern city of Chernihiv to evacuate residents.

She said that the Russian forces besieging Chernihiv have made it impossible to evacuate civilians from the city that has been cut from food, water and other supplies.

Ukraine also reported Russian artillery barrages in and around the northeastern city of Kharkiv.

The Russian shelling continued two days after Moscow announced it would scale back military operations around Kyiv and Chernihiv. NATO's chief said on Thursday this was a regrouping rather than a withdrawal.

"Russia has repeatedly lied about its intentions," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said. At the same time, he said, pressure is being kept up on Kyiv and other cities, and "we can expect additional offensive actions bringing even more suffering."

The southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol and a "corridor" between two eastern towns, Izyum and Volnovakha, are also becoming the key battlefronts in Ukraine, an interior ministry adviser said on Thursday.

Ukrainian forces are preparing for new Russian attacks in the southeast region, where Moscow's guns are now trained after its assault on the capital Kyiv was repelled, President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday.

Five weeks into an invasion that has blasted cities into wastelands, U.S. and European officials said Russian President Vladimir Putin was misled by his generals about the dire performance of Russia's military.

Tough resistance by Ukrainian forces has prevented Russia from capturing any major city, including the capital Kyiv, which it assaulted with armoured columns from the northwest and east.

Moscow says it is now focusing on "liberating" the Donbas region — two southeastern provinces partly controlled by separatists Russia has backed since 2014.

In an early morning video address, Zelensky said Russian troop movements away from Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv were not a withdrawal but rather "the consequence of our defenders' work."

Ukraine was seeing "a buildup of Russian forces for new strikes on the Donbas and we are preparing for that," he said.

That includes Mariupol, once a city of 400,000 people, where most buildings have been damaged or destroyed in four weeks of constant Russian bombardment and siege.