Russia continues to pound Kyiv, other Ukrainian cities despite pledge to scale back

Russian forces bombarded areas around Kyiv and another city just hours after pledging to scale back military operations in those places to help move peace negotiations along, Ukrainian authorities said Wednesday.

The shelling — and intensified Russian attacks on other parts of the country — tempered optimism about any progress in the talks aimed at ending the punishing war.

The Russian military's announcement on Tuesday that it would de-escalate near Kyiv, the capital, and Chernihiv to "increase mutual trust" was met with deep suspicion from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the West.

Soon after, Ukrainian officials reported that Russian shelling hit homes, stores, libraries and other civilian sites in and around Chernihiv and on the outskirts of Kyiv.

Russian troops also stepped up their attacks around the eastern city of Izyum and in the eastern Donetsk region after redeploying some units from other areas, the Ukrainian side said.

Olexander Lomako, secretary of the Chernihiv city council, said the Russian announcement turned out to be "a complete lie."

"At night, they didn't decrease but vice versa increased the intensity of military action," Lomako said.

"Civilian infrastructure facilities, libraries, shopping centres, many houses were destroyed in Chernihiv," said Chernihiv governor Viacheslav Chaus, adding there were also strikes in Nizhyn, about 100 kilometres to the south.

Of Russia's statement that it would cut back its military activity, he said: "Do we believe that? Of course not."

Oleksandr Pavliuk, head of the capital region military administration, said on Wednesday that there were 30 Russian shellings of the residential areas and civilian infrastructure in the Bucha, Brovary and Vyshhorod regions around Kyiv over the previous 24 hours.

In Kyiv, staff at a children's hospital are dealing with an influx of seriously wounded children, on top of young patients being treated for other illnesses and disease.

Okhmatdyt Children's Hospital press secretary Anastasia Magerramova told CBC News that she and the doctors have moved into the hospital, working under the threat of bombings every day.

"Rockets fly over the children's hospital. People die every day. And we see it every day," she told Heather Hiscox. "We see wounded children,  wounded people, our doctors see terrible things every day. Bullets in children's bodies, shrapnels in children's legs, heads and ribs."

Magerramova said she is documenting what is happening because she wants people around the world to know what is happening in 21st-century Ukraine.