Some Russian units suffering heavy losses in Ukraine had been forced to return home and to neighboring Belarus, British military intelligence said a day after Russia promised to scale down military operations around Kyiv and another city. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reacted with skepticism to the offer made by Russia during negotiations in Istanbul aimed at de-escalating a conflict now in its fifth week. His forces have halted the invasion on most fronts, and some analysts noted that Russia’s promise to reduce fighting mostly covered areas where it has been losing ground, even as civilians remained trapped in besieged cities in the […]