One person was killed and four seriously wounded when Russian forces shelled an evacuation convoy outside the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv, officials in Kyiv said today.
"Five buses came under direct fire from the enemy as they tried to get to the surrounded city to evacuate people," Ukraine's ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said on Telegram.
"There were only civilian volunteers on the buses. As a result of the shelling, one person is dead, four were gravely injured."
Ms Denisova said Russian forces were "denying any chance of evacuating peaceful citizens from besieged Chernihiv, essentially holding tens of thousands of people hostage without food, water or heat."
She said Russian troops were continuously shelling residential neighbourhoods.
Chernihiv, a city of some 280,000 people before the war, has seen the most ferocious bombardment, second only to Mariupol in the south, which has been practically destroyed.
Chernihiv mayor Vladyslav Atroshchenko said earlier this week that the city had lost 350 people during the war, most of them civilians.
It comes as the Ukrainian Defence Ministry said that Russian forces had killed 148 children, fired 1,370 missiles and destroyed 15 Ukrainian airports since the start of the invasion.
Russia promised yesterday to "radically" scale back fighting around Chernihiv and Kyiv, but shelling has continued there.
"The enemy is moving around the territory of the region. Can we call this a withdrawal of troops? I'm not sure," regional governor Vyacheslav Chaus said in a video address on Telegram.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said the situation in the south and the Donbas region remained extremely difficult and reiterated that Russia was building up forces near the besieged city of Mariupol.
And in a rare sign of internal dissent, Mr Zelensky also said in a video address that he had sacked two senior members of the national security service on the grounds they were traitors.
Mr Zelensky said the Russians were so evil and so keen on destruction that they seemed to be from another world, "monsters who burn and plunder, who attack and are bent on murder".
He said Ukrainian forces had pushed back the Russians from Kyiv and Chernihiv.
"There will be battles ahead. We still need to go down a very difficult path to get everything we want," he said.
"The situation in the south and in the Donbas remains extremely difficult."
Russia's refocusing of its military efforts on the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine could herald a "longer, more prolonged conflict" as Ukrainian forces put up fierce resistance in the eastern region, a senior US defence official said today.
"It's been fought over now for eight years," the official said of the heavily contested Donbas region.
"The Ukrainians know the territory very, very well," the official said. "They have a lot of forces still there and they're absolutely fighting very hard for that area."
"So just because (the Russians) are going to prioritise it and put more forces there or more energy there doesn't mean it's going to be easy for them," the official said.
"It could be a harbinger of a longer, more prolonged conflict here as the Russians try to gain some leverage, gain some progress, and perhaps gain some chips at the bargaining table."
Five weeks into an invasion that has blasted cities into wastelands and created more than four million refugees, US and European officials have said Russian president Vladimir Putin was misled by his generals about the dire performance of Russia's military.
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The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it was bringing a convoy of aid to reach the besieged Black Sea port of Mariupol.
Tens of thousands of people have been trapped there for weeks under bombardment without food, water or heat.
Russia said it is scaling back its offensives near the capital and the north and now focusing on "liberating" Donbas.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said it is not seeing a pull-back of Russian forces and expects "additional offensive actions".
"According to our intelligence, Russian units are not withdrawing but repositioning. Russia is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce its offensive in the Donbas region.
"At the same time, Russia maintains pressure on Kyiv and other cities. So, we can expect additional offensive actions, bringing even more suffering."
Mariupol, once a city of 400,000 people, has been destroyed by four weeks of relentless bombardment and siege. The United Nations believes thousands of people have died there.
More: Russia's invasion of Ukraine
Previous attempts to bring aid into besieged parts of the city have failed and civilians have only been able to escape if they have cars.
Ukraine said 45 buses were on their way today and the ICRC said it would evacuate civilians from tomorrow if the warring parties agreed on safe passage.
"It's desperately important that this operation takes place. The lives of tens of thousands of people in Mariupol depend on it," said ICRC spokesperson Ewan Watson in Geneva.
The past week has seen a Ukrainian counter-offensive, recapturing destroyed suburbs of Kyiv and strategic towns and villages in the northeast and southwest.
Russia calls its decision to pull back near the capital a goodwill gesture for peace talks. Kyiv and its allies say that is an excuse to try to regroup following its losses.
Evidence of Ukraine's successful counterattack could be seen in Trostyanets, now in Ukrainian hands after being recaptured this week.
The town in eastern Ukraine controls a road leading out of Sumy, a major city which had been under siege.
Burnt-out Russian tanks and abandoned ammunition littered the wreckage of the town. Dazed civilians and a few Ukrainian soldiers roamed the muddy streets.
