Moscow warns fuel depot attack new snag for talks

KYIV (Ukraine), April 1 (AFP): Moscow on Friday accused Kyiv of carrying out its first air strike on Russian soil, in a new blow to hopes of any deescalation in President Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine.

Peace talks between Ukrainian and Russian officials resumed via video, but Moscow warned that the helicopter attack on a fuel depot in the town of Belgorod would hamper negotiations.

Kyiv would neither confirm nor deny it was behind the attack, with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba saying he did "not possess all the military information".

After over a month of a military campaign that has reduced parts of Ukraine to rubble, Moscow said in peace talks earlier this week it would scale back attacks on the capital Kyiv and the city of Chernigiv.

But Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia was consolidating and preparing "powerful strikes" in the country's east and south, joining a chorus of Western assessments that Moscow troops were regrouping.

"This is part of their tactics," said Zelensky in a late-night address.

"We know that they are moving away from the areas where we are beating them to focus on others that are very important... where it can be difficult for us," he said.

In particular, he warned, the situation in the country's south and east was "very difficult".

"In Donbas and Mariupol, in the Kharkiv direction, the Russian army is accumulating the potential for attacks, powerful attacks," he said.

Fears grew that the theatre of war may yet grow, as Russia for the first time on Friday accused Ukraine of an air strike with helicopters hitting energy giant Rosneft's fuel storage facility in the western town of Belgorod, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) from the border with Ukraine.

Refusing to confirm or deny the assault, the Ukrainian defence ministry said Kyiv is currently engaged in an operation to repel the enemy, and "this does not mean that Ukraine should assume responsibility for all errors in calculation, all the catastrophe and events on Russian soil."

But the consequence of Russia's accusation was swiftly made clear by the Kremlin. More on page 14