What changed around Kyiv on 29 March 2022

Did the war change direction on 29 March 2022? That day brought face-to-face talks, reports of Russian troop movements away from the capital region, and a missile strike that showed the fighting elsewhere was far from over.

Talks in Turkey

The Ukrainian and Russian delegations held face-to-face peace talks in Turkey on 29 March 2022, the first such meeting in two weeks. Russian officials agreed to cut back military activity substantially in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv while negotiations continued.

A report from 28 March 2022 added another note to the diplomacy. Two Ukrainian negotiators and the sanctioned Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich were reported to have suffered suspected poisoning during earlier talks on the Belarus–Ukraine border. Their health had since improved.

Pullbacks near the capital

On 29 March 2022, Ukrainian and American officials said Russian troops had begun retreating from positions in Kyiv Oblast and Chernihiv Oblast. The United States European Command confirmed the withdrawal and described a major strategy shift.

The movement followed Ukrainian gains reported on 28 March 2022. Irpin's mayor, Oleksandr Markushyn, said Ukrainian Ground Forces had recaptured the city, and Ukrainian troops regained control of Lukianivka, a village 60 kilometres east of Kyiv.

Violence elsewhere

The fighting continued in the south. On 29 March 2022, a missile strike hit the regional administration headquarters in Mykolaiv, killing twelve people and injuring 22 as reported that day. Later accounts put the toll from the strike at at least 37 dead and 34 injured. Mykolaiv was in the middle of a battle that began on the night of 26 February 2022; Russian forces were later repulsed from the city in March.

A day earlier, on 28 March 2022, Russian artillery had damaged a school in Kharkiv.

On the Russian side of the border, a shell struck a temporary Russian military camp near Belgorod, 25 km from the frontier. Russian authorities reported at least four injuries and said the shell was fired from Ukrainian territory. Ukraine denied firing it and attributed the strike to a Russian error.

Wider responses

The United States deployed 200 marines from Marine Air Control Group 28, 10 F/A-18 Hornet fighter jets and an unspecified number of C-130s to Lithuania as part of NATO's response to Russian military aggression in Eastern Europe.

In London, the National Crime Agency seized the 58.5 metre superyacht PHI on the River Thames after the British government sanctioned its unnamed Russian oligarch owner.

There was also a human story from the war's early days. Roman Hrybov, the border guard who answered a Russian warship's demand to surrender Snake Island with a defiant radio reply, was freed in a prisoner swap. Initial reports had erroneously suggested that the 13 border guards on the island had died.

What the day showed

The pullbacks around Kyiv and Chernihiv, the talks and the Russian commitment to scale back activity there all came on the same date. The strike in Mykolaiv, meanwhile, showed that the war continued in other regions, and NATO's deployment to Lithuania showed allied concern about the wider region.