The governor of Ukraine’s Chernihiv region says there is no let-up in attacks by Russia, despite its pledge to reduce military activity there. The governor, Viacheslav Chaus, told the BBC that he did not believe Russia’s promise. “We’ve already seen that there wasn’t even a single time when their military forces kept their word,” he added. Russian and Ukrainian negotiators made no “breakthroughs” in Tuesday’s peace talks, the Kremlin has said. “What is positive is that the Ukrainian side has at least started to specifically formulating and putting on paper what it is proposing. Until now we had not managed to achieve that,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “As regards the rest, we cannot, put it this way, at present state there have been any breakthroughs, anything very promising,” he said, adding that a lot of work was still to be done.(BBC)…[+]

Shanghai’s Covid lockdown has left thousands scrambling to stock up on supplies, while others quarantine in their offices to keep business running. After weeks of isolated compound lockdowns, the city of 25 million has been split into two. Earlier this week those living in Shanghai’s eastern half were told to stay home, with the western half due to enter a lockdown on Friday. The move comes as the city battles a surge in Omicron Covid cases. The city has reported around 20,000 Covid-19 infections since 1 March, registering more cases in four weeks than in the previous two years of the pandemic. China’s zero-Covid strategy has been increasingly challenged by the highly infectious Omicron variant. Officials in China’s cosmopolitan financial capital had earlier attempted to keep the city running by limiting lockdowns to select neighbourhoods or buildings. But on Sunday authorities announced a mass lockdown that saw the city being split along the Huangpu River. Residents living in the Pudong area, on the river’s eastern bank, were told to stay at home for four days starting on Monday. Puxi, on the western bank, will enter lockdown on Friday. Mass testing is also being carried out to screen all of Shanghai’s residents for the virus.(BBC)…[+]

Russia has announced it will “drastically reduce” military combat operations in two key areas of Ukraine “to boost mutual trust” in peace talks. The decision to scale back operations around the capital, Kyiv, and the northern city of Chernihiv is the first sign of tangible progress in talks since Russia invaded on 24 February. Ukraine has proposed neutrality in exchange for security guarantees. Russia launched the invasion to stop Ukraine joining the Nato alliance. Russian officials said peace talks in Istanbul, Turkey, had moved to a practical stage. Deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin, who was taking part in the talks, told Russian TV that as “Ukraine’s neutrality and non-nuclear status and security guarantees” had progressed, the defence ministry had taken the decision to cut its operations dramatically in the two areas to “create the necessary conditions for further negotiations and for the signing of the aforementioned agreement”. While Russia is focusing on capturing areas of eastern Ukraine and a southern land corridor to Crimea, its military assault on Kyiv has been bogged down for weeks.(BBC)…[+]

Will Smith has apologised to Chris Rock after he slapped him at the Oscars, saying his behaviour was “unacceptable and inexcusable”. “I would like to publicly apologise to you, Chris,” he said in a statement. “I was out of line and I was wrong.” It comes after the Oscars film academy condemned Smith over the incident and announced a formal review. The star slapped Rock in the face on stage after the comic made a joke about the actor’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. Rock had taken aim at Pinkett Smith’s shaved head, a result of the hair-loss condition alopecia. Shortly after, Smith picked up the first Oscar of his career for playing the father of tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams in King Richard.(BBC)…[+]