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KYIV, Ukraine — After a month of intense fighting near Kyiv, some Russian military units are withdrawing through the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone to Belarus to regroup, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday, suggesting the Russian army was using the site of the defunct reactor for logistics.
The Ukrainian military’s statement about the partial pullback of Russian troops toward Chernobyl came as another sign that the Russian attack on Kyiv, the capital, has largely stalled in chaotic, inconclusive battles raging for weeks now in several mostly destroyed suburban towns.
The Ukrainian military said an unspecified number of units of Russia’s 35th Combined Arms Army, a Russian military term for a large formation, were being pulled back to regroup after suffering losses in the fighting. It said several units were pulling back to the Chernobyl area and then crossing into Belarus, about 10 miles away. It is possible, the statement said, that after the regrouping and strengthening of the units, they will be redeployed in a renewed effort to encircle Kyiv.
There was no way to independently confirm the Ukrainian statement, but it was consistent with what Western intelligence agencies have said about the fighting to the northwest of Kyiv.