After weeks of fighting, the Ukrainian army has regained full control of the region around the capital Kyiv, according to government sources.

"Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel and the entire Kyiv region were liberated from the invaders," Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar wrote on Facebook on Saturday.

The Ukrainian government announced a "quick withdrawal" of Russian troops in the north of the country.

In the Kiev suburb of Bucha, numerous bodies were discovered on the streets after the Russian army withdrew.

In the past few days, Russian troops had withdrawn from the suburbs of Irpin and Bucha, north-west of Kyiv, after their failed attempt to encircle the Ukrainian capital.

Damaged houses, wrecked cars

Bucha was devastated by the Russian attacks.

Residential houses were damaged by shell fire and wrecked cars were seen on the streets.

Reporters from the AFP news agency saw at least 20 bodies lying on a single street in Bucha.

The dead wore civilian clothes.

"All these people were shot," Mayor Anatoly Fedoruk said.

The streets of the small town are littered with corpses.

There were cars on the streets in which "entire families were killed: children, women, grandmothers, men".

According to the mayor, 280 people in Bucha had to be buried in mass graves because the three city cemeteries were still within reach of the Russian military.

The Ukrainian government saw the "rapid withdrawal" of Russian troops from the greater Kyiv area and the Chernihiv region further north as evidence of the change in strategy announced by the government in Moscow.

The Russian army now wants to "retreat to the east and south and retain control of large occupied areas there," said Mikhailo Podoliak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

In view of the easing of military pressure in the north, Zelenskyi expected "powerful attacks" in the east, above all on Mariupol, which had been under siege for weeks.

Ukraine now needs "heavy weapons" to advance into occupied areas in the south and east "and push back the Russians as far as possible," said his adviser Podoliak.

More than 100,000 people are stuck in Mariupol

Mariupol has been under massive fire from Russian forces for weeks.

According to Ukrainian information, at least 5,000 people have been killed there since the beginning of the war, and around 160,000 civilians are said to be still stuck in the largely destroyed city.

The humanitarian situation is catastrophic;

people have little access to water, food and electricity.

After a failed evacuation operation on Friday, an ICRC team set out again for Mariupol on Saturday.

In order for the evacuation to succeed, "the parties must respect the agreements and create the necessary conditions and security guarantees," the ICRC demanded.

On the night of Saturday, violent attacks were reported from Kharkiv, the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in the east and from Cherson in the south.

According to Ukrainian sources, important infrastructure was hit in Dnipro and Kremenchuk inland, including the country's largest oil refinery.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it used "high-precision weapons" to destroy fuel depots.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's chief negotiator, David Arachamia, reported progress in the peace talks with the government in Moscow.

Russia has "orally" agreed to Kiev's main demands, Arachamia said on Ukrainian television.

Only with regard to the status of the Crimean Peninsula, annexed by Russia in 2014, there is still no agreement.

In the talks, however, Moscow accepted that a referendum on the neutral status of Ukraine demanded by Russia was "the only way out of this situation".

According to Ukrainian estimates, 20,000 people have been killed since the Russian invasion of the neighboring country began on February 24.

According to the UN, almost 4.14 million people fled the fighting in Ukraine abroad.