KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukrainian troops moved cautiously to retake territory north of the country's capital on Saturday, using cables to pull the bodies of civilians off streets of one town out of fear that Russian forces may have left them booby-trapped.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that departing Russian troops were creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed." His claims could not be independently verified.
Associated Press journalists in Bucha, a suburb northwest of Kyiv, watched as Ukrainian soldiers backed by a column of tanks and other armored vehicles used cables to drag bodies off of a street from a distance. Local residents said the dead -- the AP counted at least six -- were civilians killed without provocation by departing Russian soldiers.
"Those people were just walking and they shot them without any reason. Bang," said a Bucha resident. "In the next neighborhood, Stekolka, it was even worse. They would shoot without asking any question."
The town was the site of a major Ukrainian ambush of a Russian armored column in the first days of the war, and one street was blocked by dozens of charred tanks and trucks.
Despite that setback, the Russians had captured Bucha and held it for about a month. They executed a half-dozen members of the Territorial Defense Force -- a volunteer army that many Ukrainians joined when the war started -- leaving the bodies in a heavily mined part of town, said Varvara Kaminskaya, 69.
RUSSIANS PULL BACK
The Ukrainians have advanced at least an additional 15 miles to the northwest of Bucha, where they now fly Ukrainian flags over former Russian checkpoints.
Ukraine and its Western allies reported mounting evidence of Russia withdrawing its forces from around Kyiv and building its troop strength in eastern Ukraine.
Russian forces that were intent on overwhelming Kyiv at the war's start with tanks and artillery retreated under fire across a broad front Saturday, leaving behind them dead soldiers and burned vehicles, according to witnesses, Ukrainian officials, satellite images and military analysts.
The withdrawal suggested the possibility of a major turn in the six-week war: the collapse, at least for now, of Russia's initial attempt to seize Kyiv and the end of its hopes for the quick subjugation of the nation.
Moscow has described the withdrawal as a tactical move to regroup and reposition its forces for a major push in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine. While there are early indications that the military is following through on that plan, analysts say it cannot obscure the magnitude of the defeat.
"The initial Russian operation was a failure, and one of its central goals -- the capture of Kyiv -- proved unobtainable for Russian forces," Michael Kofman, director of Russian studies at CNA, a research institute in Arlington, Va., said Saturday.
Kofman added that the Russian army had lost about 2,000 pieces of equipment that were destroyed, captured or abandoned, including about 350 tanks.
"According to our information, they are running away from all areas around Kyiv," said Sgt. Ihor Zaichuk, commander of the 1st Company of the 2nd Azov Battalion in the Ukrainian army, which fought in Bucha.
"They can say on their own television stations, if they want, that they are the second most powerful army in the world," he said. "But they aren't anymore."
He cautioned, however, that the Russians might return. "Only their commanders know if they will be reequipped and return." Even as cars lined up on some roads, making their way back into Kyiv, workers were building new defenses from heavy logs.
Elsewhere in Ukraine, Russian attacks continued unabated, and the Pentagon has cautioned that the formations near Kyiv could be repositioning for renewed assaults.
The visible shift did not mean the country faced a reprieve from more than five weeks of war or that the more than 4 million refugees who have fled Ukraine will return soon. Zelenskyy said he expects departed towns to endure missile and rocket strikes from afar and for the battle in the east to be intense.
In his nightly video address Saturday, the Ukrainian leader said the country's troops were not allowing the Russians to retreat without a fight: "They are shelling them. They are destroying everyone they can."
Russia, Zelenskyy said, has ample forces to put more pressure on Ukraine's east and south.
"What is the goal of the Russian troops? They want to seize the Donbas and the south of Ukraine," he said. "What is our goal? To defend ourselves, our freedom, our land and our people."
MARIUPOL'S PLIGHT
Moscow's focus on eastern Ukraine also kept the besieged southeastern city of Mariupol in the crosshairs. The port city on the Sea of Azov is located in the mostly Russian-speaking Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian troops for eight years. Military analysts think Russian President Vladimir Putin is determined to capture the region after his forces failed to secure Kyiv and other major cities.
The International Committee of the Red Cross had hoped to evacuate Mariupol residents Saturday but had not yet reached the city. A day earlier, local authorities said the Red Cross was blocked by Russian forces.
An adviser to Zelenskyy, Oleksiy Arestovych, said that Russia and Ukraine had reached an agreement to allow 45 buses to drive to Mariupol to evacuate residents "in coming days."
The Mariupol City Council said earlier Saturday that 10 empty buses were headed to Berdyansk, a city 52.2 miles west of Mariupol, to pick up people who managed to get there on their own. About 2,000 made it out of Mariupol on Friday, some on buses and some in their own vehicles, city officials said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine's deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, said 765 Mariupol residents on Saturday used private vehicles to reach Zaporizhzhia, a city still under Ukrainian control that has served as the destination for other planned evacuations.
Mariupol has been surrounded by Russian forces for more than a month and suffered some of the war's worst attacks, including on a maternity hospital and a theater that was sheltering civilians. About 100,000 people are believed to remain in the city, down from a prewar population of 430,000, and they face dire shortages of water, food, fuel and medicine.
Zelenskyy said a significant number of Russian troops were tied up in Mariupol, giving Ukraine "invaluable time ... that is allowing us to foil the enemy's tactics and weaken its capabilities."
The city's capture would give Moscow an unbroken land bridge from Russia to Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014. But its resistance also has taken on symbolic significance during Russia's invasion, said Volodymyr Fesenko, head of the Ukrainian think tank Penta.
"Mariupol has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance, and without its conquest, Putin cannot sit down at the negotiating table," Fesenko said.
About 500 refugees from eastern Ukraine, including 99 children and 12 people with disabilities, arrived in the Russian city of Kazan by train overnight. Asked if he saw a chance to return home, Mariupol resident Artur Kirillov answered, "That's unlikely, there is no city anymore."
In towns and cities surrounding Kyiv, signs of fierce fighting were everywhere in the wake of the Russian redeployment. Destroyed armored vehicles from both armies lay in streets and fields along with scattered military gear.
Ukrainian troops were stationed at the entrance to Antonov Airport in the suburb of Hostomel, demonstrating control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war.
Inside the compound, the Mriya, one of the biggest planes ever built, lay wrecked underneath a hangar pockmarked with holes from the February attack.
"The Russians couldn't make one like it so they destroyed it," said Oleksandr Merkushev, mayor of the Kyiv suburb of Irpin.
Irpin has seen some of the fiercest battles, and Merkushev said Russian troops "left behind them many bodies, many destroyed buildings, and they mined many places."
A prominent Ukrainian photojournalist who disappeared last month in a combat zone near the capital was found dead Friday in the Huta Mezhyhirska village north of Kyiv, the country's prosecutor general's office announced. The prosecutor general's office attributed Maks Levin's death to two gunshots allegedly fired by the Russian military and said an investigation was underway.
Elsewhere, at least three Russian ballistic missiles were fired late Friday at the Odesa region on the Black Sea, regional leader Maksim Marchenko said. The Ukrainian military said the Iskander missiles did not hit the critical infrastructure they targeted in Odesa, Ukraine's largest port and the headquarters of its navy.
Ukraine's state nuclear agency reported a series of blasts Saturday that injured four people in Enerhodar, a southeastern city that has been under Russian control since early March along with the nearby Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant. Ukraine's human-rights ombudsman said that the four were badly burned when Russian troops fired light and noise grenades and mortars at a pro-Ukraine demonstration.
Meanwhile, the head of Ukraine's delegation in talks with Russia said Moscow's negotiators informally agreed to most of a draft proposal discussed during face-to-face talks in Istanbul last week, but no written confirmation has been provided. However, Davyd Arakhamia said that he hopes that draft is developed enough so that the two countries' presidents can meet to discuss it.
POPE SLAMS 'POTENTATE'
Pope Francis said Saturday that he was considering a possible visit to the Ukrainian capital and blasted the leader who launched a "savage" war, delivering his most pointed denunciation yet of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
In his remarks in Malta, Francis didn't cite Putin by name, but the reference was clear when he said "some potentate" had unleashed the threat of nuclear war on the world in an "infantile and destructive aggression."
"We had thought that invasions of other countries, savage street fighting and atomic threats were grim memories of a distant past," Francis told Maltese officials on the Mediterranean island nation at the start of a weekend visit.
Francis has to date avoided referring to Russia or Putin by name, in keeping with the Vatican's tradition of not calling out aggressors to keep open options for dialogue. But Saturday's criticism of the powerful figure responsible for the war marked a new level of anger for the pope.
"Once again, some potentate, sadly caught up in anachronistic claims of nationalist interest, is provoking and fomenting conflicts, whereas ordinary people sense the need to build a future that will either be shared or not be at all," he said.
Francis told reporters that a possible visit to Kyiv was "on the table," but no dates have been set or trip confirmed. The mayor of the Ukrainian capital had invited Francis on March 8 to come as a messenger of peace along with other religious figures, but has recently warned even healthy city residents who fled that the city is still endangered by Russian hostilities.
Francis also said the war had pained his heart so much that he sometimes forgets about the pain in his knees. Francis has been suffering for months from a strained ligament in his right knee.
Information for this article was contributed by Yuras Karmanau, Nebi Qena, Nicole Winfield, Andrea Rosa and staff members of The Associated Press and by Andrew E. Kramer and Neil MacFarquhar of The New York Times.
A Ukrainian serviceman checks the dead body of a civilian for booby traps in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Anti tank mines are displayed on a bridge in Bucha, in the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Ukrainian servicemen stand while checking bodies of civilians for booby traps, in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A Ukrainian soldier looks at a damaged bridge in Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine’s capital region, retreating troops are creating a “catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and “even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A man and child ride on a bicycle as bodies of civilians lie in the street in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
A Ukrainian serviceman walks by an Antonov An-225 Mriya aircraft destroyed during fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces on the Antonov airport in Hostomel, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. At the entrance to Antonov Airport in Hostomel Ukrainian troops manned their positions, a sign they are in full control of the runway that Russia tried to storm in the first days of the war. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Ukrainian servicemen climb on a fighting vehicle outside Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday. (AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)
Ukrainian soldiers walk next to destroyed Russians armored vehicles in Boucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
A woman holds food items she received after a convoy of military and aid vehicles arrived in the formerly Russian-occupied Kyiv suburb of Bucha, Ukraine, Saturday, April 2, 2022. As Russian forces pull back from Ukraine's capital region, retreating troops are creating a "catastrophic" situation for civilians by leaving mines around homes, abandoned equipment and "even the bodies of those killed," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Saturday.(AP Photo/Vadim Ghirda)