ABC News correspondent records shelling behind him in area Russia promised to reduce attacks

• Russia on Tuesday pledged to scale back military operations around Kyiv and Chernihiv.
• But an ABC News reporter shared footage of himself in Kyiv on Tuesday, with shelling heard in the background.

An ABC News correspondent shared footage of himself in Kyiv with shelling in the background the day after Russia pledged to reduce its attacks around the capital city.

Longman said he was on the outskirts of Kyiv and he could hear shelling in the nearby city of Irpin.

—James Longman (@JamesAALongman) March 30, 2022

"This is an area that residents have been trying to get out of, many of them have been living underground for weeks trying to escape the bombs," he said.

"But crucially this is a neighborhood that Russia says they are going to drastically reduce combat operations. But just listen to that — there's nothing reduced around the combat operations here."

Russia's deputy defense minister, Alexander Fomin, told reporters on Tuesday that Russia's armed forces would "drastically reduce military activity in the Kyiv and Chernihiv direction," claiming the decision was made to help with peace negotiations.

Ukraine and the US had both expressed skepticism about Russia's pledge.

Viasheslav Chaus, the governor of the Chernihiv region, said in a Telegram post on Wednesday that this did not happen, and that "all night long they hit Chernihiv."

Ukraine's President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, also said his citizens were "not naive people" and that "only a concrete result can be trusted."

Russian forces had been trying to capture Kyiv for weeks, but are struggling in the face of staunch Ukrainian resistance.