Putin's gas threat as Ukraine, West dismiss de-escalation claim

Russia threatened Thursday to turn off its gas taps to Europe, opening up a new front in its war in Ukraine amid growing scepticism over Moscow's claim it is scaling back its onslaught.

Over a month into Russia's invasion of its neighbour, Vladimir Putin's troops have devastated cities like Mariupol with shelling, killing at least 5,000 people in the port city alone. 

But they have struggled to take any significant territory. 

Moscow insisted things were going to plan as it said this week it would scale back attacks on capital Kyiv and the northern city of Chernigiv.

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has dismissed the promise as a red herring, and US President Joe Biden said he was "sceptical."

Instead, the US and NATO shared Zelensky's reading that Moscow may be seeking to regroup and resupply for its offensive in the eastern Donbas region.

Russia has moved about 20 percent of its troops from around Kyiv after failing to capture the city, which continues to be targeted by Russian airstrikes, Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said.

"It's not exactly clear where they're going to go," he said, "but we don't see any indication that they're going to be sent home."

He said the "best assessment" is that the troops are "going to be repositioned, probably into Belarus, to be refitted and resupplied and used elsewhere in Ukraine."

He noted that Russia has said it plans to "reprioritize" its operations in the Donbas area.

Highlighting Russia's underestimation of Ukraine's dogged defence, Biden said there was some indication that Putin was out of touch with the situation on the ground.

Western intelligence has warned the Russian leader's advisers may be "afraid to tell him the truth" about battlefield losses or the damage that sanctions have wrought on the country's economy.

But Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov rejected the assessments, saying Western officials "don't understand President Putin, they don't understand the mechanism for taking decisions and they don't understand the style of our work".

Biden was notably cautious.