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Russian forces in Ukraine are regrouping to double down on their attacks in the east of the country, according to Nato's Secretary General, BBC reported.

"Russia is trying to regroup, resupply and reinforce," Jens Stoltenberg said.

The UK said Russia was bringing in between 1,200 and 2,000 troops from Georgia as reinforcements.

Moscow said on Tuesday that it would reduce military activity in northern Ukraine and focus on "liberating" the Donbas region in the south-east.

Mr Stoltenberg said Russia's aim of pursuing a military outcome had not changed.

"We see continued shelling of cities and we see that Russia is re-positioning some of the troops, moving some of them around, most likely to reinforce their efforts in the Donbas region," he said, according to BBC.

"At the same time, Russia maintains pressure on Kyiv and other cities. So we can expect additional offensive actions, bringing even more suffering."

Echoing Mr Stoltenberg's remarks, the UK's Defence Secretary Ben Wallace warned that Russia's change in tactics was "not a retreat".

The UK also said bringing in troops from Georgia had not been part of Moscow's original plan.

"It is highly unlikely that Russia planned to generate reinforcements in this manner and it is indicative of the unexpected losses it has sustained during the invasion," the defence ministry tweeted.

Around 20% of Russian troops around Kyiv have started to reposition, according to a US senior defence official.

The official added that the Russians had largely abandoned Hostomel airport, outside of Kyiv, and are also moving away from the Chernobyl nuclear plant.

But they said Russia was keeping the pressure on in the air, with air strikes continuing to fall on the cities of Kyiv and Chernihiv in the north.

Bombs are also falling on towns and cities in the south, which is becoming the key battlefront, according to Ukrainian interior ministry adviser Vadym Denysenko, cited by Reuters news agency.

On Thursday evening Ukraine's air force appealed for more support from Western countries, saying it was operating outdated equipment that was no match for Russia's more advanced systems, had sustained losses and urgently needed modern fighter jets and air defence systems.

The air force urged provision of F-15 or F-16 fighter jets, which it said had the same advanced technology as the latest Russian fighter jets. Previous discussions had centred around Poland providing Russian-made Mig-29s but the plan was eventually dropped, BBC reported.

It also called for the US Patriot or Norwegian Nasams missile systems.

"Truth: Air superiority is the deciding factor in this war. Air superiority has played a key role in all wars since WWII," Ukraine's air force tweeted.

Though US intelligence reports say Russian troops have not made much progress in the east since the invasion began, Russia has said it will now concentrate its efforts on "liberating" the region.

The region is home to the self-declared and Russian-backed people's republics of Luhansk and Donetsk, which are part of Ukraine but which Russia recognised as independent three days before invading.

But Ukrainian troops have "stymied" and "frustrated" Russia's progress in the region, said the US defence intelligence official, according to BBC.

They added it remains to be seen whether the refitting and repositioning of troops will make a difference. But that this could mean the conflict is lengthy and more drawn out.

Russia has told "unfriendly" foreign countries they must start paying for gas in roubles or it will cut supplies, BBC reported.

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree stating buyers "must open rouble accounts in Russian banks" from Friday.

"Nobody sells us anything for free, and we are not going to do charity either - that is, existing contracts will be stopped," the Russian president said.

Mr Putin's demand is being seen as an attempt to boost the rouble, which has been hit by Western sanctions.

His decree means foreign buyers of Russian gas would have to open an account at Russia's Gazprombank and transfer euros or US dollars into it.

Gazprombank would then convert this into roubles which will then be used to make the payment for gas, according to BBC.

Though the order comes into effect for gas exported from Friday onwards, the payments for that gas will not be paid by European buyers until mid-May, Dr Jack Sharples, a research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies told the BBC.

That suggests there may not be an immediate threat to supplies.

Mr Putin said the switch to roubles was meant to strengthen Russia's sovereignty, and it would stick to its obligations on all contracts, if Western nations obliged.

Germany said the change announced by Mr Putin amounted to "blackmail".

Since Russia invaded Ukraine, Western nations have issued economic and trading sanctions on Russia, but the European Union has not placed bans on oil or gas, unlike the US and Canada, as its member nations rely heavily on it.

The EU gets about 40% of its gas and 30% of its oil from Russia, and has no easy substitutes if supplies are disrupted. Meanwhile, Russia currently gets €400m (£340m) per day from gas sales to the bloc and it has no way of rerouting this supply to other markets, BBC reported.

For the Kremlin this is designed to suggest a dramatic escalation in the economic battle between the West and Russia over the invasion of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin has outlined a pathway for the cutting of gas supplies to Europe if Western customers refuse to pay for supplies in the Russian currency the rouble.

However, the market reaction suggests the details of the mechanism mean that, in practice, European customers will just have to change their currency dealers to Gazprombank. That bank has already been left unsanctioned, for the purpose of continuity of energy trade. 

As a result, gas prices remain very high, but did not today shoot into the stratosphere. There should be a workaround. 

As one leading analyst told me, this solution has "saved face" for Putin, who can sound tough on domestic TV. Ultimately, as Russian officials have repeatedly said for decades, Russian supply of energy to the West continued uninterrupted even during the height of the Cold War.

Ultimately, Russia still needs the money for the gas, and still wants to leave the possibility of a market for its main export once a peace deal is signed. However, it is also true to say that the threat of a cut-off has escalated. EU nations have prepared emergency measures to manage demand, and would be more willing to face that now during spring and summer than winter, accident to BBC reported.

The net effect of the mechanism announced is to limit the ability of the West to freeze the revenues they pay to Gazprom, which Putin described as receiving the gas for free.

Some Ukrainian officials have suggested such an approach. Oil and gas dollars and euros continue to help the Kremlin resist an otherwise tough set of financial sanctions.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Friday that his country will be sending armored Bushmaster vehicles to Ukraine to help in its war against Russia, Associated Press reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy specifically asked for them during a video appeal to Australian lawmakers for more aid.

Zelenskyy addressed the Australian Parliament on Thursday and asked for the Australian-manufactured four-wheel-drive vehicles. 

Morrison told reporters the vehicles will be flown over on Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport planes, but he didn’t specify how many Bushmaster vehicles would be sent or when, according to the Associated Press.

“We’re not just sending our prayers, we are sending our guns, we’re sending our munitions, we’re sending our humanitarian aid, we’re sending all of this, our body armor, all of these things and we’re going to be sending our armored vehicles, our Bushmasters as well,” Morrison said.

Russian troops handed control of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant back to the Ukrainians and left the heavily contaminated site early Friday, more than a month after taking it over, Ukrainian authorities said, as fighting raged on the outskirts of Kyiv and other fronts, Associated Press reported.

Ukraine’s state power company, Energoatom, said the pullout at Chernobyl came after soldiers received “significant doses” of radiation from digging trenches in the forest in the exclusion zone around the closed plant. But there was no independent confirmation of that.

The withdrawal took place amid growing indications the Kremlin is using talk of de-escalation in Ukraine as cover while regrouping, resupplying its forces and redeploying them for a stepped-up offensive in the eastern part of the country.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russian withdrawals from the north and center of the country were just a military tactic and that the forces are building up for new powerful attacks in the southeast.

“We know their intentions,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address to the nation. “We know that they are moving away from those areas where we hit them in order to focus on other, very important ones where it may be difficult for us.”

“There will be battles ahead,” he added.

Meanwhile, a convoy of 45 buses headed to Mariupol in another bid to evacuate people from the besieged port city after the Russian military agreed to a limited cease-fire in the area. But Russian forces blocked the buses, and only 631 people were able to get out of the city in private cars, according to the Ukrainian government, according to the Associated Press.

Twelve Ukrainian buses were able to deliver 14 tons of food and medical supplies to Mariupol, but the aid was seized by Russian troops, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said late Thursday.

The city has been the scene of some of the worst suffering of the war. Tens of thousands have managed to get out of Mariupol in the past few weeks by way of humanitarian corridors, reducing its population from a prewar 430,000 to an estimated 100,000 as of last week, but other relief efforts have been thwarted by continued Russian attacks.

A new round of talks was scheduled for Friday, five weeks into the war that has left thousands dead and driven 4 million Ukrainians from the country.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said it had been informed by Ukraine that the Russian forces at the site of the world’s worst nuclear disaster had transferred control of it in writing to the Ukrainians.

The last Russian troops left the Chernobyl plant early Friday, the Ukrainian government agency responsible for the exclusion zone said.

Energoatom gave no details on the condition of the soldiers it said were exposed to radiation and did not say how many were affected. There was no immediate comment from the Kremlin, and the IAEA said it had not been able to confirm the reports of Russian troops receiving high doses. It said it was seeking more information, Associated Press reported.

Russian forces seized the Chernobyl site in the opening stages of the Feb. 24 invasion, raising fears that they would cause damage or disruption that could spread radiation. The workforce at the site oversees the safe storage of spent fuel rods and the concrete-entombed ruins of the reactor that exploded in 1986.

Edwin Lyman, a nuclear expert with the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists, said it “seems unlikely” a large number of troops would develop severe radiation illness, but it was impossible to know for sure without more details.

He said contaminated material was probably buried or covered with new topsoil during the cleanup of Chernobyl, and some soldiers may have been exposed to a “hot spot” of radiation while digging. Others may have assumed they were at risk too, he said.

Early this week, the Russians said they would significantly scale back military operations in areas around Kyiv and the northern city of Chernihiv to increase trust between the two sides and help negotiations along, according to the Associated Press.

But in the Kyiv suburbs, regional governor Oleksandr Palviuk said on social media Thursday that Russian forces shelled Irpin and Makariv and that there were battles around Hostomel. Pavliuk said there were Ukrainian counterattacks and some Russian withdrawals around the suburb of Brovary to the east.