Moscow signalled on Friday it was scaling back its ambitions in Ukraine to focus on territory claimed by Russian-backed separatists, while French President Emmanuel Macron announced that EU leaders have agreed for officials in Brussels to make joint gas purchases for the bloc as it struggles with high prices amid the war. Read FRANCE 24's coverage below to see how the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
9:10 pm: Ukrainians fighting to retake Kherson, now 'contested' city
Ukrainian forces have launched a counter-offensive in Kherson, the country's only major city seized by Russian troops, and it is once again "contested", a senior US defense official said Friday.
"The Ukrainians are trying to take Kherson back, and we would argue that Kherson is actually contested territory again," the Pentagon official told reporters.
"We can't corroborate exactly who is in control of Kherson but the point is, it doesn't appear to be as solidly in Russian control as it was before," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
If the Ukrainian forces manage to regain control of the strategic city located at the mouth of the Dnieper, Russian troops around Mikolaiv would be "sandwiched" between Ukrainian forces defending Mikolaiv and those in Kherson, the official said.
8:49 pm: Macron says France, Greece, Turkey working on Mariupol 'humanitarian operation'
President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that France was working with Turkey and Greece on a "humanitarian operation" to evacuate people from the devastated Ukrainian city of Mariupol under attack by Russian forces.
"I will have the opportunity to discuss with President (Vladimir) Putin in the next few hours, but we are going to work with Turkey and Greece to launch a humanitarian operation to evacuate all those who wish to leave Mariupol," Macron said after an EU summit in Brussels.
8:48 pm: Macron says no reason to accept rouble gas payment demands
French President Emmanuel Macron said there was no reason for France to accept a demand from Russia to pay up in Russian roubles for Russian gas.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had said earlier this week that Russia will seek payment in roubles for gas sold to "unfriendly" countries, raising alarm about a possible gas crunch in Europe.
Macron told a news conference in Brussels that "texts show it is forbidden" to make such demands for payments in the rouble.
8:44 pm: Russian strikes kill four at Kharkiv medical facility
Russian strikes targeting a medical facility in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv on Friday killed at least four civilians and wounded several others, Ukrainian officials said.
"This morning, following a bombardment on civilian infrastructure from several rocket launchers, seven civilians were injured, four of them died," police in the eastern city near Russia's border said.
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov accused Russian forces of "indiscriminate" shelling of his city and said that nearly one-third of its 1.5 million residents have had to flee since the war started a month ago.
8:12 pm: EU Commission to get mandate for joint gas purchases
The European Commission will have a mandate to make common energy purchases in order to allow the European Union to get a better grip on its energy supplies and on tackling energy prices, said French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron also told a news conference in Brussels that there was a need to improve the disconnection between the price of electricity from the price of gas.
7:12 pm: Biden compares Russian invasion to Tiananmen Square
Joe Biden compared Russia's invasion of Ukraine to China's crushing of protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989, speaking during a visit to Poland near the border with Ukraine.
Biden also referred to Russian President Vladimir Putin as "a man who, quite frankly, I think is a war criminal", adding: "And I think we'll meet the legal definition of that as well."
Biden spoke at meetings with US soldiers stationed in Poland close to the border and with aid workers helping to deal with the massive refugee crisis caused by the conflict in Ukraine.
7:10 pm: Pope leads global prayer for peace between Russia, Ukraine
Pope Francis led the world's Catholic bishops on Friday in praying for peace between Russia and Ukraine, saying the world had forgotten the tragedies of the 20th century and was still menaced by nuclear war.
Francis presided at a service in St. Peter's Basilica in which he entrusted the protection of all humanity, "especially Russia and Ukraine", to Mary, who Christians believe is the Mother of God and who can intercede with him in heaven.
At about the same time, thousands of bishops in cathedrals and chapels around the world were reading the same prayer in local languages, resulting in one of the most precisely coordinated global Church event in living memory.
In a separate homily before reciting the prayer, Francis spoke of "scenes of death" in which "bombs are destroying the homes of many of our defenceless Ukrainian brothers and sisters" and of "a cruel and senseless war that threatens our world".
6:56 pm: Russian strike hits Ukraine military command centre
Russian missiles hit a military command centre in the city of Vinnytsia in central Ukraine, Kyiv officials said Friday, adding it was unknown if there were any casualties.
"Today at around 4.30 p.m, the Russian occupiers launched a missile strike on the territory of the Air Force Command in Vinnytsia," the Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram. It posted an image of the alleged centre in rubble and said missiles had hit "several buildings, causing significant damage to infrastructure".
6:30 pm: Spotify to suspend service in Russia
Spotify Technology SA said on Friday it will suspend its streaming service in Russia inresponse to the country's new media law.
The audio streaming platform closed its office in Russia indefinitely earlier this month, citing what it described as Moscow's "unprovoked attack on Ukraine."
Russia's new legislation makes it illegal to report any event that could discredit the Russian military.
6:20 pm: Russians say was 'always their intention' to focus on Donbas
The Russians are claiming “it’s always been their intention to focus on Luhansk and Donetsk, self-proclaimed breakaway republics that Russia already recognised as independent before the Ukraine invasion”, said FRANCE 24 Chief International Affairs Editor Robert Parsons in the video below.
6:05 pm: Georgia mourns two fighters killed in Ukraine
Georgia mourned Friday two retired military officers who died fighting in Ukraine, in a war that has reminded Georgians of their own conflict with Russia in 2008.
The full-scale offensive on Ukraine unleashed by the Kremlin a month ago sparked an outpouring of solidarity in fellow ex-Soviet country Georgia, with hundreds of Georgians joining the ranks of the Ukrainian army.
Among them were retired military officers Giorgi Beriashvili and David Ratiani, both 53, who were killed on March 17 near the flashpoint town of Irpin on the outskirts of Kyiv.
5:10 pm: EU leaders struggle for deal on energy crunch fix
European Union leaders struggled to agree on steps to ease the energy market crunch exacerbated by Russia's invasion of Ukraine, seeking difficult compromises on how to limit the impact for hard-hit consumers of soaring gas and oil prices.
Discussions on the second day of a summit in Brussels were "intense," an EU official said, while adding that the leaders of the 27 nations did appear to be moving towards an agreement on some of the points - in particular on joint gas purchases.
Proposals to cap power prices for businesses and households were much trickier, and there was no deal in sight on banning energy imports from Russia, Europe's top gas supplier.
4:48 pm: 'Majority of Americans believe Biden is not tough enough'
“There has been a sort of shift as this war has gone on. Initially there was bipartisan unity to face Russia and unity behind the president– there was unity on what sanctions to take, unity on the fact that the US needed to help the Europeans and help Ukrainians,” FRANCE 24’s Kethevane Gorjestani reports from Washington DC in the video below.
“But now there have been a couple of polls in the past 24 hours showing a majority of Americans believe Biden is not doing enough to support Ukraine and not being tough enough on Russia,” Gorjestani continued.
4:33 pm: UN says 3.7 million have fled Ukraine
Some 3.7 million people have fled Ukraine since Russia's invasion a month ago, the UN said.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, said 3,725,806 Ukrainians had fled the country -- an increase of 50,854 from the previous day's figure. Around 90 percent of them are women and children, it added.
2.2 million refugees have fled for neighbouring Poland while more than half a million have made it to Romania.
4:16 pm: France summons Russian envoy over tweet mocking Europe
Russia's ambassador to France was summoned on Friday to the French foreign ministry over an earlier embassy Twitter post that Paris deemed unacceptable, the Quai d'Orsay said.
The Russian Embassy in Paris on Thursday had posted a picture depicting a body lying on a table called "Europe" with characters representing the United States and European Union jabbing needles into it.
4:15 pm: HSBC steps up scrutiny of Russian clients worldwide
HSBC is shunning prospective Russian clients and declining credit to some existing ones, two sources with knowledge of the matter told Reuters, as the bank seeks to shield itself from Western sanctions against Moscow.
The measures affect HSBC's individual and business customers globally and go further than the bank's previously stated intentions to wind down its relations with lenders such as VTB, which were placed under Western restrictions after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The moves by Europe's second biggest bank show how sanctions aimed at Russia's financial system and its political and business elite are also ensnaring Russian nationals outside the country as lenders seek to avoid falling foul of the restrictions and potentially hefty fines.
4:14 pm: UN says mounting evidence of mass graves in Mariupol
The head of the UN human rights team in Ukraine said that monitors had received more information about mass graves in the besieged port city of Mariupol, including one that appeared to hold 200 bodies.
"We have got increasing information on mass graves that are there," Matilda Bogner told journalists by video link from Ukraine, saying some of the evidence came from satellite images.
3:51 pm: People in Mariupol 'deeply traumatised'
“I’ve been speaking to someone I knew from Mariupol, who left in the 2014 but still has relatives and friends there who he hasn’t been able to contact for days”, FRANCE 24’s Gulliver Cragg reports from Kyiv in the video below.
“He says the news he gets from people who do make it out is that they’re in a really terrible psychological state, deeply traumatised by the destruction of Mariupol.”
3:50 pm: Hungary's Orban rejects Zelensky appeal for weapons, tougher sanctions
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban dismissed Friday an EU summit appeal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for weapons and tougher sanctions against Russia as it would be "against Hungary's interests".
Orban "rejected (Zelensky's) demands at the European Council because they are contrary to the interests of Hungary", said Hungarian government spokesperson Zoltan Kovacs. "Hungary wants to stay out of this war, so it will not allow the transfer of arms and weapons to Ukraine," Kovacs added in a statement.
3:48 pm: Russia warns Europe of gas bills in roubles within days
Russia warned that billing in roubles for billions of dollars of natural gas exports to Europe could be just days away, Moscow's toughest response yet to crippling sanctions imposed by the West for the invasion of Ukraine.
With the Russian economy facing its gravest crisis since the years that followed the break-up of the Soviet Union, President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday hit back at the West, ordering that Russian gas exports should be paid for in roubles.
The Kremlin on Friday said Putin had ordered Gazprom, the world's biggest natural gas company, which supplies 40 percent of Europe's gas, to accept export payments in roubles, and that it had just four days left to work out how.
3:45 pm: Neutral Swiss adopt more EU sanctions on Russia
The Swiss government had adopted more European Union sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, the cabinet said on Friday.
"This means that all measures contained in the EU's fourth package of sanctions have been implemented," it said in a statement, adding it had decided not to implement the EU measure of March 1 suspending the broadcasting of Russian media outlets Sputnik and Russia Today.
3:34 pm: NATO says cannot allow Arctic 'security vacuum' amid Ukraine war
NATO cannot allow a security vacuum to develop in the Arctic, where the alliance sees "growing strategic competition" from Russia and China, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
"We cannot afford a security vacuum in the High North. It could fuel Russian ambitions, expose NATO and risk miscalculation and misunderstandings," Stoltenberg said. "We also see an increased Chinese interest in the region. China has defined itself as a near Arctic state and aims to build a presence here," he added.
3:31 pm: Poland’s Rzeszow an ‘important destination’ for Biden
“There are several reasons why Rzeszow is an important destination for the US president,” FRANCE 24’s Ellen Gainsford reports on the ground in the video below. “There’s a military base on the outskirts of the city that plays host to a large number of NATO troops, including US troops, and we’ve heard that is on his itinerary during his visit. And secondly it’s really on the frontline of the humanitarian crisis on the Polish border.”
3:25 pm: Germany would see Russian oil, gas ban as 'devastating'
It was “pretty clear” even before today that Europe was not going to follow the US in banning Russian fossil fuel imports, noted FRANCE 24’s Chief International Affairs Editor Robert Parsons in the video below.
“We’ve heard the Germans expressing reservations about what it would mean for them if they were suddenly to put a boycott on Russian oil and gas – ‘devastating’ for the German economy, according to Chancellor Olaf Scholz,” Parsons continued.
3:15 pm: Dozens of Ukrainian officials, journalists detained or disappeared, UN says
Dozens of Ukrainian officials, journalists and activists have been detained or forcibly disappeared by invading Russian forces, the UN said Friday, warning that some cases resembled "hostage-taking".
Since Russia invaded Ukraine just over a month ago, the United Nations rights office said it had documented the arbitrary detention and enforced disappearance of 22 local Ukrainian officials, 13 of whom had subsequently been released.
The most famous case was perhaps the mayor of Ukraine's southern city of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, who Ukrainian authorities said was abducted by occupying Russian forces and held for several days before being released.
3:14 pm: US sanctions on China 'not necessary', Yellen says
US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Friday that sanctions against China are "not necessary or appropriate" since its support for Russia following the invasion of Ukraine was still unclear.
"I don't think that that's necessary or appropriate at this point," Yellen said in an interview with CNBC, adding that "senior administration officials are talking privately quietly with China to make sure that they understand our position". She noted Washington "would be very concerned if they were to supply weapons to Russia. Or to try to evade the sanctions that we've put in place on the Russian financial system and the central bank. We don't see that happening at this point".
Yellen also warned that petrol prices could rise further in the United States, where inflation is already at a rate not seen since the 1980s, helping sap Biden's popularity.
2:57 pm: US calls India's position on Ukraine 'unsatisfying'
A senior White House official said on Friday India's position over the crisis in Ukraine has been "unsatisfactory" but was also unsurprising given its historical relationship with Russia.
Mira Rapp-Hooper, director for the Indo-Pacific at the National Security Council, told a panel discussion it was necessary to provide India with alternatives to continued close ties with Russia.
2:55 pm: Russian negotiator says Moscow, Kyiv making limited progress on key issues
Russia and Ukraine are coming closer to an understanding on secondary issues at peace talks but there has been limited progress on the key questions, Moscow negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said on Friday, the Interfax news agency reported.
"Negotiations have been going on all week, from Monday to Friday, in video conference format, and will continue tomorrow," Interfax quoted Medinsky as saying. "On secondary issues, positions are converging. However, on the main political issues, we are, in fact, treading water."
2:49 pm: Russian army says 1,351 soldiers killed
The Russian army on Friday updated its losses in Ukraine to 1,351 soldiers killed and 3,825 wounded, while saying that it had evacuated more than 400,000 civilians and condemning Western supplies of weapons to Kyiv.
A senior defence ministry official, Mikhail Mizintsev, said 419,736 civilians had been evacuated to Russia from the separatist eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as the rest of Ukraine. Of these, more than 88,000 were children, he added.
2:45 pm: Putin compares attacks on Russian culture to Nazi book burnings
President Vladimir Putin on Friday slammed the West for discriminating against Russian culture, which he likened to Nazi supporters burning books in the 1930s.
"Today they are trying to cancel a thousand-year-old country," Putin said during a televised meeting with Russian winners of culture-related prizes.
"I am talking about the progressive discrimination against everything connected with Russia, about this trend that is unfolding in a number of Western states, with the full connivance and sometimes with the encouragement of Western elites," Putin added.
2:33 pm: Russian ambassador sues Italian paper over Putin article
The Russian ambassador to Italy, Sergey Razov, said on Friday he was suing Italian newspaper La Stampa over an article that had raised the possibility of killing President Vladimir Putin.
"Needless to say that this goes against the rules of journalism and morality," Razov told reporters in front of the prosecutor's office in Rome after he had deposited the suit.
On March 22 La Stampa published an analysis headlined "If killing the tyrant is the only option". The piece said if all other options failed to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the only solution might be for someone to kill the president.
2:30 pm: Russia will focus war effort on Donbas
Russia's defence ministry said on Friday that the first phase of its military operation in Ukraine was mostly complete and that it would focus oncompletely "liberating" eastern Ukraine's Donbas region.
The announcement appeared to indicate that Russia may be switching to more limited goals after running into fierce Ukrainian resistance in the first month of the war Russian news agencies quoted the defence ministry as saying that Russian-backed separatists now controlled 93 percent of Ukraine's Luhansk region and 54 percent of the Donetsk region –the two areas that jointly make up the Donbas.
2:23pm: Biden lands in Poland to see US troops, get briefing on humanitarian aid
US President Joe Biden landed in Rzeszow, Poland on Friday to get a firsthand look at international efforts to help some of the millions of Ukrainian refugees fleeing war in their country, and to speak to American troops bolstering NATO's eastern flank.
While at Rzeszow-Jasionka Airport, Biden was to receive a briefing on the humanitarian response to help civilians sheltering from Russian attacks inside Ukraine and to respond to the growing flow of refugees fleeing the country.
2:14 pm: UN rights office says 1,081 civilians killed in Ukraine
The UN rights office said on Friday that it had confirmed 1,081 civilian deaths and 1,707 injuries in Ukraine since the start of the Russian invasion on February 24, adding that the real toll was likely considerably higher.
UN human rights monitors are working to verify reports of additional deaths in places of intense clashes in the regions of Sumy, Kharkiv and Donetsk, where the city of Mariupol is located, the statement said.
2:10 pm: Brazil opposed to kicking Russia out of G20
Brazil is "clearly opposed" to barring Russia from the G20, the foreign minister said, as the US led a push to exclude Moscow from the group over its invasion of Ukraine.
"We've seen initiatives emerge in various international organisations ... to expel or suspend Russia. Brazil is clearly opposed to those initiatives, in line with our traditional position in favour of multilateralism and international law," Foreign Minister Carlos Franca told a Senate session Thursday.
2:08 pm: Oil prices slide as EU decides against Russia ban
Benchmark oil prices slid by 3 percent Friday after European countries decided against a ban on Russian oil imports over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine – but Germany, Europe's biggest economy, said it would drastically slash its energy purchases from Moscow.
Berlin said its own Russian oil imports would be halved by June and coal deliveries stopped by autumn.
1:44 pm: UN rights team says it has received more information on mass graves in Mariupol
The head of the UN human rights team in Ukraine said on Friday that monitors had received more information about mass graves in the besieged port city of Mariupol, including one that appeared to hold 200 bodies.
"We have got increasing information on mass graves that are there," Matilda Bogner told journalists by video link, saying some of the evidence came from satellite images.
1:32 pm: Finland suspends twice-daily train service from Russia’s Saint Petersburg
One of the few remaining routes open from Russia to the European Union is closing down after Finland's railway operator announced the last train from St Petersburg to Helsinki will run on Sunday.
Following Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, the twice-daily Allegro express train was regularly packed with Russians and Finns eager to get out before Western sanctions make leaving all but impossible.
1:24 pm: Russian Orthodox Church says military chaplain killed by Ukrainian shelling
A Russian military chaplain was killed in a Ukrainian rocket attack in Russia's southwest, near the Ukraine border, the Russian Orthodox Church said on Friday.
Oleg Artyomov was serving in the village of Zhuravlyovka in Russia's Belgorod region on Thursday when he "came under shelling from a Ukrainian Smerch (rocket launcher) and died", the Moscow Patriarchate's military department said on social media.
Artyomov's is the first publicly reported death on Russian soil from Ukrainian shelling since President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine on February 24.
12:48 pm: Ukraine war refugee wins Jerusalem marathon
Ukrainian athlete Valentyna Veretska, who fled Russia's invasion of her country and took refuge in Israel, won the Jerusalem marathon on Friday, race organisers said. Veretska claimed the women's title with a time of 2:45:54, before celebrating by draping the Ukrainian and Israeli flags over her shoulders.
The 31-year-old was one of around 40 Ukrainians who took part in the race in Jerusalem's Old City, braving unseasonably cold and wet weather. It was Veretska's second win since October, when she finished first in the Tirana marathon in Albania.
Veretska fled Ukraine with her daughter, crossing into neighbouring Poland before travelling to Israel.
12:10 pm: Russian strikes on Kharkiv kill several civilians, Ukrainian police say
Russian strikes targeting a medical facility in Ukraine's second city of Kharkiv on Friday killed at least four civilians and wounded several others, Ukrainian officials said.
"This morning, following a bombardment on civilian infrastructure from several rocket launchers, seven civilians were injured, four of them died," police in the eastern city near Russia's border said.
11:25 am: Ukraine calls on EU to close Russia, Belarus borders to tighten sanctions
Ukraine on Friday called on the European Union to close land, sea and air connections with Russia and Belarus, to tighten a sanctions package the West imposed over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.
The infrastructure ministry said in a statement it was calling on the bloc to "completely block land and sea connections with Russia and Belarus", as part of proposals to "increase economic pressure" on the countries.
10:24 am: US to supply more liquid natural gas to EU
The United States will supply more liquid natural gas (LNG) to the European Union to help it reduce its reliance on gas supplies from Russia, President Joe Biden said on Friday.
"Today we've agreed on a joint game plan toward that goal while accelerating our progress toward a secure clean energy future," Biden said in a statement.
"This initiative focuses on two core issues, one helping Europe to reduce its dependency on Russian gas as quickly as possible and secondly, reducing Europe's demand for gas overall," he said.
10:16 am: Russia’s strike on Mariupol theatre may have claimed 300 lives, say officials
Ukrainian officials in the strategic port city of Mariupol said Friday some 300 people could have died in last week's Russian strike on a theatre where hundreds were sheltering.
“From eyewitnesses, information is emerging that about 300 people died in the Drama Theatre of Mariupol following strikes by a Russian aircraft,” Mariupol city hall wrote on Telegram.
9:50 am: Germany says it will halve oil imports, end coal deliveries from Russia
Germany said Friday it was drastically slashing its energy purchases from Russia, with oil imports to be halved by June and coal deliveries to end by the autumn.
"In recent weeks, together with all relevant players, we have made intensive efforts to import less fossil energy from Russia and broaden out our supply base," said Economy Minister Robert Habeck.
9:43 am: Volunteers drive across Europe to help Ukraine refugees
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more than 2 million refugees have crossed into Poland. Hundreds of volunteers have also turned up at Poland's border to provide aid. FRANCE 24's Ellen Gainsford, Pauline Godart and Raid Abu Zaideh report.
9:13 am: Ukrainian and Russian forces continue fighting for Kyiv suburbs
Battles between Ukrainian and Russian forces for Kyiv's northwestern satellite towns of Irpin, Bucha and Hostomel are ongoing, FRANCE 24's Gulliver Cragg reports.
8:43 am: Ukraine hopes to open evacuation corridor from Mariupol
Ukraine hopes to open a safe corridor to evacuate civilians from the besieged city of Mariupol on Friday in private vehicles, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said.
8:39 am: Missiles hit Ukrainian military unit on outskirts of Dnipro
Rescuers were searching for survivors among the debris after two missiles hit a Ukrainian military unit on the outskirts of the city of Dnipro on Friday, causing "serious destruction", regional governor Valentyn Reznychenko said on social media.
8:18 am: UK says Ukrainian forces have reoccupied towns east of Kyiv
Ukrainian forces have re-occupied towns and defensive positions up to 35 kilometres east of Kyiv, helped by Russian forces falling back on overextended supply lines, Britain's defence ministry said on Friday.
7:12 am: Zelensky urges halt to Russia's bombardment
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that Ukrainians "need to achieve peace" and halt Russian bombardment that has forced millions to flee to countries like Poland, where US President Joe Biden is due to receive a briefing later today on the humanitarian crisis.
On the heels of Western leaders' summits in Brussels that aimed to show a united front against Russia's month-long invasion of its neighbour, Biden will travel to the eastern Polish town of Rzeszow, less than 80 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, and meet experts involved in the refugee response. He will also meet members of the US 82nd Airborne Division.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and REUTERS)
