Ukraine has survived the "most difficult winter" in its history in enduring months of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure, the country's foreign minister said on Wednesday, as Russian forces launched a wave of attacks on the city of Bakhmut. Read our blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+1).
This live page is no longer being updated. For more of our coverage of the war in Ukraine, click here.
10:10pm: Russian forces launch relentless attacks on Bakhmut
Russian forces carried out relentless attacks on Bakhmut on Wednesday, trying to encircle and storm the eastern Ukrainian city and claim their first major prize for more than half a year after some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Moscow of throwing waves of men into battle in Bakhmut with no regard for their lives, and said the fighting was “most difficult” but the city’s defence essential.
“The enemy continues to advance. The assault on the city of Bakhmut continues,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a Facebook post on Wednesday evening.
10:06pm: Ukraine may consider 'strategic' withdrawal from Bakhmut, Zelensky aide says
The Ukrainian military might pull troops back from the key stronghold of Bakhmut, an adviser to Ukraine's president said Wednesday in remarks that suggested Russia could capture the city that has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance.
Kremlin forces have waged a bloody, months-long offensive to take Bakhmut, a city of salt and gypsum mines in eastern Ukraine that has become a ghost town.
“Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options. So far, they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back," Alexander Rodnyansky, an economic adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told CNN.
“We’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.”
8:52pm: ‘We are keeping all fronts under control,’ Zelensky says
Ukrainian forces are keeping all sections of the front under control, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.
He spoke just hours after Ukraine’s military command said Russian troops were advancing near the key eastern city of Bakhmut, focus of heavy attacks by pro-Moscow forces.
8:32pm: Hungarian PM’s party backs ratification of Finland, Sweden NATO bids
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz party will finally back the ratification of Finland and Sweden’s bid to join NATO.
The announcement comes after calls by Hungary’s president and a government official to swiftly endorse expansion of the Western defence alliance in response to Russia’s year-long invasion of neighbouring Ukraine.
Sweden and Finland applied last year for membership in the transatlantic military pact after Russian forces swept into Ukraine.
However, all 30 NATO members must ratify the applications, and Sweden has faced objections from Turkey for harbouring what Ankara considers to be members of a terrorist groups.
6:33pm: EU’s Borrell proposes extra €1 billion for Ukraine for ammunition
The EU is looking to allocate an additional €1 billion euros for urgently needed ammunition for Ukraine as Kyiv burns through vast numbers of shells, according to a proposal sent out to EU member states by the bloc’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
The money would come from the bloc’s European Peace Facility that has already dedicated €3.6 billion towards arming Ukraine since the start of the invasion last February, AFP reported, adding the proposal will be discussed by EU defence ministers at a March 7-8 meeting in Stockholm.
Ukraine’s Western backers are scrambling to ramp up supplies of 155-millimetre shells as they warn Kyiv faces critical shortages in the face of a grinding Russian offensive. European officials estimate that Ukrainian forces are using up to 7,000 shells per day, while Moscow’s troops are firing around 50,000.
4:24pm: Russians now attacking Bakhmut ‘from both north and south’
The situation for the Ukrainian forces defending the eastern city of Bakhmut has become increasingly complicated in the past few days, FRANCE 24’s correspondent Gulliver Cragg reports, saying the Russians have now managed to surround the city enough to attack it from both the north and the south.
“It’s like a horseshoe shape,” he said of the Russian encirclement, adding also that the two roads that the Ukrainian army has been using to move in and out of the city “are coming under heavy fire all the time”.
Cragg said although Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has said his army will defend the city for as long as it takes, “privately, a lot of Ukrainian service people believe it’s only a matter of time” before Bakhmut falls.
Watch the full report in the video below:
2:58pm: China and Belarus call for Ukraine ceasefire, talks
The presidents of China and Belarus have joined forces to call for a ceasefire and negotiations to bring about a political settlement to the Ukraine conflict.
The joint call came in a meeting in Beijing between Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russia, and his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
That amounted to an endorsement of a Chinese 12-point peace proposal issued Friday that calls for the territorial integrity of all countries to be respected. The vague proposal does not say what would happen to the regions Russia has occupied since the invasion or give details on how the peace process should proceed, and has failed to gain much support.
2:38pm: Germany to increase ammunition production
Germany will ramp up its ammunition production while ensuring its defence industry has enough replacement parts and capacity for repairs after one year of providing military support to Ukraine, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has announced.
“This will remain an ongoing task because we have said that we will support Ukraine for as long as necessary”, the German leader said following a meeting with Latvian Prime Minister Krisjanis Karins in Berlin.
1:55pm: Finland lawmakers greenlight NATO entry
Finland's parliament has voted overwhelmingly in favour of joining NATO, ahead of ratifications from Hungary and Turkey, increasing the likelihood it will enter the alliance before Nordic neighbour Sweden.
Passing the bill does not mean that Finland will automatically join NATO after ratification by Turkey and Hungary, but it puts in place a deadline for how long it can wait for its neighbour.
The government's chancellor of justice, Tuomas Poysti, said that after the bill is approved by the parliament, the president can wait a maximum of three months to sign it.
Turkey announced Monday that negotiations with Finland and Sweden would resume on March 9, after talks with Sweden were dropped over a row about protests held in Stockholm, including a burning of the Koran in front of Turkey's embassy.
1:15pm: Russian assaults meet 'furious' resistance in Bakhmut
Ukrainian forces are fiercely resisting Russian attempts to seize the eastern city of Bakhmut and are throwing extra reserves into the battle, Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of Russia's Wagner mercenary force, has said.
Prigozhin's men have spearheaded the assault in eastern Ukraine for months with Moscow regarding Bakhmut as a useful stepping stone to seize bigger cities like Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
>> Wagner Group’s bloody year in Ukraine: From murder squad to cannon fodder
Ukrainian commanders have warned in recent days that the situation on the ground is getting much harder as Russia steps up its attempts to encircle Bakhmut. The city would be Moscow's first major prize for more than half a year after some of the bloodiest fighting of the war.
"The Ukrainian army is throwing extra reserves into Artyomovsk and trying to hold the town with all their strength," Prigozhin said in a short audio message released by his press service, referring to Bakhmut by its Soviet-era name. "Tens of thousands of Ukrainian army fighters are putting up furious resistance. The bloodiness of the battles is growing by the day," he added.
11:15am: Ukraine says 'survived most difficult winter in our history'
Ukraine has "survived" a months-long onslaught of Russian strikes on critical infrastructure throughout winter, Ukraine's foreign minister said as he marked the first day of spring in Kyiv.
Since October Russia has been pummelling key energy facilities in Ukraine with missiles and drones, disrupting water, heating and electricity supplies to millions of people.
"On March 1, 2023, (Russian President Vladimir) Putin suffered his fifth major defeat since his full-scale invasion – Ukraine defeated his winter terror," Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said in a statement.
"We survived the most difficult winter in our history. It was cold and dark, but we were unbreakable."
8:05am: Russia amends censorship laws to punish criticism of Wagner
Russia has brought new law amendments to parliament that further strengthen the country's censorship laws, envisaging up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces and voluntary military organisations such as the Wagner Group.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group that is trying to storm Ukraine's Bakhmut, complained in January that there are bloggers and social media channels that discredit his fighters who can't be punished under existing laws.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the Duma, Russia's lower house of parliament, said that "any public dissemination of knowingly false information about the forces" will be punishable, according to the amendments to the criminal code.
"As well as public actions aimed at discrediting the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, volunteer formations, organisations and persons who are facilitated in the implementation of tasks assigned to the ... Armed Forces," would be punishable, Volodin wrote on the Telegram messaging platform.
6:15am: Blinken warns Central Asia of dangers from war in Ukraine
US President Joe Biden's administration has pledged to support the independence of five Central Asian nations, in a not-so-subtle warning to the former Soviet states that Russia’s value as a partner has been badly compromised by its year-old war against Ukraine.
In Kazakhstan for meetings with top Central Asian diplomats, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said no country, particularly one that has traditionally been in Moscow’s orbit, can afford to ignore the threats posed by Russian aggression to not only its territory but to the international rules-based order and the global economy.
In all of his discussions, Blinken stressed the importance of respect for “sovereignty, territorial integrity and independence”.
Blinken is due in New Delhi later today alongside Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov for a G20 meeting, with Ukraine and tensions with China set to overshadow attempts by host India to forge unity among the world's top economies.
A meeting is seen as unlikely between the two men, who have not been in the same room since a G20 meeting in Bali in July when, according to Western officials, Lavrov walked out.
2:15am: Fighting around Bakhmut intensifying, says Zelensky
Russian forces have carried out sustained attacks on the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut in their quest for a breakthrough in the year-long war, with Ukraine's military describing the situation there as "extremely tense".
"The most difficult part, as before, is Bakhmut and the fighting that is essential for the city's defence," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address, adding that "the intensity of the fighting is only increasing".
>> Ukraine's Bakhmut: Inside the frontline city
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP & Reuters)
