Vladimir Putin has ordered that the Russian border with Ukraine be tightened after a spate of drone attacks while Moscow’s forces pushed to encircle the eastern city of Bakhmut.
Taking Bakhmut, the scene of some of the war’s fiercest fighting, would be Russia’s first major prize in more than six months and open the way to seizing bigger cities in the Donetsk region, one of four regions Moscow seeks to control. Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky has said the situation in Bakhmut is becoming “more and more difficult”.
