This blog is closing now. Thank you for reading. You can see the rest of our Ukraine coverage here.
Summary
It’s almost 2am in Kyiv, Ukraine, and here’s where things stand on what is now the 95th day of Russia’s invasion:
- Russia continues to bombard areas of Donbas with shelling and seize more territory in Ukraine’s east. Russia’s defence ministry claims troops have captured the strategically important city of Lyman and several other smaller towns and encircled Sievierodonetsk, which Ukraine denies.
- Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a Saturday night television address that conditions in Donbas are “indescribably difficult”. He thanked Ukrainian defenders holding out in the face of the onslaught.
- Zelenskiy also conceded that, while he is certain his country will take back all the land Russia has seized since its 24 February invasion, other territory, such as Crimea, which Russia took in 2014, cannot be recovered by force. “I do not believe that we can restore all of our territory by military means. If we decide to go that way, we will lose hundreds of thousands of people,” he said.
- Russia’s Tass news agency says president Vladimir Putin on Saturday signed into law a measure scrapping the upper age limit for military recruits in the face of mounting losses in Ukraine. UK intelligence estimated this month Russia had lost about a third of its ground forces.
- Officials in the south eastern port city of Mykolaiv said at least one person was killed, and at least six injured, in Russian shelling. Two rounds landed in courtyards of high-rise buildings, and one shell fell close to a kindergarten, CNN reported.
- Boris Johnson and Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed concerns over food supplies in a phone call.
- Vladimir Putin spoke with French president Emmanuel Macron and German chancellor Olaf Scholz and according to the Kremlin he told them that continuing arms supplies were “dangerous”, warning “of the risks of further destabilisation of the situation and aggravation of the humanitarian crisis”. Russia said it was willing to discuss ways to make it possible for Ukraine to resume shipments of grain from Black Sea ports.
- Spain is sending a battery of surface-to-air missiles and around 100 troops to the Nato forward presence mission in Latvia, joining around 500 compatriots already present in the Baltic state, El País reported.
