Summary
We’re closing this blog down now. Thanks for reading. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has renewed his call for more long-range weapons from western allies, as he addressed EU leaders meeting in Brussels. Speaking to the EU summit via video link, the Ukrainian president’s account of the “devastating” scenes he had witnessed where the fighting has been fiercest was said to be emotional and to have had a big impact on the 27 EU leaders and top officials in Brussels listening to him.
Russian leaders should be put on trial for the invasion of Ukraine even if they cannot be arrested and brought to court in person, Kyiv’s top prosecutor said. Gen Andriy Kostin said a planned tribunal for the crime of aggression should hold so-called trials in absentia.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy secretary of Russia’s Putin-chaired security council, said Moscow’s relations with the west have hit an all-time low. Asked whether the threat of a nuclear conflict has eased, he said: “No, it hasn’t decreased, it has grown. Every day when they provide Ukraine with foreign weapons brings the nuclear apocalypse closer.”
Finland’s president, Sauli Niinistö, signed legislation to make his country part of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato). Last year, Finland sought to join the military alliance in response to Russia’s war in Ukraine, and legislation incorporating Nato’s founding treaties was passed in parliament in Helsinki on 1 March.
The UN nuclear agency’s chief said that the situation at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia power plant “remains perilous” after a Russian missile strike this month disconnected the plant from the grid. Europe’s largest nuclear power plant needs a reliable electricity supply to operate pumps that circulate water to cool reactors and pools holding nuclear fuel.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said on Thursday that it had ended rescue attempts in Rzhyshchiv, Kyiv region, where it is now known that nine people died in a suspected Russian drone attack in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reported that on Wednesday shelling in the Donetsk region killed two people and injured four others, while one person was killed and two were wounded in the Kherson region.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukrainian ground forces, said: “The aggressor does not give up hope of taking Bakhmut at any cost, despite the losses in manpower and equipment.” He added that Russia was losing “considerable strength” and that “very soon we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we once did near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliia and Kupiansk”, all areas that Ukraine has previously liberated from Russian occupation.
The UK Ministry of Defence said that “Russia has made gains of up to several kilometres” in the Luhansk region, and that “Russian commanders are likely trying to expand a security zone west from the defence lines they have prepared along higher ground, and integrate the natural obstacle of the Oskil River. They likely seek to recapture Kupiansk, a logistics node.”
Any attempt to arrest Vladimir Putin after the international criminal court (ICC) issued a warrant for the Kremlin chief would amount to a declaration of war against Russia, his ally Dmitry Medvedev said on Thursday, while directly threatening to attack the seat of any government that allowed it to happen.
A video is circulating on social media of the Ukrainian national flag flying from a tall mast in Crimea, a region annexed by Russia in 2014. It appears to have been filmed near the village of Hrushivka.
Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said on Thursday he would discuss a peace plan for Ukraine with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, during an official visit to China next week.
Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, on Thursday spoke against any weakening of sanctions against Russia under a deal to export Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, and called for the G7 to tighten its oil cap to squeeze Russia’s revenue more.
A former New Zealand soldier who drew an online following with his dispatches from the frontline of the Ukraine war has been killed. The death of Kane Te Tai, 38, was confirmed by New Zealand’s foreign ministry Thursday, citing Ukrainian government sources. Te Tai, who fought with the International Legion, is the third New Zealander known to have died in Ukraine.
Updated
Ukraine’s military has now withdrawn its claim Russian troops had left Nova Kahkovka.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces, in a rare retraction, said Russian troops remained in the town on the east bank of the Dnipro River. It said the initial report had been issued “as a result of incorrect use of available data” but gave no details.
Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed governor of Kherson region, had denied the report.
