Closing summary
It is just after 8.15pm in Kyiv, and that concludes today’s Ukraine war live blog. Thank you for following along. Here is a summary of today’s events:
Kyiv said it has repelled “more than 130 enemy attacks” over the past day as Russian troops continue attempts to surround Bakhmut.
The death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city Zaporizhzhia on Thursday has risen to 13, a local official said on Sunday.
A woman and two children were killed in Russian mortar shelling of a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office said on Sunday.
Bakhmut’s deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko told CNN evacuations from the frontline have dropped to five to 10 people each day, a decline from up to 600 people leaving the city when evacuations were at their peak.
Ukraine MP Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told Sky News on Sunday that tens of thousands of Ukrainian children could have disappeared in what she described as “genocide”. Klympush-Tsintsadze said the children were potentially deported to Russia.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday that Ankara is working hard to extend the UN-backed Black Sea grain initiative. A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman indicated Moscow is unhappy with aspects of the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion.
Latvia’s prime minister said Western states delivering fighter jets to support Ukraine defending itself against Russia is “only a question of time”.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz told CNN it is “necessary” for Russian president Vladimir Putin to understand he will not win the Ukraine war so negotiations to end the conflict can begin. “If you look at the proposal of the Ukrainians, it is easy to understand that they are ready for peace,” he added.
The latest intelligence briefing from the UK’s Ministry of Defence says recent evidence suggests an increase in “close combat” in Ukraine, probably due to Russia’s shortage of “munitions”. It also refers to Russian mobilised reservists being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only “firearms and shovels”. These shovels are likely to be the outdated MPL-50 entrenching tools used in hand-to-hand combat.
Two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military, two US officials told Reuters. Washington remains silent as to whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv.
Top commanders of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine have briefed Russia’s defence minister on the current situation and action plans, his ministry said on Sunday.
The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov Regiment in south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. The Guardian could not independently verify this.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz said it is “necessary” for Russian president Vladimir Putin to understand he will not win the Ukraine war so negotiations to end the conflict can begin.
“My view, it is necessary that Putin understands that he will not succeed with this invasion and his imperialistic aggression – that he has to withdraw troops,” Scholz said in a CNN interview that aired Sunday. “This is the basis for talks.”
“If you look at the proposal of the Ukrainians, it is easy to understand that they are ready for peace,” he added. “There must be something done. This has to be done by Putin.”
When asked whether any deal can be made to end the war – including the possibility of Ukraine not retaking Crimea or parts of the Donbas region – Scholz said no decision will be taken without Kyiv’s input.
“We told [Ukraine] that they can go for membership into the European Union,” he said. “They are working to make progress in all the criteria that are important for this. I think they know that we are ready to organize a certain way of security guarantees for the country, in times of peace, to come but we are not there yet.”
On Friday, Scholz visited the White House to meet with president Joe Biden, who praised the chancellor for Germany’s “critical military support” to Ukraine.
Russia has indicated it is unhappy with aspects of the Black Sea grain deal after Turkey announced it is “working hard” to extend the initiative, Reuters reports.
On Wednesday, Moscow said it would only agree to extend the initiative if its own agricultural producers’ interests are taken into account, a position reiterated on Sunday by Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova.
“If this agreement is equal, then we have always fulfilled our part and are going to fulfill it in all the agreements,” she said according to Russian newswire TASS.
Zakharova added that Russia would oppose “goading and machinations”.
Brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July, the Black Sea Grain Initiative allowed grain exports from three Ukrainian ports. The agreement was extended in November and, unless an extension is agreed upon, will expire on 18 March.
Death toll rises to 13 following Thursday rocket strike on Zaporizhzhia - officials
The death toll of Thursday’s rocket strike on a five-storey apartment block in the city of Zaporizhzhia has risen to 13, according to a Ukrainian official.
Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council, said in an update on Telegram Sunday:
Unfortunately, the number of people who died as a result of the rocket attack on March 2 has already increased to 13. Among them is a very small child.
Following Russia’s shelling of the high-rise residential building, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, posted on Telegram Thursday that “people were sleeping at home, but for terrorists, residential buildings are also ‘military targets.’”
According to the update, five people have been reported missing and four people remain in hospital.
As of 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) Sunday, rescuers in Zaporizhzhia continued “to search for people under the rubble and dismantle dangerous elements of the building around the clock,” Kurtiev added.
On the day of the strike, Ukrainian authorities said a pregnant woman was among the people rescued from the building.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called for the country to be confident about modernising before a two-day cabinet meeting which will tackle topics including climate policy, the war in Ukraine and digitisation, Reuters reports.
Scholz told reporters on Sunday outside Meseberg castle near Berlin:
We will talk about how a society that has so much on the agenda can become and remain confident, because the basis for doing anything is to think that one is capable of it.
He said topics for discussion included investments by steel and chemical companies in a shift to climate-friendly operations and the opportunities posed by artificial intelligence (AI).
He added:
Germany will be the country that modernises its economy at fast speed in such as way that we will be able to operate free of carbon, and it will be a globally successful export country with well-paid jobs.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who also arrived for talks with the cabinet on Sunday, was “a good friend of the German government” and would talk about how to create a “geopolitically self-assured Europe”, Scholz added.
Intense fighting has continued in and around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as both Kyiv and Moscow seemingly struggle with ammunition shortages and mounting casualties.
Russian oligarch, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who controls the mercenary Wagner force that is leading the Russian offensive in Bakhmut, warned late on Saturday that if his men were forced to withdraw, it could lead to a collapse of the entire Russian frontline.
Prigozhin has complained that the Russian ministry of defence is not supporting Wagner’s efforts in terms of men and ammunition.
In a video address on Sunday, Prigozhin said:
If the private mercenary force Wagner retreats from Bakhmut, the whole front will crumble … to the Russian borders and maybe further.
Wagner is the cement … we are drawing the entire Ukrainian army on ourselves, breaking them and destroying them.
A top Ukrainian commander, Volodymyr Nazarenko, described the situation in the city as “hell” in an interview with Ukraine’s Kyiv24 on Sunday, but said that they had stabilised the frontline and that Russian forces were still on the outskirts.
Nazarenko said that Russian forces lacked ammunition and were shelling the city chaotically. But, likewise, Ukrainian forces told the BBC in February that they were also running out of firepower.
Russian forces now occupy areas on three sides of the city to the east, north and south – and there is only one road connecting the city with Ukrainian-controlled territory. However, the Washington-based thinktank, the Institute for the Study of War, said the Russians were unlikely to be able to encircle the city soon as their advances were still “slow and gradual”.
Read the full report here.
Updated
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Updated
Summary
The time is just after 3.15pm in Kyiv. Here is a summary of events so far.
Kyiv said it was holding off attacks from Russian troops still attempting to surround Bakhmut. The Ukrainian general staff said “more than 130 enemy attacks” had been repelled over the past day adding: “The enemy continues its attempts to encircle the town of Bakhmut.”
The death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in southern Ukraine on Thursday has risen to 11, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Saturday.
A woman and two children were killed in Russian mortar shelling of a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office said on Sunday.
Bakhmut’s deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko has told CNN evacuations from the frontline have dropped to just five to 10 people each day compared with up to 600 who were leaving the city when evacuations were at their peak.
Ukraine MP Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday that tens of thousands of Ukrainian children could have disappeared, potentially deported to Russia in what she described as “genocide”.
Former chief of the general staff Gen Lord Richard Dannatt has said Ukraine could potentially mount a successful counter-offensive in late spring or early summer and that there could be a “decisive outcome” on the battlefield “this year”.
Western states delivering fighter jets to support Ukraine defending itself against Russia is “only a question of time”, Latvia’s prime minister has said.
The latest intelligence briefing from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) says recent evidence suggests an increase in “close combat” in Ukraine, probably due to Russia’s shortage of “munitions”. It also refers to Russian mobilised reservists being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only “firearms and shovels”. These shovels are likely to be the outdated MPL-50 entrenching tools used in hand-to-hand combat.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday that Ankara is working hard to extend a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion.
Two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military, two US officials say, as Washington remains mute on whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv, Reuters reports.
Top commanders of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine have briefed Russia’s defence minister on the current situation and action plans, his ministry said on Sunday.
The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov Regiment in south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. The Guardian could not independently verify this.
Updated
Bakhmut evacuations reduced to as few as five a day, deputy mayor says
Bakhmut’s deputy mayor has said evacuations from the frontline have dropped to just five to 10 people each day compared with up to 600 who were leaving the city when evacuations were at their peak.
Oleksandr Marchenko told CNN: “The enemy blows everything to the ground, strikes at multi-story buildings, and the residential sector. There are air raids, artillery shelling, mortar shelling. The enemy is striking the city with everything they can.
“There is no way we can get there.”
Approximately 4,000 to 4,500 people are still in Bakhmut and Marchenko said it was difficult to persuade them to leave as most of them “fear having nowhere to go and nothing to go with.”
Four medical workers remain in the city, he said.
The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov Regiment in southeastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday.
The ministry did not elaborate on the attack, in its daily update on what Moscow terms the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The Guardian could not independently verify the account.
The Azov Regiment, which had far-right and ultra-nationalist origins and is now a unit of Ukraine’s national guard, garnered international attention for its resistance to the Russian siege of Mariupol’s vast steelworks last year.
Woman and two children killed in mortar shelling in Kherson, Ukraine official says
A woman and two children were killed in Russian mortar shelling of a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office said on Sunday.
“Mortar shelling of Poniativka village in Kherson region. A private house was hit,” Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram messaging app, Reuters reports.
“Russian terrorists continue to kill civilians,” he said, providing no additional details of the attack.
Kherson was occupied by Russian troops from the early days of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine until its recapture by Kyiv’s forces in November.
Since its liberation, the city has regularly been shelled from Russian positions across the Dnipro river.
More from Ukraine MP, Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze.
She has spoken of the urgent need for support for Ukraine’s army, telling Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday:
You know, with all really serious gratitude to what we have been receiving from our partners in the West, we still have to ensure that there is a clear sustainability of all those weapons that are being provided to Ukraine and the quality/quantity of weapons as well as the urgency of their delivery to Ukraine, that’s exactly what matters the most at this particular moment.
She said the morale and bravery of the Ukrainian forces are “still there” but added:
We are very much dependent on the instruments and on the variety of instruments that we can use in order to both plan our counter offensives and also be efficient in our defence of of the parts of our territory.
Ukraine continues to hold off attacks on Bakhmut, says military
Kyiv said it was holding off attacks from Russian troops still attempting to surround Bakhmut, a now-destroyed eastern Ukrainian city that Moscow has been trying to capture for months.
Ukraine has vowed to defend “fortress Bakhmut” but it has faced Russian troops determined to take the city that has turned into a political prize as the battle drags on.
The Ukrainian general staff said “more than 130 enemy attacks” had been repelled over the past day including in Kupiansk, Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiivka.
It said on Sunday:
The enemy continues its attempts to encircle the town of Bakhmut.
Bakhmut has been mostly reduced to rubble during the longest and bloodiest battle of the invasion, Agence France-Press reports.
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukrainian forces, said on Saturday the situation was “difficult but under control” in the city he described as a “priority target for the enemy”.
There is fighting in and around the city, the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said, warning that Ukrainian supply routes were narrowing.
“The Russians may have intended to encircle Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, but the Ukrainian command has signalled that it will likely withdraw rather than risk an encirclement,” ISW said on Saturday.
Updated
'Tens of thousands' of Ukrainian children could have been deported to Russia - Ukraine MP
Ukraine MP Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze has said tens of thousands of Ukrainian children could have disappeared, potentially deported to Russia in what she described as “genocide”.
She told Sky’s Sophy Ridge on Sunday:
We have about 13,000 cases that are confirmed that Ukrainian children have been deported to different parts of the Russian Federation.
However, we also have information about many more of those that are counted in tens of thousands. But we just do not have that the official kind of recording of those ... and this is part of the genocide that the Russian Federation is conducting against Ukrainian nation.
Because turning children, abducting them, and turning children into different nationality by spreading them around the Russian Federation and actually giving them to to Russian families, that is just another trace of genocide that is ongoing right now in the centre of Europe.
Klympush-Tsintsadze, the chair of the parliamentary committee on EU integration, said they have been able to return about 100 Ukrainian children to their families with the help of human rights groups and other organisations.
Speaking about how the children had been separated from their families, including instances where some children were even adopted, she explained:
Some of them [the children] have been going through the filtration camps with their parents where they were separated from the parents. Some of them have been taken to so called summer camps or vacation camps for a week from their parents and then never, never returned. And they were even some of them were even given already for adoption to Russian families, as if they didn’t have their own families back in Ukraine.
Klympush-Tsintsadze added that the full picture would not be known until all Ukrainian territories were “liberated”.
I think the the scope of these absolutely tragic activities that are being carried out by the Russian authorities will learn only after we will be able to liberate all the territories of Ukraine.
And that is something that those people who are suggesting peaceful territories do not understand: the suffering, the tragedies, the tortures, the abductions, deportations, you know, all the territories that are right now occupied by the Russian Federation…and we have to ensure that those people are liberated by the Ukrainian armed forces.
On Bakhmut she said the Russian army had suffered “incredible” human losses.
Unfortunately, the Russian Federation did not give up on the plans that they had with regard to Bakhmut. They are still pushing on that particular part of the Ukrainian territory. And I think the approach our military have been using there with holding on to that particular city is trying to deplete the Russian Federation’s army as they are suffering an incredible number of human losses and I assume that Ukrainian military management is also looking into possibility to withdraw the troops should the the losses of our armed forces become unbearable.
Former Chief of the General Staff Gen Lord Richard Dannatt has said Ukraine could potentially mount a successful counter-offensive in late Spring or early Summer.
He said:
I think there’s every prospect that the Ukrainians can mount a successful counter offensive … late spring, early summer, and provided that’s planned properly and seen through and we continue to give them as much equipment and ammunition as they need, there is a chance of having some decisive outcome on the battlefield this year.
…I’m not alone in believing that a few decisive blows struck at certain points along that very extended front on the Russian army could well have the effect of breaking the morale of the Russian soldier and breaking the back of the Russian army.
You don’t have to defeat an army in detail everywhere on the battlefield. You’ve just got to convince enough soldiers that they’ve lost and when they think they’ve lost, they have lost.”
On Bakhmut he said:
Strategically, it’s not very significant, but it’s achieved its aim of effectively being the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken, and therefore it makes complete sense for the Ukrainians now, to withdraw to a more defensible line and continue the battle there.
When asked about the level of support the West had given Ukraine, he said:
To be frank, I don’t think we’ve done enough. We need to do as much as we possibly can to ensure that this war is concluded this year.”
On the subject of Putin, he said it could be disaffected senior generals who topple him and see him swept out of the Kremlin.
I’d like to think that if the counter-offensive by the Ukrainians is sufficiently well planned, supported and executed, that Putin won’t be in a position to do too much decision making himself that if his army crumbles and runs, that I think there’s quite likely that he’ll be swept out of the Kremlin as well.
He added:
And you’ll also have to ask the question, which everybody does, is, well if it’s not going to be Putin and the Kremlin, who is it going to be? Well, to be honest, I don’t really know the answer to that question. But what I would say is, I think the group of people, the group of leaders, who are most disaffected in Russia at the present moment, are the senior generals.
They’ve seen Putin totally interfere with a war they probably don’t largely agree with. They realise that their weaponry is distinctly inferior to that of the West. And that’s largely through corruption in the Russian defence procurement process. So I could see General Gerasimov, the chief of the General Staff, who’s now been put in charge and overall command in Ukraine itself to be the one, if he could make a sufficiently sensible plan and have the moral courage to see it through, it could be the generals that topple Putin and push him out of the Kremlin.
There’s going to be a lot of change in Russia over the next 12 months. I’ve got no doubt.
Updated
After avoiding criticism of the authorities at the start of the war, Ukrainian journalists have begun reporting allegations of corruption by officials again. But wartime censorship and the army’s role in protecting their country from an existential threat has made reporting on the military a challenge.
Journalist Yuriy Nikolov was leaked evidence that army food procurement contracts had been inflated in January. But conscious of not wanting to harm the war effort, he said in an interview with Ukrainska Pravda that he went to great lengths not to publish them.
But when he approached defence officials with the findings and found their response “was not what it should be”, he said he sensed that the matter was not going to be pursued officially and decided he had to run the story.
In the contracts, several food staples were as much as three times the supermarket price, with a single egg costing the equivalent of 37p. The payment for the contract was due on 1 February. “I knew I had to publish them before the payment was made,” said Nikolov. “For this [much] money, they could buy weapons. If that much was actually stolen, we could lose the war [if it carried on].”
Nikolov said that he and other investigative journalists paused their activities at the beginning of the war and had gradually resumed work in the autumn. “I will say that during the invasion, I have turned down many stories,” he said.
The contracts’ publication in late January by the news site ZN,UA was a tipping point, along with the news on the same day that a deputy infrastructure minister had been arrested for siphoning aid money intended to buy generators.
Sources in the presidential administration said Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was furious, according to Ukrainska Pravda journalists. It prompted the dismissal of 15 senior government and regional officials, including two senior defence officials.
Anti-corruption measures are one of the requirements for Ukraine’s EU membership status and Zelenskiy was responding to disquiet in wider Ukrainian society over corruption at a time when most are regularly donating money to aid the war effort.
For Mykhailo Tkach, a leading investigative journalist who investigated several of the 15 dismissed officials, including the now former member of Zelenskiy’s inner circle, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the action taken by the president was a sign of positive change.
“It is a signal for journalists that they are heard as the ‘fourth power’ [and] a signal for other powerful people that there is no tolerance for corruption,” said Tkach. “In order to defeat the external enemy, it is necessary to simultaneously overcome the internal one – corruption.”
“Regarding [press freedom], as a journalist, I am in such a situation for the first time. I feel doubly responsible for my work and every word I say,” said Tkach.
You can read the full report here.
Sending fighter jets to Ukraine 'only a question of time', says Latvian PM
Western states delivering fighter jets to support Ukraine defending itself against Russia is “only a question of time”, Latvia’s prime minister has said.
Speaking to German news magazine Der Spiegel, Krišjānis Kariņš said his own country would not hesitate to send jets to Kyiv “if we had any.”
“The delivery of fighter jets is only a question of time”, said US-born Kariņš, of the centre-right New Unity party. “I don’t see why the west shouldn’t deliver fighter jets. If Ukraine needs fighter jets, it should get them.”
In the wake of Russia’s war of aggression, Latvia has decided to back compulsory military service for men aged 18 to 27 for the first time since 2007.
In the interview Kariņš indicated he would welcome similar moves in other European countries.
He said:
Across the whole of Europe we need a lot more reservists: trained people who can be deployed at the shortest notice.”
Updated
The latest intelligence briefing from the UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) says recent evidence suggests an increase in “close combat” in Ukraine, probably due to Russia’s shortage of “munitions”.
It also refers to Russian mobilised reservists being ordered to assault a Ukrainian concrete strong point armed with only “firearms and shovels”.
These shovels are likely to be the outdated MPL-50 entrenching tools used in hand-to-hand combat.
The MoD says their continued use highlights the “brutal and low-tech fighting” that has characterised much of the war.
The briefing continues:
The lethality of the standard-issue MPL-50 entrenching tool is particularly mythologised in Russia. Little changed since it was designed in 1869, its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterise much of the war.
One of the reservists described being ‘neither physically nor psychologically’ prepared for the action.
Recent evidence suggests an increase in close combat in Ukraine. This is probably a result of the Russian command continuing to insist on offensive action largely consisting of dismounted infantry, with less support from artillery fire because Russia is short of munitions.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 5 March 2023
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 5, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/1rgcwN71nQ pic.twitter.com/aoDmbCIQ6v
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday that Ankara is working hard to extend a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion.
The Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July allowed grain to be exported from three Ukrainian ports.
The agreement was extended in November and will expire on 18 March unless an extension is agreed, Reuters reports.
“We are working hard for the smooth implementation and further extension of the Black Sea grain deal,” Çavuşoğlu said in a speech at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries in Doha, Qatar.
Çavuşoğlu also said he discussed the extension efforts with UN secretary general António Guterres.
On Wednesday, Russia said it would only agree to extend the Black Sea grain deal if the interests of its agricultural producers are taken into account.
Top commanders of what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine have briefed Russia’s defence minister on the current situation and action plans, his ministry said on Sunday.
Sergei Shoigu paid a rare visit to Russia’s forces deployed in Ukraine, awarding medals to military personnel and meeting senior commanders during the trip, according to a statement and videos issued by the Russian defence ministry on Saturday, Reuters reported.
The minister held a meeting with commanders of the operation, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging platform on Sunday. It did not specify if the meeting took place during the trip.
It said:
Sergei Shoigu paid special attention to the set-up of all the necessary conditions for the safe deployment of personnel in the field, the organisation of comprehensive support for the troops, especially the work of medical and rear units.
Russia’s top military chiefs have visited the frontlines in Ukraine only occasionally since Moscow invaded in February last year.
Updated
Two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military, two US officials say, as Washington remains mute on whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv.
Reuters reports that the US and other western allies have been flooding Ukraine with weapons from Javelin missiles to Himars rocket launchers but have not yet pledged sophisticated jets and the largest armed drones.
The Arizona “familiarisation event” was a first and would facilitate dialogue between Ukrainian and US personnel and provide an opportunity to observe how the US air force operates, a US defence official said on Saturday, speaking on condition of anonymity.
This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities.
No imminent sign of Ukraine retreat from Bakhmut, says analyst
A prominent Ukrainian military analyst said late on Saturday that he could not detect any immediate signs that Kyiv was going to order a retreat from the besieged city of Bakhmut.
Oleh Zhdanov said in a YouTube interview:
At the moment the situation is more or less stabilised. In terms of the advancement of Russian troops, we practically stopped [it].
Reuters also reported that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, thanked defenders in Bakhmut in a video message on Saturday but gave no details of the fighting.
Russian artillery have been pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut while trying to complete the encirclement of the besieged city and bring Moscow closer to its first major victory in the Ukraine war in six months.
The Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff said late on Saturday that it had repelled Russian attacks in the villages of Vasyukivka, Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Dubovo-Vasylivka and Hryhorivka, all of which are just north of Bakhmut’s city centre.
Updated
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine – this is Adam Fulton bringing you the latest developments.
The Ukraine military says Russian troops are trying but failing to surround Bakhmut. Troops had repelled numerous attacks in and around the besieged city in eastern Ukraine, the armed forces’ general staff said in a Facebook post late on Saturday.
Bakhmut’s deputy mayor, Oleksandr Marchenko, told BBC radio there was fighting in its streets but Russian forces “still haven’t taken control over the city”.
Russian artillery is reported to be pounding the last routes out of Bakhmut, aiming to block Ukrainian forces’ access and complete an encirclement of the city. The UK Ministry of Defence said Ukrainian resupply routes were becoming “increasingly limited”.
A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded in Bakhmut by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city on Saturday, according to Ukrainian troops assisting them.
In other developments:
The death toll has risen to 11 from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in southern Ukraine on Thursday, Ukraine’s emergency services said on Saturday.
Ukraine has ordered a mandatory evacuation of families and vulnerable residents from the frontline city of Kupiansk and adjacent north-eastern territories. The evacuation order was due to the “unstable security situation” caused by Russia’s constant shelling of the town and its surroundings, it said. Russian troops retreated from key cities in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, including Kupiansk, and Ukraine recaptured it last September.
Gen Sir Richard Shirreff, Nato’s former deputy supreme allied commander Europe, has urged speeding up the supply of equipment and support to Ukraine to give the Ukrainians “the tools they need to do the job”,
The Russian defence minister paid a rare visit to Moscow’s forces in Ukraine. In a statement on Telegram, Russia’s defence ministry said Sergei Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the eastern military district in the south Donetsk direction”.
The president of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola, has called for Ukraine to be allowed to begin EU membership negotiations this year, during a visit to the country on Saturday. She was “hopeful” the talks could starts this year, she said.
Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov’s description of the Russian invasion as “the war, which we are trying to stop, and which was launched against us using the Ukrainian people” was met with laughter at an event in New Delhi, India.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, an influential far-right Republican in Congress, has called for the US to stop aid to Ukraine, saying President Joe Biden was “putting the entire world at risk of world war three”.
Updated
