A summary of today's developments
Eleven people have been confirmed as being killed in a missile strike on the eastern Ukraine city of Sloviansk on Friday. A block of flats was badly damaged by the attack. Rescue crews continue to try to rescue people trapped underneath rubble.
Russian shelling in Kherson killed two women on Saturday, the head of the Ukrainian president’s office has said.
The Wagner mercenary group has captured two more areas of the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday. The claims have not been independently verified.
Five Ukrainians from Russian-occupied Melitopol in the Zaporizhzhia oblast will be tried by a Russian court for being part of a “terrorist group”, according to Russian state media.
Russia has been using drones to attack police officers in Kherson, according to the region’s police force.
A Russian official has claimed four people were killed and 10 injured in Ukrainian shelling of a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk. Denis Pushilin said a seven-year-old girl was among those wounded in Yasynuvata, Reuters reports.
A new Russian law has removed an obstacle that has allowed some men to dodge the draft and suggests Moscow anticipates a lengthy conflict in Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence says. Vladimir Putin was reported to have signed a bill on Friday to create a digital draft system, making it easier to mobilise Russians into the army and stirring fresh fears in the country amid the war with Ukraine.
The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said the US should stop “encouraging war” in Ukraine “and start talking about peace”. In that way, the international community would be able to “convince” the Russian and Ukrainian presidents that “peace is in the interest of the whole world”, Lula told reporters in Beijing at the end of a visit where he met president Xi Jinping.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to French president Emmanuel Macron on Saturday. In two tweets, he said they had discussed Macron’s recent visit to China to meet president Xi Jinping.
