Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
The Kremlin has said there are no plans for an Easter ceasefire in Ukraine, Russian state media reported. “So far, there haven’t been any initiatives on this matter but our Holy Week has just begun,” Russia’s state-run Tass news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying. His comments came after the Institute for the Study of War warned that Russia may try to use the upcoming Orthodox Easter holiday on 16 April to delay Ukrainian counteroffensives by calling for a ceasefire out of respect for religion.
Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, has accused Russian troops of using “scorched earth” tactics in the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut. The situation in Bakhmut was “difficult but controllable”, he said, adding that the defence of the city continued. His claims have not been independently verified.
The Russian-installed head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region said Russian forces controlled more than 75% of the besieged city of Bakhmut. It was still too soon to announce a total victory in the battle over Bakhmut, Denis Pushilin said on state television while visiting the embattled city in eastern Ukraine. His claims have not been verified.
A Russian fighter jet nearly shot down a British surveillance plane last year, according to a leaked US military document circulating online. The near miss occurred on 29 September off the coast of Crimea, the Washington Post reported, citing the document which is among a number apparently leaked from the Pentagon. The authenticity of the documents has not been verified.
Ukraine has been forced to amend some of its military plans before an anticipated counteroffensive due to a leak of highly classified Pentagon documents, according to a report. One of the documents, citing signals intelligence collected using intercepted communications, outlines how the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in late February “suggested striking Russian deployment locations in Russia’s Rostov oblast” using unmanned aerial vehicles. Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhailo Podolyak, said Kyiv’s strategic plans remained unchanged but that more specific tactical plans were always subject to change.
The US defence department has said an interagency effort is assessing the impact that leaked intelligence documents, many concerning the war in Ukraine, could have on US national security and on its allies and partners. Officials say the breadth of topics addressed in the documents – which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa – suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
South Korea’s main opposition party has urged the government to verify the Pentagon documents, which include claims that the US attempted to eavesdrop on senior officials in Seoul over arms sales. The floor leader of the Democratic party, Park Hong-keun, made the demand after reports that CIA operatives had been monitoring an internal discussion about concerns that artillery shells South Korea planned to sell to the US could ultimately end up in Ukraine.
The documents suggest that without a huge boost in munitions, Ukraine’s air defences could be in peril, allowing the Russian air force to change the course of the war, the New York Times has reported. One of the documents, dated 23 February and marked “Secret”, outlines in detail how Ukraine’s Soviet-era S-300 air defence systems would be depleted by 2 May at the current usage rate.
Russia plans to increase air defences over its north-western border to counter Finland’s accession to Nato, a commander in its aerospace forces has said. Lt Gen Andrei Demin, the deputy commander-in-chief of aerospace forces, also said further reforms of Russian air defences were “undoubtedly planned and will be implemented”.
More than 200 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have returned home in a prisoner swap, according to both sides. Russia’s defence ministry said 106 Russian soldiers were released from Ukrainian custody as part of an agreement with Ukraine. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, said Russia freed 100 Ukrainian prisoners.
Only 1,800 civilians are still living in the “ruins” of Avdiivka, the embattled eastern Ukrainian city that had a prewar population of 32,000, according to the local governor. “The Russians have turned Avdiivka into a total ruin,” said Pavlo Kyrylenko, Donetsk’s regional governor. In a separate statement, the Ukrainian general staff said Russian forces were continuing to mount offensive operations around Avdiivka but were suffering heavy losses of personnel and equipment.
Russia continues to prioritise operations around Donetsk in eastern Ukraine “expending significant resources for minimal gains”, the UK Ministry of Defence has said in its daily briefing. The MoD said that over the past seven days Russia had increased armoured assaults around Marinka, a small town about 12 miles (20km) south-west of Donetsk city.
The president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, held a meeting on Monday with Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. Lukashenko said he needed guarantees that Russia will defend Belarus “like its own territory” in the case of aggression, state media reported.
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, this week where the pair will talk about the war in Ukraine, Brazil’s foreign minister, Mauro Vieira, said. Lula, who is due to arrive in China on Tuesday and meet Xi on Friday, is hoping to promote his proposal for mediated talks to end the war.
Ukraine would like India to be engaged and involved in helping resolve its conflict with Russia “to a great extent”, its first deputy foreign minister Emine Dzhaparova has said. Dzhaparova, the first Ukrainian minister to travel to India since Russia’s full-scale invasion, said the Ukrainian president had requested a phone conversation with India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi.
The Kremlin has said it is hard to imagine France playing a role in brokering peace in Ukraine, since Paris is “both indirectly and directly involved in this conflict on the side of Ukraine”. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, visited China last week, where he urged his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to bring Russia “back to reason” over the war in Ukraine.
Russian journalists and rights activists have appealed for the release of Vladimir Kara-Murza, a prominent opposition politician who faces up to 25 years in jail on charges including treason. Prosecutors last week requested a 25-year sentence for Kara-Murza, one of a small number of prominent opposition figures who stayed in Russia, who has been on trial in a closed court in Moscow on charges his supporters say are politically motivated.
A Russian court has sentenced two men to 19 years in prison each for setting fire to a government building in a demonstration against the war in Ukraine. Roman Nasryev, a former driver for the Russian national guard, and Alexei Nuriev, an officer in the emergency situations ministry, threw a molotov cocktail on 11 October 2022 into an administrative building in the town of Bakal in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region in protest of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s “partial” mobilisation.
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A Russian court has sentenced two men to 19 years in prison each for setting fire to a government building in a demonstration against the war in Ukraine.
Roman Nasryev, a former driver for the Russian national guard, and Alexei Nuriev, an officer in the emergency situations ministry, were found guilty of conspiracy to commit arson “in order to destabilise the activities of government bodies” and “training for the purpose of carrying out terrorist activities”, the Moscow Times reported.
On 11 October 2022, the two men threw a molotov cocktail into an administrative building in Bakal, a town in Russia’s Chelyabinsk region, in protest of the war in Ukraine and Russia’s “partial” mobilisation. The building houses a military enlistment office.
They were detained by Russian federal security service (FSB) officers shortly after setting fire to the building, and a security guard was able to quickly extinguish the fire. Neither of the men denied involvement, and Nasryev said that he committed the act as a sign of protest against mobilisation in Russia and against the war in Ukraine.
The ruling sets a new record for the longest known prison sentence issued by a Russian court for arson committed as an act of protest against the war in Ukraine, the news outlet Meduza reported.
Solidarity Zone, a civil rights organisation that helped defend the two men in court, suggested that the “unreasonably cruel” sentences may be because both defendants previously worked for the Russian security and emergency services.
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