Summary
We’re closing this live blog down now. Thanks for reading. Here’s a summary of the day’s main events:
Russia or pro-Russian elements are likely behind the leak of several classified US military documents posted on social media, US officials told Reuters. The news agency reported that they said the documents offer a partial, month-old snapshot of the war and appear to have been doctored to downplay Russian losses.
The Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was charged with espionage in Russia and entered an official denial, the Associated Press (AP) reported, citing the Russian state news agency Tass. Leaders of both the Democrats and Republicans in the US Senate denounced Gershkovich’s arrest and called for his immediate release, in a rare joint statement.
Ukraine said on Friday that Russia was concentrating all its efforts on capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut, where it described the situation as “difficult” but said it was holding out despite Russia’s numerical superiority. Eastern Military Command spokesperson Serhiy Cherevatyi said that Ukraine controlled the situation in Bakhmut, understood Russian intentions and that Moscow had tactical success in some places but was paying a high price for it.
Earlier, the UK Ministry of Defence said in its daily intelligence briefing that Russian forces have “highly likely advanced into the [Bakhmut] town centre, and has seized the West Bank of the Bakhmutka River. Ukraine’s key supply route to the west of the town is likely severely threatened.”
The Pentagon is investigating a reported security breach after documents providing details of US and Nato plans to help prepare Ukraine for a spring offensive against Russia were leaked to social media platforms, the New York Times reports. The documents were spread on Twitter and Telegram, and reportedly contain charts and details about weapons deliveries, battalion strengths and other sensitive information, the Times said. Information in the documents is at least five weeks old, with the most recent dated 1 March, the report said.
The documents also detail expenditure rates for munitions under Ukraine military control, including for the Himars rocket systems, the US-made artillery rocket systems that have proved highly effective against Russian forces. The New York Times report quotes military analysts who warn that some documents appear to have been altered in a disinformation campaign by Russia. In one document Ukrainian troop deaths are inflated and Russian battlefield losses are minimised.
The Ukrainian headquarters of the armed forces supreme command has discussed measures to prevent leaks of military information at a meeting. The presidential statement made no mention of a leak having occurred. Kyiv also dismissed the leaked documents as a Russian disinformation effort.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said on Friday during a news conference with his Turkish counterpart, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, that obstacles to Russian agricultural exports were increasing, and that they had discussed what Lavrov described as a “failure” to implement the terms of the Black Sea grain initiative. Çavuşoğlu said he agreed with Russia on the need to lift restrictions on Russian grain and fertiliser exports before the deal could be extended further.
Imports of Ukrainian grain to Poland will be temporarily halted to mitigate the impact on prices, but transit will still be allowed, the new Polish agriculture minister, Robert Telus, said on Friday. The move comes as thousands of farmers protested across Romania over the impact of Ukrainian grain imports on prices, blocking traffic and border checkpoints with tractors and trucks and urging the European Commission to intervene.
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass reports that Russian security forces claim to have “detained an agent of the security service of Ukraine and his accomplice in the Kherson region, who were collecting data on the deployment and movement of troops”.
Ukraine has rejected the suggestion from the Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva that it give up Crimea to end the war with Russia, which annexed the peninsula in 2014.
Leaders of parties in the US Senate have denounced the arrest of Gershkovich and called for his immediate release, in a rare joint statement, AFP reports.
The incident is seen as a serious escalation of Moscow’s crackdown on the media and comes as Moscow’s relationship with Washington has become increasingly tense because of the invasion of Ukraine. The senate majority leader Chuck Schumer and the Republican leader Mitch McConnell said:
We strongly condemn the wrongful detention of US citizen and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, and demand the immediate release of this internationally known and respected independent journalist.
Gershkovich, who worked for AFP in Russia before taking a job with the Wall Street Journal, has reportedly been formally charged with espionage.
He was accused of spying for the United States, Russian news agencies reported, charges he, his paper and the US government deny. The US president Joe Biden has also called for Gershkovich’s release. The senate leaders said:
Let there be no mistake: journalism is not a crime. We demand the baseless, fabricated charges against Mr Gershkovich be dropped and he be immediately released.
Schumer and McConnell also reiterated their “condemnation of the Russian government’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish independent journalists and civil society voices”.
