Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

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Russian forces struck targets throughout Ukraine’s jap Donetsk area to arrange the trail for an anticipated armored thrust to attempt to take extra territory because the five-month-old battle entered a brand new part.

FIGHTING

* The cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk got here beneath shelling in a single day within the jap Donetsk area, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko instructed Ukrainian TV. A lady was killed and not less than three individuals have been wounded after a market was struck in Sloviansk, native police mentioned.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video message on Monday, mentioned there had been no important adjustments on the battlefield prior to now 24 hours and that Ukrainian forces have been repelling and destroying Russia’s offensive capabilities every day.

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* Russian rocket strikes hit the southern Ukrainian metropolis of Mykolaiv, Nayor Oleksandr Senkevych mentioned.

* Russian-backed separatists have seized two foreign-flagged ships within the jap Ukrainian port metropolis of Mariupol, saying they’re now “state property,” within the first such strikes in opposition to industrial delivery, letters seen by Reuters confirmed.

* Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the battlefield accounts.

* Russia doesn’t ship conscripts to Ukraine to combat in its “particular army operation,” Russian state information company TASS quoted Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying.

* President Vladimir Putin congratulated on Monday Russian forces on their “victories within the Luhansk path” and “liberating” the area.

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DIPLOMACY AND ECONOMY

* British Prime Minister Boris Johnson instructed Zelenskiy throughout a cellphone name he believed Kyiv’s army may retake territory just lately captured by Russian forces, Johnson’s workplace mentioned.

* Zelenskiy renewed his attraction for safety ensures whereas addressing a roundtable convention hosted by the Economist. Europe wants to know, he mentioned, that the battle in Ukraine is about Europe’s security and Ukraine is the “fence” defending it.

* A global convention in Lugano, Switzerland to assist Ukraine has outlined a sequence of ideas to steer Kyiv’s restoration and condemned Moscow’s actions.

* Western companions ought to do extra to assist unblock Ukraine’s Black Sea ports to launch exports of grain, metals and mining merchandise, a Ukrainian official instructed Reuters in Lugano, warning the nation’s funds are more and more precarious.

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* No resolution has been made but on increasing Russia’s rouble-for-gas scheme to incorporate liquefied pure gasoline (LNG), the Kremlin mentioned.

* Britain mentioned it could on Tuesday introduce new sanctions on Belarus over its assist for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and likewise sanctioned six Russians it mentioned have been spreading disinformation.

* Russian former president Dmitry Medvedev mentioned a reported proposal from Japan to cap the worth of Russian oil at round half its present value would result in a market scarcity that would push costs above $300-400 a barrel.

QUOTES

* “The town doesn’t exist anymore,” mentioned Nina, a younger mom who fled Lysychansk in now Russian-controlled Luhansk province to take refuge within the central metropolis of Dnipro. “It has virtually been wiped off the face of the Earth.” (Compiled by Tomasz Janowski and Mark Heinrich)