Unprecedented bloodshed in Bakhmut, Ukraine says
Ukrainian and Russian forces are engaged in extraordinarily bloody battles in the devastated eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kiev troops are holding out, Ukraine’s military said on Saturday. BATTLE
* Fighters from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group have captured two more areas of Bakhmut, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Saturday. * Russian missiles hit apartment buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday, killing 11 people and injuring 21 and turning sections of apartment blocks into a mess of metal and concrete.
* Four were killed and 10 wounded by Ukrainian shelling of a residential area in the Russian-controlled town of Yasynuvata, south of Sloviansk, the top Russian-installed official in the region said. * A mother and her daughter were killed by a Russian artillery attack in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday, the regional administration said.
* Russia’s regular spring military draft is progressing as planned and there are no plans to send bulk electronic communications under a system just signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, a senior official said on Saturday. Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.
ECONOMY, DIPLOMACY * A new $115 billion international economic support package gives Ukraine more confidence it can hold its own in the fight against the Russian invasion amid increasing recognition the war may drag on longer than expected, the said Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told Reuters on Saturday.
* Poland and Hungary have decided to ban grain and other food imports from neighboring Ukraine to protect local agricultural sectors, the two governments said on Saturday after a spate of bids pushed down prices across the region. * Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron on Saturday, during which leaders discussed Macron’s visit to China, Zelenskyy said.
PLAY CONTINUE * Ukrainian pianist Roman Lopatynskyi rehearsed in the dark and played concerts by candlelight as air raid sirens blared over his native Kiev. The 29-year-old is taking part in the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, which is being held outside Ukraine for the first time since its inception in 1995 due to the Russian invasion.
* Ukraine’s ice hockey players were forced to train with air raid sirens interrupting training and sending them underground to hide as they were worried about their loved ones, but they managed to focus. DETAILED STORIES
* ANALYSIS – Russia’s Military Production, State Waste Eases the Pain of Sanctions. * INSIGHT – Ukraine’s tech entrepreneurs are fighting on a different front
* Ukraine says it finds more Chinese components in Russian weapons
(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)