Ukrainian forces say they still hold Bakhmut despite Wagner claims; suspect arrested after Russian military blogger killed in cafe explosion
Ukraine has said Russian forces are “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claims to have raised the Russian flag. “Bakhmut is Ukrainian, and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, a spokesperson for the eastern military command said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said overnight the fighting in the heavily fought over city in Ukraine’s Donbas region is “especially hot”. His comments came as Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city’s administrative building. However, there was no indication from Ukrainian officials that Bakhmut had fallen into Russian hands and Prigozhin has previously made claims about Wagner’s military progress in the city that were premature.
Russian police have arrested a woman suspected of delivering a bomb that killed a prominent pro-war Russian military blogger in a blast in a cafe in central St Petersburg on Sunday. Russian authorities say Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed by a bomb blast as he was hosting a discussion with other pro-war commentators at a cafe on the banks of the Neva River in the historic heart of St Petersburg.
Russian police said they had identified a woman called Darya Trepova as the suspect, adding that she was arrested in an apartment in St Petersburg after a search on Monday morning. Sources in the country’s interior ministry told the RBK news outlet that the attack was “carefully planned in advance by several people”.
Russian tactical nuclear weapons will be moved close to Belarus’ borders with its Nato neighbours, the Russian ambassador to Belarus has said amid tensions between Russia and the west over Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, reports that in the last 24 hours “the Russian army carried out 29 strikes on 12 populated areas of Donetsk region”. It adds “46 residential buildings, a kindergarten, an administrative building, factory workshops, power lines, gas pipelines and cars were destroyed and damaged.”
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass is reporting an explosion in occupied Melitopol. It reports the city administration said a car was blown up in the city centre, and that one person was injured. The Telegram channel of the Russian-imposed authority in the city has named the injured person as Maxim Zubarev, the head of the occupying authority in the Yakymivka settlement in the region.
Finland will officially become a member of the Nato military alliance on Tuesday. The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said it “will be a good day for Finland’s security, for Nordic security and for Nato as a whole”. He added that Nato’s position on Ukraine’s bid “remains unchanged” and that is that “Ukraine will become a member of the alliance”.
Germany’s vice-chancellor, Robert Habeck, has arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, the German energy and economy ministry has said, in his first trip to the country since the outbreak of war.
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, has said he expects Zelenskiy, to visit on 5 April. Zelenskiy will be accompanied by his wife, Olena Zelenska. Talks between Duda and Zelenskiy are expected to cover security issues, regional politics, and economic cooperation, as well as the transit of Ukrainian grain and other farm produce through Poland. The visit would coincide with the next summit of Nato foreign ministers, which is taking place in Brussels, and which the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, is expected to attend.
Poland has already delivered the first batch of Soviet-era MiG-29 fighter jets to Ukraine, according to the Polish presidential office’s head of international policy, Marcin Przydacz. He did not specify how many jets had been transferred. Poland’s president last month said Warsaw would hand over the first four MiG-29 to Ukraine.
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