Long deployments and a lack of training, support, food and equipment all affecting morale as war drags on

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Russia’s assault on Ukraine’s east has brought it some battlefield success as its military has advanced slowly in fierce fighting in Donbas.

But those gains have come at a high price for the Russian invasion force, with evidence that high-level casualties are growing and that some units may be approaching exhaustion as the war moves past its 100-day mark.

UK and US have so far promised a handful; official says with 60 they can stop Russians ‘dead in their tracks’

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

Ukraine needs 60 multiple rocket launchers – many more than the handful promised so far by the UK and US – to have a chance of defeating Russia, according to an aide to the country’s presidency.

Oleksiy Arestovych, a military adviser to the president’s chief of staff, told the Guardian that while he believed the rocket launchers were “a gamechanger weapon”, not enough had been committed to turn the tide in the war.

‘Unprecedented’ displacement of millions of Ukrainians; Russian warships pushed back more than 100km, Ukraine says

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• At a glance: what we know on day 103 of the invasion

Russian forces continue to storm the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk and fired missiles at the nearby cities of Sloviansk, Lysychansk and Orikhove, Ukraine’s military has said.

Russian troops fired at Ukrainian units defending Sievierodonetsk with mortars and artillery fire, damaging infrastructure in the towns of Metolkino, Borivske, Ustynivka and Toshkivka, according to the latest operational report released by Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces.

Serhiy Haidai says counterattack has recaptured a fifth of frontline city from Russian invaders

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Ukraine has staged a counterattack on the frontline city of Sievierodonetsk and recaptured a fifth of the city it had previously lost to Russian invaders, according to the head of the region.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk oblast, told Ukrainian television that Russian forces were forfeiting recent gains in the city, the easternmost held by Kyiv in the Donbas region, where fighting has been concentrated.

US general in Finland to back Nato bid; 14 million Ukrainians displaced in conflict, says UN; Macron says Putin isolated after ‘historic error’

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Ukrainian forces say they have pushed back Russians in the city

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Reuters has what it says is an exclusive interview with prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova, who is overseeing multiple war crimes inquiries in Ukraine. It reports that prosecutors investigating war crimes cases in Ukraine are examining allegations of the forcible deportation of children to Russia as they seek to build a genocide indictment.

Venediktova said “We have more than 20 cases about forcible transfer of people. From the first days of the war, we started this case about genocide.”

Task #1 today for Russia — to undermine trust between Ukraine and US. Ukraine is waging a defensive war and does not plan to use the MLRS to attack facilities in Russia. Our partners know where their weapons are used. Any allegations of such intentions - PSYOP of Russian special services.

Some are looking back at weeks before invasion and asking if more could have been done

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in the early hours of 24 February, with mass missile strikes and the advance of a land force from several directions, many key Ukrainian officials were apparently caught by surprise. Some were fast asleep.

There had been rumours of a Russian invasion for weeks, and the previous evening US and Ukrainian intelligence received information that pointed to an invasion that night with almost certainty. Yet there was little in the way of last-minute efforts to fortify towns close to the border, or to warn citizens to brace for the inevitable.