Regional governor says Azot plant, where hundreds of civilians are taking shelter, remains under Ukrainian control

• Ukraine war – latest updates

Fierce fighting has continued in the strategic city of Sievierodonetsk in eastern Ukraine, where Russian shelling caused a fire at a chemical plant in which hundreds of civilians are believed to have taken shelter during some of the most intense bombardment of the war.

The governor of Luhansk region, Serhiy Haidai, said in an interview with local television that the Azot chemical plant remained under Ukrainian control, adding that fighting was under way on Sunday on the “outskirts of the city, in the streets directly near the plant”.

Cholera warning as Russia accused of razing high-rises in Mariupol without removing bodies; Serbia rejects call to impose Russia sanctions; fighting rages in Sievierodonetsk

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

This blog is closed. You can catch up on the week in Ukraine here. Live coverage will resume later.

The UK’s foreign secretary Liz Truss will raise the case of Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner, the two British men sentenced to death by a pro-Russian court in occupied Ukraine, when she speaks to Ukraine’s foreign secretary Dmytro Kuleba later today, PA Media reports.

Truss has already called it a “sham judgement” and insisted it has “absolutely no legitimacy”.

Exclusive: Deputy head of military intelligence says it’s an artillery war now and ‘everything depends on what the west gives us’

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Ukraine’s deputy head of military intelligence has said Ukraine is losing against Russia on the frontlines and is now almost solely reliant on weapons from the west to keep Russia at bay.

“This is an artillery war now,” said Vadym Skibitsky, deputy head of Ukraine’s military intelligence. The frontlines were now where the future would be decided, he told the Guardian, “and we are losing in terms of artillery”.

Vladimir Putin compares his actions in Ukraine to conquests of Peter the Great; Zelenskiy says Ukraine ‘holding on’ to key frontline cities in Donbas

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
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Former Danish prime minister and former secretary general of Nato, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has been speaking on Sky News in the UK. He is currently running the Copenhagen Democracy Summit, which tomorrow will focus on the situation in Ukraine. He said:

The Ukrainian people are actually fighting on behalf of all of us, and we must stop Putin otherwise he will not stop. He will continue to conquer peaceful neighbours if he isn’t stopped in Ukraine.

Silence in Sievierodonetsk lasts only when guns are reloaded. Street fights continue in the regional centre.

Russians adhere to their primitive tactics: heavy artillery fire, then - attempts to break through. The same thing happened in the already destroyed Rubizhne and Popasna.

Luhansk governor says most of eastern city now in Russian hands and it is no longer possible to rescue civilians

• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates

Ukrainian forces have been pushed back to the outskirts of the eastern city of Sievierodonetsk amid heavy fighting in the city and frontline villages to the south as Russia pursues a breakthrough in Donbas, regional leaders have said.

Serhiy Haidai, the governor of Luhansk, said most of the city was now in Russian hands and that it was no longer possible to rescue civilians stranded there.