Nikolai Peskov, 33, says he sought father’s help to serve anonymously in mercenary group for six months

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

The son of the Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has claimed he served as an artilleryman with the Wagner mercenary group in Ukraine for nearly six months.

In an interview with the pro-Kremlin daily Komsomolskaya Pravda, Nikolai Peskov, 33, said: “It was my duty … I couldn’t sit to one side watching as friends and others went off there.”

Apparent move in occupied areas comes as Ukrainian military sets up positions on eastern side of Dnipro River

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces are “forcibly evacuating” civilians in the area of the Kherson region that they still occupy, a day after it was claimed Ukrainian forces had established a bridgehead on the east bank of the Dnipro River.

“I have information that the evacuation starts today [Sunday] with an excuse of protecting civilians from the consequences of heavy fighting in the area,” Oleksandr Samoylenko, the Ukrainian head of Kherson’s regional council, said. Russian troops were “trying to steal as much as they can” as they withdrew, he added.

Head of intelligence in Ukraine says Bakhmut is the only frontline area in which Russian troops are making any attempt to advance. This live blog is closed

• Russia-Ukraine war at a glance: what we know on day 425 of the invasion

Recent remarks by China’s ambassador to France questioning the sovereignty of former Soviet states such as Ukraine are totally unacceptable, the Czech Republic’s foreign minister Jan Lipavský said before a meeting with EU colleagues in Luxembourg on Monday.

“It is totally unacceptable”, Lipavský said. “I hope bosses of this ambassador will make these things straight.”

Ukraine says Russia is taking up defensive positions in most combat areas apart from Bakhmut

Thinktank says infiltration into area east of Dnipro River could be first step toward trying to dislodge Russian forces

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

Ukraine’s military has set up positions on the eastern side of the Dnipro River near Kherson city, the Institute for the Study of War cites Russian military bloggers as saying.

Infiltrating the area could be a first step towards trying to dislodge Russian forces from positions they are using to shell and shoot at Kherson. The constant attacks have made it impossible for residents to return to normal life months after Ukrainian troops liberated the city from occupation.

Ukraine military sets up positions on east bank of Dnipro river; France and Baltic states dismayed at Chinese ambassador comments

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

At least five Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv and surrounding districts late on Saturday night, damaging civilian buildings, local officials said. One missile hit a house in the village of Kotliary, just to the south of Kharkiv, while another caused a fire in the city itself, said the regional governor, Oleh Sinegubov.

Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had captured another three districts in the western part of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine. Troops who have continued into the heavily contested city are thought to be part of the Wagner group of mercenaries.

Russia confirmed it would expel 20 German diplomats in retaliation for its own diplomats being sent home from Berlin, the Tass news agency said, citing Russia’s foreign ministry.

Seventeen apartment buildings were evacuated in the Russian city of Belgorod after an explosive device was found at the site blown up by a bomb accidentally dropped by a Russian warplane, authorities said. The explosion on Thursday injured three people in the city near the Ukrainian border. The province’s governor, Vyacheslav Gladkov, said on Saturday that sappers examining the blast site found and detonated an “explosive object” that was “in the immediate vicinity of residential buildings”. The precautionary evacuations ended later in the day, said Belgorod’s mayor, Valentin Demidov.

Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has again refused to take sides in the war in Ukraine, calling for a “negotiated political solution” between Kyiv and Moscow. “We urgently need a group of countries to sit round a table with both Ukraine and Russia,” he said after a meeting with the Portuguese president, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, in Lisbon.

Units from Belarus returned home from Russia on Saturday after training on how to use the Iskander tactical missile system to launch nuclear weapons, the Belarusian defence ministry said. It made the announcement exactly four weeks after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, said Russia would station tactical nuclear weapons in neighbouring Belarus.

Ukraine plans to deploy software from the US data analytics provider Palantir Technologies to help it prosecute alleged war crimes committed by Russia, the company has said.

Ukraine’s operational command has reported that 11 Russian warships are in combat readiness in the Black Sea, including two submarines armed with Kalibr cruise missiles. The press service of Ukraine’s Operational Command South reported this on Facebook, according to Ukrinform.

Cyprus has cracked down on those named by the US and Britain for allegedly helping Russian oligarchs bypass sanctions on Moscow because of the Ukraine war, an official said. The financial commissioner, Pavlos Ioannou, told state broadcaster CyBC on Saturday that assets of the individuals and entities concerned had been frozen.

Jack Teixeira, the US air national guardsman accused of leaking classified defence documents to a small group of gamers, posted sensitive information months earlier than previously known and to a much larger chat group, according to the New York Times.

The UK Ministry of Defence has said Russia is struggling to maintain consistency in a core narrative used to justify the Ukraine war: that the invasion is akin to the Soviet experience during the second world war.

A Ukrainian soldier who lost his leg and has been fighting on the frontline wearing a prosthesis will run the London Marathon to raise money and share a message of unity against Russian aggression. Roman Kashpur, from Khmelnyk in Vinnytska, stood on a landmine in 2019. He fought on the frontline in Ukraine wearing a prosthesis for six weeks after Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

The top Russian official in occupied Crimea said its air defence systems had been activated but there were no reports of damage or casualties. “Air defence forces worked in the sky over Crimea. No damage or casualties,” the official, Sergei Aksyonov, said on Telegram. “I ask everyone to remain calm and trust only trusted sources of information.”