Only a 10-minute drive apart but cut off by war, Serhi Belyaev took a perilous road trip to be with his loved ones again

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It is a 10-minute drive from Serhi Belyaev’s house in the village of Tsyrkuny to his fiancee’s home in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city. A quick spin west on Soborna Street, over the E40 motorway on to the Lesia Serduika highway, and you are there. That was, until the war came.

It took just hours for Russian forces to sweep into Belyaev’s village on 24 February, as they advanced on Kharkiv, the closest major Ukrainian city to the Russian border.

Joe Biden among those banned after signing $40bn aid package for Ukraine; Finnish president says he held ‘open and direct’ talks with his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan

• Canada sanctions billionaire and media tycoon Alexander Lebedev
• Russia halts gas exports to Finland
• Russian army takes control of Mariupol’s Azovstal steel plant
• What we know on day 87 of the invasion
• Catch up with this week’s must-read war news and analysis
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I am now handing over the blog to my colleague Geneva Abdul in London. Thanks for following along

Bosnian Serb nationalist leader Milorad Dodik has told European Council President Charles Michel that Bosnia needs to maintain neutrality and will not join EU sanctions against Russia over its invasion of Ukraine.

Plant was last part of Mariupol in Ukrainian hands; Gazprom will suspend gas sales to Finland from Saturday. This blog is now closed

• Intense fighting around Severodonetsk as Donbas labelled ‘hell’
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• Russia may scrap age limits for soldiers to bolster forces
• Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 86 of the invasion

Serhiy Gaidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has given a short update on the situation in Severodonetsk. He writes on Telegram:

The Russians are shelling Severodonetsk very powerfully. Up to 15,000 people remain in bomb shelters. Wells in the old districts of the city were preserved to provide people with water. All mobile towers are de-energized. 70% of high-rise buildings are destroyed or damaged, many of them need to be demolished and new ones built.

Speaking of “friends”, it is notable that US senators were visiting Stockholm on the day the “historic” decision was announced. Not rank-and-file congressmen, but leader of the Senate Republicans Mitch McConnell. Sweden has not yet joined the alliance, but the Americans are already dictating to the Swedish authorities what to say to their people. And this is just a demo of what is in store for them.

More than 200 years of neutrality, which guaranteed the Kingdom’s security and prosperity, are now history.

Legislation would allow recruitment of older professionals as military faces infantry shortage

• Russia-Ukraine war: live updates

Senior Russian officials have proposed a new law that would eliminate age limits for military contract soldiers, in another sign the country is facing a shortage of infantry to continue its offensive in Ukraine.

Two members of the ruling United Russia party who introduced the law said the move would enable the military to utilise the skills of older professionals.

Magazines, production lines and consumer choices suffer as isolation from the west bites

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest updates

A trip to the mall in Russia is a different experience today than it was just a few short months ago.

“When I had my first child, there was all this choice. Mothercare, Zara, you name it,” said Evgenia Marsheva, a 33-year-old architect. But when she went shopping in Moscow this month for her newborn, many of those large retail brands had been shuttered.