Closing summary
The time in Kyiv is just coming up to 8pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s stories:
Intense fighting continues in and around the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as Kyiv and Moscow seemingly struggle with ammunition shortages and mounting casualties. The head of the mercenary Wagner group, which is leading the Russian offensive in Bakhmut, claimed in a video published on Saturday that if his men were forced to withdraw, it could lead to the collapse of the entire Russian frontline.
Ukrainian forces appear to be “conducting a limited fighting withdrawal” in eastern Bakhmut but continue to inflict high casualties on the advancing Russian forces, the US-based Institute for the Study of War says in its latest update.
Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, visited Mariupol, in a rare trip to occupied Ukraine by a senior Moscow figure. The Russian defence ministry issued images on Monday of Shoigu “inspecting Russian reconstruction efforts of infrastructure”. During his visit, it said, he was presented with a medical centre, a rescue centre, and a “new microdistrict” of 12 five-storey residential buildings.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has paid tribute to fighters in the Donbas, as his forces come under increasingly intense pressure in the city of Bakhmut. “It is one of the toughest battles. Painful and challenging,” he said in his nightly address.
His comments came after Kyiv said it had repelled “more than 130 enemy attacks” on Sunday as Russian troops continue attempts to surround Bakhmut. Russian forces are said to be contesting lines of communication and preventing resupply.
Ukraine would spend the next six months working to shore up the country’s energy supply against Russian attack, he said.
The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that his representative had been denied access to the headquarters of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine after Prigozhin complained about a lack of ammunition.
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was handed a 15-year jail term on Monday after being convicted in absentia for treason and “conspiracy to seize power”, a verdict she said was punishment for her efforts to promote democracy. Tsikhanouskaya, 40, a former English teacher, fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020 after running against incumbent leader Alexander Lukashenko in a presidential election, which official results claimed Lukashenko won by a landslide. She and the opposition said at the time that the results had been doctored to hand victory to Lukashenko. In 2022, Lukashenko allowed Putin to use Belarus as a springbaord for Russia’s failed offensive to capture Kyiv in the early days of the Russian invasion.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported that in the last 24 hours “Russian troops carried out 29 strikes on Donetsk region and shelled 14 settlements in the region”. It reported that a rocket attack on Kramatorsk had destroyed a school, and that 15 apartment buildings were also damaged.
The European Union is reported to be edging closer to a landmark move into joint procurement of ammunition to help Ukraine and replenish members’ stockpiles, but major questions regarding funding and scale remain to be resolved.
Russia’s premier tank force is expected to be re-equipped with Soviet-made T-62 tanks first fielded in 1954 to make up for combat losses, the UK Ministry of Defence has claimed. In its latest update, the MoD says there is a “realistic” possibility” that the 60-year-old tanks will be supplied to units which had been expected to receive the next-generation T-14 Armata main battle tank. The ministry said approximately 800 T-62s have been pulled from storage since 2022.
Russia’s prosecutor general has said it is labelling German-based anti-corruption group Transparency International an “undesirable organisation”. “It was found that the activities of this organisation clearly go beyond the declared goals and objectives,” it said.
A British-led £520m international fund to provide fresh weapons for Ukraine and intended to be “low bureaucracy” has been plagued by delays, with only £200m allocated amid warnings that the rest of the funding will not provide arms at “the front until the summer”.
Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops – winter wheat and barley – are in good condition and could produce a good harvest, Ukraine’s academy of agricultural science was quoted as saying on Monday.
Ukraine special forces destroyed a Russian observation tower at the weekend in the city of Bryansk with a kamikaze drone. Kraken, a special forces unit, has taken credit for the attack on a tower that was being used to monitor the border with Ukraine.
Three Ukrainian missiles have allegedly been shot down by air defence in Russia’s Belgorod region overnight. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, claimed the strikes in a post to his Telegram channel on Monday morning and said authorities were working to understand what had occurred.
The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov regiment in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. The Guardian could not independently verify this.
Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said on Sunday that Ankara was working hard to extend the UN-backed Black Sea grain initiative. A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson indicated Moscow was unhappy with aspects of the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia after its invasion.
German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, told CNN it was “necessary” for Russian president, Vladimir Putin, to understand he will not win the Ukraine war, so negotiations to end the conflict can begin. “If you look at the proposal of the Ukrainians, it is easy to understand that they are ready for peace,” he added.
The head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, has warned UK MPs that failing to address issues around food security could lead to additional flows of people out of Syria, Lebanon, and possibly north Africa towards Europe in the next 12 months. Beasley called on MPs to recognise the urgency of addressing dropping food production globally and the importance of adopting a more strategic approach to the Black Sea grain initiative so that food could reach vulnerable communities.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
Updated
Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk dedicated her first WTA Tour title to “all the people who are fighting and dying” after beating Russia’s Varvara Gracheva at the ATX Open.
The 20-year-old, ranked 40, completed a 6-3, 7-5 victory over the world number 66 in one hour and 32 minutes and then refused to shake hands with her opponent at the net.
During the presentation ceremony, Kostyuk said:
Being in the position that I’m in right now, it’s extremely special to win this title. I want to dedicate this title to Ukraine and to all the people who are fighting and dying right now.
She has been one of the most outspoken players on the issue of allowing Russian and Belarusian players to continue playing on tour after the invasion of Ukraine.
The head of the World Food Programme, David Beasley, has warned UK MPs that failing to address issues around food security could lead to additional flows of people out of Syria, Lebanon, and possibly north Africa towards Europe in the next 12 months.
Beasley called on MPs to recognise the urgency of addressing dropping food production globally and the importance of adopting a more strategic approach to the Black Sea grain initiative so that more grain could reach vulnerable communities. Beasley added that the amount of grain “coming out of the Black Sea grain initiative currently is not enough.”
The initiative was brokered last July by the UN and Turkey, creating a safe corridor for wheat and grain shipments from Ukraine to reach global markets and was extended in November.
In an urgent call to action Beasley told MPs:
It is extremely important those silos get emptied, those ships get loaded, and politics be thrown out the window so we can move these ships because we are facing a humanitarian crisis like nothing we’ve seen since the second world war.”
Beasley said that possible hurricanes in the US later this year could lead to possible diversions of funds away from aid programmes, which would pile on pressure for European nations to step up. “I don’t know if there is appetite for it, but the question is can you afford not to,” he said.
Beasley also warned that global shortages of fertiliser in Ukraine and across Africa could further complicate food security challenges in the near future. Russia and Belarus are among the world’s largest sources of fertiliser, which have been exempt from broader sanctions related to Russia’s invasion due to the Black Sea grain initiative. However, successfully getting fertiliser to food insecure places has been hampered by secondary measures such as Russia’s exclusion from SWIFT as well as closed export routes across the EU.
Updated
Ukraine continues to defend besieged city of Bakhmut
Ukrainian forces have continued to defend the besieged city of Bakhmut, as the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force said the position of his troops could be in peril because of their lack of ammunition.
The battle for Bakhmut, which is still under Kyiv’s control, has raged for seven months, with thousands of people killed and hundreds of buildings collapsed or charred. The few remaining civilians have been confined to basements for months with no running water, electricity or gas.
In spite of the rumours of an imminent retreat of his troops, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office on Monday said Ukrainian generals had supported continuing Bakhmut defence.
After a series of meetings with the Ukrainian president, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, “spoke in favour of continuing the defensive operation and further strengthening [Ukrainian] positions in Bakhmut”, Zelenskyi’s office said in a statement on its website.
Updated
A ceiling, damaged by Russian artillery, in a building where people live in a basement shelter in Velyka Novosilka, Donetsk region.
Updated
Exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya was handed a 15-year jail term on Monday after being convicted in absentia for treason and “conspiracy to seize power”, a verdict that she said was punishment for her efforts to promote democracy.
Tsikhanouskaya, 40, a former English teacher, fled to neighbouring Lithuania in 2020 after running against incumbent leader Alexander Lukashenko in a presidential election, which official results claimed Lukashenko won by a landslide.
She and the opposition said at the time that the results were doctored to hand victory to Lukashenko instead of herself. Lukashenko, who has ruled Belarus with an iron hand for nearly 30 years, denied the claim.
Reacting to the verdict, Tsikhanouskaya tweeted:
15 years of prison. This is how the regime ‘rewarded’ my work for democratic changes in Belarus. But today I don’t think about my own sentence. I think about thousands of innocents, detained & sentenced to real prison terms. I won’t stop until each of them is released.
Mass protests against Lukashenko – a close ally of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin – then erupted, which his security forces suppressed, locking up his opponents or forcing them to flee. In 2022, he allowed Putin to use Belarus as a springbaord for Russia’s failed offensive to capture Kyiv in the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Reuters states that Belta, the state news agency, said a court in Minsk had sentenced Tsikhanouskaya to 15 years in a prison camp after finding her guilty of treason and conspiracy to seize power.
The same court handed an 18-year prison sentence to Pavel Latushko, a prominent member of the Belarusian opposition council, and 12-year jail sentences to three other activists convicted of being part of the same plot, Belta reported.
AFP reports that the Latvian foreign minister, Edgars Rinkevics, condemned the “kangaroo court” that sentenced the leading opposition figures and the “abuse of justice imposed by the illegitimate Lukashenko’s regime”.
Nobel Peace prize winner and human rights activist Ales Bialiatski was sentenced to 10 years in prison on Friday by a court in Minsk in a trial condemned in the west as a “sham”.
Updated
The EU is edging closer to a landmark move into joint procurement of ammunition to help Ukraine and replenish members’ stockpiles but major questions regarding funding and scale remain to be resolved, Reuters reports.
EU defence ministers will this week discuss plans to speed up the supply of 155mm ammunition to Ukraine, which is pleading for more such artillery shells to fight Russia’s invasion, and to order more munitions together.
Hanno Pevkur, the defence minister of Estonia – which has led a push for the EU to order millions of shells – said he believed ministers would reach a “political consensus” to pursue joint procurement when they meet in Stockholm on Wednesday.
But he noted key issues were still up for debate, such as how to pay for joint purchases. Pevkur insisted EU members could not rely on funds already committed for military aid to Ukraine.
“We need a clear consensus that there has to be new money for this initiative,” he told Reuters in a telephone interview.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported that one person has been killed in the village of Zelenyi Hai in Kherson region after a tractor struck a mine while working in the field. It reports another person was injured. The claims have not been independently verified.
Russia’s prosecutor general said has said it is labelling German-based anti-corruption group Transparency International an “undesirable organisation”.
“It was found that the activities of this organisation clearly go beyond the declared goals and objectives,” it said.
The label “undesirable” has been applied to dozens of foreign groups in Russia since it started using the classification in 2015, and often serves as a precursor to the justice ministry banning an organisation outright, Reuters reported.
Updated
Stuck at his home in Kyiv, Mykhailo Revenko listened to the sound of loud explosions. It was March 2022. Russian troops were on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital, their tanks on the move. The fate of his country hung in the balance.
“There was a curfew. My job had stopped. I suddenly had a lot of time. I didn’t want to watch movies so I pulled a book from the shelf,” Revenko said. A native Russian speaker, he decided to improve his Ukrainian. “I went to a Ukrainian school and knew the language. But I needed to work on my vocabulary,” he said.
Revenko started with The Hunters and the Hunted, a 1944 novel by the dissident and anti-Soviet Ukrainian writer Ivan Bahrianyi. He then read Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front in a Ukrainian edition, as well as a translated work by the Swedish author Fredrik Backman.
Next he devoured Footprints on the Road by Valerii Markus, a Ukrainian soldier and popular blogger. Markus’s bestselling novel draws on his experiences fighting in the Donbas region in 2014, after Vladimir Putin kickstarted a war in the east, and sent special forces to take over Crimea.
Updated
Russia steps up efforts to take besieged Bakhmut as Kyiv continues to support its defence
Intense fighting continues in and around the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut as Kyiv and Moscow seemingly struggle with ammunition shortages and mounting casualties.
The head of the mercenary Wagner group, which is leading the Russian offensive in Bakhmut, claimed in a video published on Saturday that if his men were forced to withdraw, it could lead to the collapse of the entire Russian frontline.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, discussed the situation with senior commanders, and two top generals supported continuing to defend the eastern city against Russian forces, Zelenskiy’s office said on Monday.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, “spoke in favour of continuing the defensive operation and further strengthening [Ukrainian] positions in Bakhmut”, it said in a statement on its website.
Thousands of people have been killed and injured in the battle and videos from the city in the past week show many buildings charred, collapsed or without windows.
The few thousand civilians still there have been confined to living in basements for months with no running water, electricity or gas.
The Associated Press reported:
Over the bitterly cold winter months, the fighting has largely been deadlocked. Bakhmut does not have any major strategic value, and analysts say its possible fall is unlikely to bring a turning point in the conflict.
The city’s importance has become psychological - for Russian president Vladimir Putin, a victory there will finally deliver some good news from the battlefield, while for Kyiv the display of grit and defiance reinforces a message that Ukraine is holding on after a year of brutal attacks to cement support among its western allies.
Even so, some analysts questioned the wisdom of the Ukrainian defenders holding out much longer, with others suggesting a tactical withdrawal may already be under way.
Michael Kofman, the director of Russia studies at the CAN thinktank in Arlington, Virginia, said that Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut has been effective because it has drained the Russian war effort, but that Kyiv should now look ahead.
“I think the tenacious defence of Bakhmut achieved a great deal, expending Russian manpower and ammunition,” Mr Kofman tweeted.
“But strategies can reach points of diminishing returns, and given Ukraine is trying to husband resources for an offensive, it could impede the success of a more important operation.”
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based thinktank, noted that urban warfare favours the defender but considered that the smartest option now for Kyiv may be to withdraw to positions that are easier to defend.
Updated
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy discussed the situation in besieged Bakhmut with senior commanders, and two top generals supported continuing to defend the eastern city against Russian forces, Zelenskiy’s office said on Monday.
Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, “spoke in favour of continuing the defensive operation and further strengthening [Ukrainian] positions in Bakhmut,” it said in a statement on its website.
The founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said that his representative had been denied access to the headquarters of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine after Prigozhin complained about a lack of ammunition.
Prigozhin had previously said that his troops fighting to seize the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut were being deprived of ammunition and that, if they were forced to retreat, the entire front would collapse.
Prigozhin said via his press service that he had written to the army’s top brass, saying his men urgently needed ammunition, Reuters reported.
“On 6 March, at 8 o’clock in the morning, my representative at the headquarters had his pass cancelled and was denied access to the group’s headquarters,” Prigozhin said.
Updated
Russia’s FSB security service said it had thwarted a Ukraine-backed car bomb attack against a prominent nationalist businessman who has been a cheerleader for Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
The FSB, Russia’s main domestic intelligence agency, claimed it had intervened to stop the plot, which it said involved attaching a remote-controlled homemade bomb to the underside of a car used by Russian tycoon Konstantin Malofeev.
Russia’s Zvezda TV channel shared a video from the FSB that appeared to show a man approaching a parked car and momentarily reaching under it.
It later published a video of a robot appearing to remove an object from under a car.
Reuters was not able to verify the videos.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Ukrainian forces appear to be conducting a “limited fighting withdrawal” in eastern Bakhmut but continue to inflict high casualties on the advancing Russian forces, the US-based Institute for the Study of War says in its latest update.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has paid tribute to fighters in the Donbas, as his forces come under increasingly intense pressure in the city of Bakhmut. “It is one of the toughest battles. Painful and challenging,” he said in his nightly address.
His comments came after Kyiv said it had repelled “more than 130 enemy attacks” on Sunday as Russian troops continue attempts to surround Bakhmut. Russian forces are said to be contesting lines of communication and preventing resupply.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu visited Mariupol, in a rare visit to occupied Ukraine by a senior Moscow figure. The Russian defence ministry issued images on Monday of Shoigu “inspecting Russian reconstruction efforts of infrastructure”. During his visit, it said, he was presented with a medical centre, a rescue centre, and a “new microdistrict” of 12 five-story residential buildings.
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported that in the last 24 hours “Russian troops carried out 29 strikes on Donetsk region and shelled 14 settlements in the region”. It reported that a rocket attack on Kramatorsk had destroyed a school, and that 15 apartment buildings were also damaged.
Russia’s premier tank force is expected to be re-equipped with Soviet-made T-62 tanks first fielded in 1954 to make up for combat losses, the UK Ministry of Defence has claimed. In its latest update the ministry says there is a “realistic” possibility” that the 60-year-old tanks will be supplied to units which had been expected to receive the next-generation T-14 Armata main battle tank. The ministry said approximately 800 T-62s have been pulled from storage since 2022.
A British-led £520m international fund to provide fresh weapons for Ukraine and intended to be “low bureaucracy” has been plagued by delays, with only £200m allocated amid warnings that the rest of the funding will not provide arms at “the front until the summer”.
Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops – winter wheat and barley – are in good condition and could produce a good harvest, Ukraine’s academy of agricultural science was quoted as saying on Monday.
Ukraine special forces destroyed a Russian observation tower at the weekend in the city of Bryansk with a kamikaze drone. Kraken, a special forces unit, has taken credit for the attack on a tower that was being used to monitor the border with Ukraine.
Three Ukrainian missiles have allegedly been shot down by air defence in Russia’s Belgorod region overnight. Vyacheslav Gladkov, governor of the Belgorod region, claimed the strikes in a post to his Telegram channel ON Monday morning and said authorities were working to understand what had occurred.
Updated
The Ukrainian government named a new head of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (Nabu) during a live streamed cabinet meeting on Monday, part of efforts to show its determination to crack down on graft.
The new Nabu chief was named as Semen Kryvonos, who had been serving as head of the state inspection of architecture and urban planning.
The European Union has made fighting corruption a top priority for Ukraine as it seeks membership, Reuters reported.
Updated
Fall of Bakhmut 'would not mean Russia has changed tide of war'
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, said that the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was of more than symbolic importance than an operational one and it would not necessarily mean that Moscow had regained the momentum in its year-long war effort.
“I think it is more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value,” Austin told reporters while visiting Jordan, adding that he would not predict if or when Bakhmut would be taken by Russian forces.
“The fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight,” Austin added.
Updated
Russia's defence minister Shoigu visits occupied Mariupol
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited Mariupol today, in a rare visit to occupied Ukraine by a senior Moscow figure.
The Russian defence ministry issued images on Monday of Shoigu “inspecting Russian reconstruction efforts of infrastructure”. During his visit, it said he was shown a medical centre, a rescue centre, and a “new microdistrict” of 12 five-story residential buildings.
Tass reports: “Shoigu was also informed about the construction of the largest water conduit that connects the Rostov region and [Donetsk], from the Don River to the Siverskyi Donets-Donbas canal.”
Mariupol was besieged by Russian forces in the early stages of the war, and lies in Donetsk, one of the four partially occupied regions of Ukraine which the Russian Federation unilaterally claimed to annex in October 2022.
Shoigu’s visit to Ukraine began on Saturday, but the precise locations he has visited have been kept secret for security reasons.
Updated
Russian state-owned media is reporting that security forces there claim to have foiled a plot to assassinate Konstantin Malofeev. The Russian businessman owns Tsargrad TV, which is strongly supportive of President Vladimir Putin. The security services in Russia are blaming Ukrainian special services for the plot, which they state was to employ a car bomb, similar to the killing of Daria Dugina in August last year.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, has reported that in the last 24 hours “Russian troops carried out 29 strikes on Donetsk region and shelled 14 settlements in the region”.
Additionally, on its Telegram channel, it posted to say: “In Lyman, a civilian was injured as a result of the detonation of a Russian mine.”
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
The air alarm that was declared across all of Ukraine earlier has ended.
Most of Ukraine’s winter grain crops – winter wheat and barley – are in good condition and could produce a good harvest, Ukraine’s academy of agricultural science was quoted as saying on Monday.
“The analysis of the viability of winter wheat … showed that the vast majority of plants were in relatively good condition,” the APK-Inform consultancy quoted a report by the academy as saying, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Reuters reports the winter wheat area sown for the 2023 harvest decreased to about 4.1m hectares from more than 6m sown a year earlier as a result of Russia’s fullscale invasion of Ukraine on 24 February last year.
Of the winter wheat sown last year, only 4.9m hectares were harvested in Ukrainian-controlled territory, as Russian forces occupied some areas.
Ukraine’s wheat harvest declined to 20.2m tonnes in 2022 from 32.2m tonnes in 2021. Overall grain output fell to around 54m tonnes from a record 86m in 2021.
Updated
Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, is reporting that overnight “Russian troops launched a rocket attack on Kramatorsk and destroyed a school”, and that 15 apartment buildings were also damaged.
The claim has not been independently verified.
Oleksandr Syenkevych, mayor of Mykolaiv, has published to Telegram to say that the electricity, water and heating systems in the city are all functioning. He also writes that all public transport is running.
The BBC Russian service reports that “for the third day in a row”, Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu is in the Russian occupied area of Ukraine, adding more details to earlier reports. [See 6.13 GMT]
The BBC writes:
In Mariupol, Shoigu “inspected the readiness of already commissioned facilities and the progress of work on the sites of buildings and structures under construction.”
The list of objects that Shoigu allegedly visited includes a medical centre, an emergency centre and “a new microdistrict of 12 five-story residential buildings.”
On Saturday, the Russian military department claimed that the minister visited the “forward command post” of one of the formations of the Vostok group of troops in the South Donetsk direction, where the commander of the group Rustam Muradova reported to him. On Sunday, there was a report about a meeting between Shoigu and the leaders of other groups at the “headquarters of the combined group of Russian troops.”
The exact geographical points of Shoigu’s trip were not indicated.
The air alert has been extended across all of Ukraine.
Air raid sirens all across Ukraine pic.twitter.com/1VEXZRGjBh
— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) March 6, 2023
An air alert has just been declared across several regions of Ukraine including Mykolaiv, Dnipro, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa and Kherson in the south, as well as in Lviv in the west.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
It was Boris Johnson who declared, in November 2021, four months before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, that “the old concepts of fighting big tank battles on the European landmass … are over”. Today, dozens of destroyed Russian tanks dot Ukraine’s eastern Donbas fields near Vuhledar, smashed, rusting emblems of a traditional heavy warfare that has returned to Europe.
Events have moved fast since Russia invaded last February, but it is worth restating how far planning for conventional war had gone out of fashion before then. Although it was recognised that Russia was a threat, the dominant military thinking was that the goal of authoritarian regimes was “to win without going to war”, as then chief of general staff Sir Nick Carter said in September 2020.
It was not just a UK assumption; the idea was widespread that future conflicts would be economic, or fought in cyberspace; by mercenaries or simply deniably in the way Russia’s first incursions into Ukraine in 2014 were led by separatist rebels infiltrated by Moscow’s forces. War, in short, would be less bloody – and much cheaper.
For more on how these and other assumptions have been upended by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, read the full story by Dan Sabbagh.
Russian military pulling 60-year-old tanks from storage to stem losses
Russia’s premier tank force is expected to be re-equipped with Soviet-made T-62 tanks first fielded in 1954 to make up for combat losses, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
In its latest update the ministry says there is a “realistic” possibility” that the 60-year-old tanks will be supplied to units including the 1st Guards Tank army, which had been expected to receive the next-generation T-14 Armata main battle tank from 2021.
The ministry said approximately 800 T-62s have been pulled from storage since 2022 and have been retrofitted for use in the conflict but lack modern explosive reactive armour.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 6 March 2023
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 6, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence: https://t.co/HPcqkaCGaq pic.twitter.com/1J60pMXGag
Updated
Ukraine’s Marta Kostyuk won her first WTA title Sunday with victory over Russia’s Varvara Gracheva and dedicated it to her country and “all the people who are fighting and dying”.
The 20-year-old Kostyuk collapsed to the court sobbing after winning the final of the ATX Open in Austin, Texas 6-3, 7-5.
The 52nd-ranked Kostyuk told the victory ceremony:
Being in the position that I am in right now, it’s extremely special to win this title.
I want to dedicate this title to Ukraine and to all the people who are fighting and dying right now.
After applause and cheers, Kostyuk added: “Obviously it’s a very special moment, no matter when it happens.”
Kostyuk has previously been outspoken about the tennis world’s response to the Russian invasion of her homeland, saying anti-war platitudes weren’t enough.
At the Australian Open in January, Kostyuk said it had been “very upsetting” to see Novak Djokovic’s father, Srdjan, posing alongside a Russian flag with President Vladimir Putin’s face on it.
Kostyuk refused to shake hands at the US Open with Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February last year saw them and allies Belarus become outcasts in world sport.
- AFP
A British-led £520m international fund to provide fresh weapons for Ukraine and intended to be “low bureaucracy” has been plagued by delays, with only £200m allocated amid warnings that the rest of the funding will not provide arms at “the front until the summer”.
Bidders complain that the process, run by the UK’s Ministry of Defence, working with six other European countries, has been frustrating with deadlines missed – and the MoD conceded that awarding contracts “inevitably took time”.
Launched last August, the International Fund for Ukraine was intended to be “a flexible low-bureaucracy fund” that would provide new kit, training and money for repairs for Ukraine’s armed forces as Kyiv battles the Russian invasion.
For more on how a frustrating bureaucratic process is impeding weapons supplies for Ukraine, read the full report by Dan Sabbagh.
Three Ukrainian missiles have allegedly been shot down by air defence in Russia’s Belgorod region overnight.
Vyacheslav Gladkov, mayor of the Belgorod region, confirmed the strike in a post to his Telegram channel and said authorities were working to understand what had occurred.
One man has allegedly suffered shrapnel wounds to his arm and been taken to hospital by ambulance. Additional damage had been done to powerlines and the facades of nearby buildings.
Updated
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited Mariupol, the city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region captured by Russian forces last year after a months-long siege, the defence ministry said on Monday.
- Reuters
Updated
Within the first hours of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 25, 2022, the Ukrainian armed forces blew up a Soviet-era dam on the Irpin river to slow the Russian advance on Kyiv by flooding the surrounding area, turning it into a swampy quagmire.
A year on, the town of Demydiv is reeling from the flood that struck over 60 houses in the area.
Here are a few images from the town as residents grapple with their flooded community, the effects of winter and the ongoing war.
- AFP/GETTY
Updated
Ukrainian forces repelled more than 95 attacks by Russian forces on Sunday in several areas of Luhansk and Donetsk.
According to the latest update by the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Russian forces launched 27 air strikes and four missile strikes in the last 24 hours and continue to target civilian infrastructure.
It reports that assaults on Bakhmut and surrounding settlements remain ongoing with 21 settlements in Donetsk enduring hostile shelling and that Russian forces have been moved near Nova Kakhovka in Kherson and in Crimea as a feint. It is believed this has caused frustration among Russian troops due to fuel shortages and a lack of faith in the effectiveness of such a manoeuvre.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian airforce conducted 12 strikes on Russian forces, with artillery and missile forces striking three control points, four “focus areas” and one air defence system.
It is also claimed that the Russian military has set up a base in Volnovakha in the Donetsk region where students from a local technical school have been forced to repair damaged equipment and vehicles.
Updated
Russia’s failure to advance according to its stated timeframes is likely to lead to increasing frustration amongst the wars strongest supporters, the Institute for the Study of War says.
The ISW says the grinding campaign to capture Bakhmut has forced millbloggers to shift to more conservative expectations for advancing Russian troops informed by “nine months of ‘highly attritional, slow Russian advances in the Bakhmut.”
Despite these lowered expectations the ISW says cost of taking Bakhmut and stalling advances elsewhere “suggests that Russian campaigning to capture all of Donetsk Oblast would be a year’s-long effort’”.
Russian forces currently do not have the manpower and equipment necessary to sustain offensive operations at scale for a renewed offensive toward Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, let alone for a years-long campaign to capture all of Donetsk Oblast. Meaningful Russian offensives around Vuhledar or elsewhere in western Donetsk Oblast are also highly doubtful.
Russia will have to mobilize considerably more personnel and fundamentally transform its military industry to be able to support such operations. The Russian military‘s likely continued failure to achieve a decisive victory in Donetsk Oblast will likely draw increasing ire from Russia’s ultranationalist pro-war community.
Ukraine’s defence of Bakhmut is inflicting heavy losses on Russian forces, setting the stage for a future Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to the latest update by the Institute for the Study of War.
The attrition experienced by Russian forces in Bakhmut, and stalling offensives elsewhere, mean “the Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months”, the think tank says.
The ISW says the “significant numbers” of mobilised personnel near Vuhledar and in other operations suggest “Russian forces likely lack the capability to further reinforce the Bakhmut area significantly without pulling forces from another area of the front due to the lack of untapped reserves”.
Even if the Russian military take Bakhmut, the ISW says it would likely not be able to capitalise on this win and, combined with the “stalling Russian offensive” in Luhansk, circumstances are “likely setting robust conditions for a future Ukrainian counteroffensive”.
The Russian effort against Bakhmut does not further the Russian military’s operational or strategic battlefield aims, and significant Ukrainian defenses in the surrounding area undermine any tactical significance that capturing Bakhmut likely has for Russian forces. Ukrainian forces will likely have a window of opportunity to seize the battlefield initiative and launch a counteroffensive when the Russian effort around Bakhmut culminates either before or after taking the city.
Updated
Ukrainian forces may be conducting 'limited fighting withdrawal in eastern Bakhmut'
Ukrainian forces appear to be “conducting a limited fighting withdrawal” in eastern Bakhmut but continue to inflict high casualties on the advancing Russian forces, the US-based Institute for the Study of War says in its latest update.
NEW: Tonight's abbreviated campaign update on #Russia's invasion of #Ukraine from @TheStudyofWar & @criticalthreats analyzes the ongoing Battle for #Bakhmut and Russian prospects for further offensive efforts.
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) March 6, 2023
Latest maps and assessment: https://t.co/u65DgmecWh pic.twitter.com/tqRreJXe0K
Though the think tank says it is still too early to tell what Ukraine’s intentions are, the defence of Bakhmut “remains strategically sound” and that it may be pursuing a “gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare”.
Russian forces are unlikely to quickly secure significant territorial gains when conducting urban warfare, which usually favors the defender and can allow Ukrainian forces to inflict high casualties on advancing Russian units—even as Ukrainian forces are actively withdrawing.
The ISW said Russian forces will still need to fight through through Bakhmut city centre on the western bank of the Bakhmutka River, which is heavily defended and will favour Ukrainian forces.
Urban warfare in Bakhmut may further degrade already exhausted Russian mixed forces in a fashion similar to that caused by Ukraine’s fighting withdrawal from the Severodonetsk-Lysychansk line, which effectively ended Russian offensive operations in Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts in the summer of 2022.
Opening Summary
Hello and welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine – this is Royce Kurmelovs bringing you the latest developments.
An update from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) on Monday morning suggests Ukrainian forces may be conducting a “limited fighting withdrawal” from eastern Bakhmut. Ukrainian forces are continuing to inflict high casualties against advancing Russian units but ISW says it is still too early to know how the situation is developing and the defence “remains sound”.
During his nightly address, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy hailed fighters in the Donbas region, describing the defence of Bakhmut as “one of the toughest battles. Painful and challenging”. Ukraine’s armed forces continue to hold on in Bakhmut but are coming under increasing pressure as Russian forces move to contest lines of communication and prevent resupply.
On Sunday Zelenskiy said the armed forces had repelled “more than 130 enemy attacks”.
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian special forces unit, known as Kraken, has taken credit for an attack on a Russian observation tower in the city of Bryansk which was destroyed using a kamikaze drone. There were also reports of air raids overnight with anti-aircraft batteries responding in Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhia and Donetsk.
In other developments:
Zelenskiy also said “the world was strong enough to punish Russia for the war”. Ukraine would spend the next six months working to shore up the country’s energy supply against Russian attack, he said.
Exiled mayor of Melitopol, Ivan Fedorov, has claimed “hundreds” of Russian solders were killed in a Ukrainian strike on the city. There was no confirmation from Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence and the Guardian could not independently verify the claim.
The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov regiment in the south-eastern Zaporizhzhia region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. The Guardian could not independently verify this.
Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Sunday that Ankara was working hard to extend the UN-backed Black Sea grain initiative. A Russian foreign ministry spokesperson indicated Moscow was unhappy with aspects of the deal, which allowed Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz told CNN it was “necessary” for Russian president Vladimir Putin to understand he will not win the Ukraine war, so negotiations to end the conflict can begin. “If you look at the proposal of the Ukrainians, it is easy to understand that they are ready for peace,” he added.
The death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit a five-storey apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city Zaporizhzhia on Thursday has risen to 13, a local official said on Sunday.
A woman and two children were killed in Russian mortar shelling of a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office said on Sunday.
Ukraine MP Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze told Sky News on Sunday that tens of thousands of Ukrainian children could have disappeared in what she described as “genocide”. Klympush-Tsintsadze said the children were potentially deported to Russia.
