Ukraine says its soldiers have pushed back Russian advance in key city of Sievierodonetsk
Ukraine says it has recaptured territory in the key city of Sievierodonetsk that was lost to Russian forces and could hold it for up to two weeks.
Sergiy Gaidai, governor of Luhansk province, said that Ukraine now controls a significant chunk of the the eastern factory city after reclaiming 20% of the territory they had lost.
"As soon as we have enough Western long-range weapons, we will push their artillery away from our positions. And then, believe me, the Russian infantry, they will just run," he told national television on Friday.
Mr Gaidai added that it was "not realistic" that the city, which has been under constant shelling for weeks, would fall within the next fortnight - despite Russian reinforcements being deployed.
On Saturday, Ukraine's military said that Russia had used artillery weapon to carry out "assault operations" in the city - but their troops retreated after failing to make progress in the nearby town of Bakhmut.
These claims could not be independently verified.
Even though Moscow has been plagued by military setbacks, Russia is said to be close to capturing all of Luhansk, one of two southern Ukrainian regions that comprise the swathe of land known as the Donbas.
On Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded that Russia now controls 20% of Ukraine.
As the fighting in the country's east rages on, Russian forces have combined airstrikes and massed artillery fires to bring its “overwhelming” firepower to bear in Donbas, the UK's Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.
Russian air activity has been “largely restricted to deep strikes using air and surface launched cruise missiles to disrupt the movement of Ukrainian reinforcements and supplies", the MoD states in its latest intelligence update.
It adds that the joint use of air and artillery strikes has been a crucial factor in Russia’s recent tactical successes in the region.
Other key developments in the war in Ukraine:
Ukraine’s intelligence services are in communication with the captured Azovstal steelworks fighters as Kyiv continues tries to ensure their release, according to the country's interior minister
Two people were injured after a missile hit an agricultural storage unit in Ukraine's southern Odesa region on Saturday morning, the regional administration's spokesman wrote
Two people reportedly died and at least two were wounded following Russian shelling of civilian infrastructure in the northeastern Kharkiv region on Friday
Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed suggestions that Moscow was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting grain
Ukraine has said it is losing 60 to 100 soldiers every day
The chairman of the African Union, Senegal’s President Macy Sall, told Putin that the fighting in Ukraine and Western sanctions had worsened food shortages
Fighting is continuing to intensify in Ukraine’s east as the war reaches its 101st day mark.
The ruble is now an official currency in the southern Kherson region, alongside the Ukrainian hryvnia.
Residents there and in Russian-controlled parts of the Zaporizhzhia region are getting offered Russian passports.
The Kremlin-installed administrations in both regions have talked about plans to become part of Russia.
The Moscow-backed leaders of separatist areas in the Donbas region, which is mostly Russian-speaking, have shared similar intentions.
Putin recognised the separatists’ self-proclaimed republics as independent states two days before launching the invasion in February.
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