Two dead in attack on Zaporizhzhia apartment block
Russia attacked a five-storey apartment block in Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing two people, the city’s acting mayor, Anatoly Kurtev, said. Rescuers are searching for survivors under the rubble.
The building was “almost completely destroyed”, Kurtev said.
The Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration said Russia appears to have used a S-300 missile.
Key events
The UK Ministry of Defence has published a wartime weather forecast in its update today, predicting that “warmer than average conditions for the remainder of winter and spring”. While this is good news for people trying to stay warm, it will pose a challenge to Ukraine’s armed forces as the ground thaws, creating mud.
Poor cross-country movement (CCM) caused by mod does “provide some advantage to defending forces”, the ministry said – presumably by slowing the attackers down.
(3/5) Daytime soil temperatures have risen and are now largely above freezing. As experienced since mid-February 2023, overnight freeze and daytime thaw remains likely until next week.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) March 2, 2023
It added that, “It is almost certain that by late-March, CCM will be at its worst after the final thaw. This will add further friction to ground operations and hamper the off-road movement of heavier armoured vehicles, especially over churned-up ground in the Bakhmut sector.”
The G20 will see US secretary of state Antony Blinken and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in the same room for the first time since July, but the two men are unlikely to hold talks, AFP reports.
Western delegates fear China is considering supplying arms to its Russian ally and they will use the foreign ministers’ summit to discourage Beijing from intervening in the conflict.
India’s longstanding security ties with Russia have put the host of Thursday’s meeting in an awkward diplomatic position after refusing to condemn the invasion over the past year.
But EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said he was confident India would use the meeting to “make Russia understand that this war has to finish”.
“Certainly the success of the meeting today will be measured in respect to what we will be able to do on that,” he told reporters Wednesday.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi called Thursday for the G20 to bridge differences over Ukraine, telling the opening of a meeting in New Delhi that global governance has “failed”.
“The experience of the last few years – financial crisis, climate change, pandemic, terrorism and wars – clearly shows that global governance has failed,” Modi said in a recorded statement opening the meeting of G20 foreign ministers.
“We are meeting at a time of deep global divisions … We all have our positions and our perspectives on how these tensions (can) be resolved. However, as the leading economies of the world, we also have a responsibility for those who are not in this room,” Modi said.
India had wanted its G20 presidency this year to focus on issues such as alleviating poverty and climate finance, but the Ukraine war has so far crowded out other agenda items.
Bakhmut can’t be held ‘at any cost’, says Ukrainian MP
Ukrainian forces hung on to their positions in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut early on Thursday under constant attack from Russian troops seeking to claim their first major victory for more than half a year.
Russia says seizing Bakhmut would open the way to fully controlling the rest of the strategic Donbas industrial region bordering Russia, one of the main objectives of its invasion a year ago on 24 February.
Ukraine says Bakhmut has limited strategic value but has nevertheless put up fierce resistance. Not everyone in Ukraine is convinced that defending Bakhmut can go on indefinitely.
“I believe that sooner or later, we will probably have to leave Bakhmut. There is no sense in holding it at any cost,” Ukrainian member of parliament Serhiy Rakhmanin said on NV radio late on Wednesday.
“But for the moment, Bakhmut will be defended with several aims – firstly, to inflict as many Russian losses as possible and make Russia use its ammunition and resources.”
No lines of defence should be allowed to collapse, Rakhmanin said.
“There are two ways to approach this – an organised retreat or simple flight. And we cannot allow flight to take place under any circumstances,” he said.
Among the people evacuated from the apartment block was a pregnant woman, photographs show.
A Reuters photographer captured this photo of a Zaporizhzhia resident named Yurji holding the hand of his relative, Anna, who was in the apartment block when it was hit by a Russian missile.
Two dead in attack on Zaporizhzhia apartment block
Russia attacked a five-storey apartment block in Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing two people, the city’s acting mayor, Anatoly Kurtev, said. Rescuers are searching for survivors under the rubble.
The building was “almost completely destroyed”, Kurtev said.
The Zaporizhzhia Regional Military Administration said Russia appears to have used a S-300 missile.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest for the next while.
Russia attacked a five-storey apartment block in Zaporizhzhia overnight, killing two people, the city’s acting mayor, Anatoly Kurtev, said. Rescuers are searching for survivors under the rubble.
And Ukrainian forces hung on to their positions in the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut early on Thursday under constant attack from Russian troops seeking to claim their first major victory for more than half a year.
“I believe that sooner or later, we will probably have to leave Bakhmut. There is no sense in holding it at any cost,” Ukrainian member of parliament Serhiy Rakhmanin said on NV radio late on Wednesday.
“But for the moment, Bakhmut will be defended with several aims – firstly, to inflict as many Russian losses as possible and make Russia use its ammunition and resources.”
We’ll have more on these stories shortly. First, here are the other key recent developments:
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Ukrainians survived the past winter thanks to government efforts to ensure energy and heat, but Russia still poses a threat to the generating system, Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. “Winter is over. It was a very difficult one and every Ukrainian, without exaggeration, felt the difficulties,” the Ukrainian president said in a video message delivered after a meeting on energy issues. “But we managed to provide Ukraine with energy and heat. The threat to the energy system remains.”
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Russia has lost at least 130 tanks and armoured personnel carriers in a three-week battle at the town of Vuhledar in southern Ukraine, according to Ukrainian officials. They said the “epic” fight on a plain near Vuhledar produced the biggest tank battle of the war so far and a stinging setback for the Russians, the New York Times reported.
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The United States is sounding out close allies about the possibility of imposing new sanctions on China if Beijing provides military support to Russia for its war in Ukraine, according to four US officials and other sources. The consultations, which are still at a preliminary stage, are intended to drum up support from a range of countries, especially those in the wealthy G7, to coordinate support for any possible restrictions.
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The Ukrainian military may decide to withdraw its forces from Bakhmut, an economic adviser to Zelenskiy has said. “Our military is obviously going to weigh all of the options. So far, they’ve held the city, but if need be, they will strategically pull back,” said Alexander Rodnyansky on CNN. “We’re not going to sacrifice all of our people just for nothing.”
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Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, said Ukrainian forces were putting up “furious resistance” against Moscow’s attempt to seize Bakhmut. Prigozhin said he so far had seen no signs of a Ukrainian withdrawal. The battle for Bakhmut, in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, has become a symbol of Ukrainian resistance as defenders hold out against relentless shelling and repel waves of Russian troops who have been carrying out a months-long campaign to capture it.
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Russia’s defence ministry has said its forces repelled what it described as a major Ukrainian drone attack on Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Moscow annexed in 2014. “Six Ukrainian attack drones were shot down by air defence systems. Another four Ukrainian drones were disabled by electronic warfare,” the ministry said.
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Vladimir Putin has said he is preparing for a visit to Moscow by China’s president, Xi Jinping, Russian state media reported. The Russian leader said he planned to show the Chinese delegation the Moscow metro’s Bolshaya Koltsevaya line (Big Circle line) during their visit to the Russian capital.
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The leaders of China and Belarus – Xi Jinping and Alexander Lukashenko – have issued a joint statement calling for a ceasefire in Ukraine and negotiations to bring about a political settlement. The joint call amounted to an endorsement of Beijing’s peace plan issued last week that called for respect of national sovereignty and “territorial integrity”.
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Finland’s parliament has overwhelmingly approved joining Nato. Finnish MPs voted 184 in favour of accepting the Nato treaties, with seven against and one abstaining, increasing the chances of it becoming a member of the transatlantic defensive alliance before its neighbour Sweden.
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Hungary’s president, Katalin Novák, urged lawmakers on Wednesday to ratify Finland and Sweden’s Nato entry “as soon as possible”. “It is a complex decision, with serious consequences, so careful consideration is necessary,” Novák said on Facebook.
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Germany will ramp up ammunition production as well as ensure it has enough replacement parts and repairs capacity in its defence industry to better support Ukraine, the chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has said.
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Russia would only agree to extend the Black Sea grain deal if the interests of its agricultural producers were taken into account, Russia’s foreign ministry has said. The deal, brokered by the UN and Turkey, allows safe exports from Ukrainian ports and is up for renewal this month.
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Russia brought new legal amendments to parliament on Wednesday that further strengthen the country’s censorship laws, envisaging up to 15 years in jail for discrediting the armed forces or voluntary military organisations such as the Wagner group.