Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:
– More than 1,000 Mariupol fighters remain: separatist –
More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers including senior commanders, remain inside the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine’s port city of Mariupol, a pro-Russian separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, says.
Russia says that a total of 959 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered at the plant, including 80 wounded, since Monday.
It said that the injured are being treated in a hospital in a part of the eastern Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian rebels.
Kyiv’s defence ministry says it will do “everything necessary” to rescue the personnel still in the plant’s tunnels.
Ukraine says it hopes to exchange Azovstal fighters for Russian soldiers it is holding.
– Russian soldier pleads guilty to war crimes –
A 21-year-old Russian soldier pleads guilty to killing an unarmed Ukrainian civilian at a war crimes trial in Kyiv, in the first such case to go to court since the start of the offensive.
Vadim Shishimarin from Irkutsk in Siberia admitted gunning down the 62-year-old man near the central village of Chupakhivka to prevent him reporting a carjacking by fleeing Russian troops.
He faces possible life imprisonment for war crimes and premeditated murder after the case heard by a district court in Kyiv.
“By this first trial, we are sending a clear signal that every perpetrator, every person who ordered or assisted in the commission of crimes in Ukraine shall not avoid responsibility,” Ukraine’s chief prosecutor Iryna Venediktova tweeted.
– Finland, Sweden submit NATO bids –
Finland and Sweden submit their bids to join NATO, sealing their decision to jettison decades of military non-alignment, despite threats of reprisals from Moscow.
NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg calls it a “historic step”. He has promised to welcome them “with open arms” while an advisor to US President Joe Biden says Washington is “confident” Turkey will overcome concerns on the membership bids.
Biden offers US support to Finland and Sweden in the event of “aggression” during the application process.
Several other NATO allies, most notably Britain, have offered security assurances and German has offered joint exercises.
NATO ambassadors meeting in Brussels fail to reach consensus on starting formal membership negotiations.
Finland, which shares a 1,300-kilometre (800-mile) border with Russia, and Sweden fear they could be future targets of Russian aggression following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Public support in the two countries for NATO membership skyrocketed after the war began.
– Moscow expels dozens of diplomats –
Russia expels dozens of French, Italian and Spanish diplomats in tit-for-tat responses to the expulsion of Russian diplomats over the Ukraine conflict.
The foreign ministry says 27 Spanish, 24 Italian and 34 French diplomats have been declared “persona non grata”.
All three countries condemn the move, with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi calling it a “hostile act” which will make resolving the war through peaceful means more difficult.
– US reopens Kyiv embassy –
The United States reopens its embassy in Kyiv after closing it for three months due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the State Department says.
“The Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, have defended their homeland in the face of Russia’s unconscionable invasion, and, as a result, the Stars and Stripes are flying over the embassy once again,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken says in a statement.
– Russian fire intensifies in north –
Russian forces have intensified artillery fire on Ukrainian border settlements around the city of Sumy to the north and close to the Russian border and Chernihiv to the east of the capital over the past few weeks, the Ukrainian army is reported as saying by the Institute for the Study of War.
The shelling comes despite the Russian military having scaled back its offensive in the north to focus on the eastern Donbas region.
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