Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

(Reuters) – Ukraine said its forces were still holding out inside Sievierodonetsk and trying to evacuate civilians, after Russia destroyed the last bridge to the devastated eastern city in a potential turning point in one of the war’s bloodiest battles.

FIGHTING

* Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had offered Ukrainian fighters sheltering in the Azot chemical plant in Sievierodonetsk the chance to surrender on Wednesday.

* Russian troops are “trying to gain a foothold in the central part of the city” (of Sievierodonetsk), the Ukrainian military said in its daily roundup of the conflict nationwide.

* Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk region, said: “About 500 civilians remain on the grounds of the Azot (chemicals) plant… 40 of them are children,” he said. The industrial zone was under heavy bombardment by Russian forces.

* Ukraine’s military has enough ammunition and weapons, but needs more long-range weapons, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Danish journalists.

* The Ukrainian military said Russian forces in the eastern Donbas region were “creating conditions” for offensives on Sloviansk, Lyman, Yampil and Siversk – all located to the west of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk.

* Russia struck an artillery weapons depot with Kalibr cruise missiles in Ukraine’s Chernihiv region, the RIA news agency reported, citing Russia’s defence ministry.

* Russia’s TASS news agency reported at least five people were killed on Monday in the Russian-backed separatist Ukrainian region of Donetsk. There was no independent confirmation of the attacks and no immediate reaction from Kyiv to the reports.

* Serhiy Khlan, adviser to the head of the southern, mainly Russian-occupied Kherson province, said Ukraine was having tactical success recapturing territory there for a second straight week.

ECONOMY

* Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine’s presidential office, accused Russia of using the global food crisis as a weapon and of selling stolen Ukrainian grain, especially to African countries.

* Farmers of Ukraine’s southern Odesa region have begun the 2022 grain harvest, taking advantage of favourable weather.

* But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine will create a global wheat shortage for at least three seasons by keeping much of the Ukrainian crop from markets, pushing prices to record levels, Ukraine’s agriculture minister told Reuters.

DIPLOMACY

* Pope Francis said Russian forces in Ukraine were behaving in a brutal and cruel way and he praised Ukrainians for their “brave” resistance, but he also suggested the war had been “perhaps in some way provoked”.

* British foreign minister Liz Truss said she would do whatever was necessary to secure the release of two British nationals who have been sentenced to death by Russian proxy authorities in Donbas.

QUOTES

* “The shelling is so powerful that people can no longer stand it in the shelters, their psychological state is on edge. In the last few days residents are finally ready to go, without further ado,” said Luhansk governor Gaidai of people in Sievierodonetsk.

* “The entire front is being subjected to constant shelling,” Donetsk regional governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian TV.

(Compiled by Simon Cameron-Moore, Gareth Jones and Mark Heinrich)