Breaking news of the Ukraine war in Russia: Kiev says battle over Bakhmut is wearing down Putin’s best forces

Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin has accused the Russian president and his boss Vladimir Putin of cutting him off over repeated calls to increase his forces fighting in eastern Ukraine.

“To prevent me from asking for ammunition, all hotlines to offices, departments, etc. were cut off from me. But the real humdinger is that they’ve also blocked agencies from making decisions [related to Wagner]” the leader of the private Russian military said on Telegram.

The recent Russian rocket fire on Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure was one of the largest such attacks in months.

On Thursday, Russia fired over 80 rockets in an attempt to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses and cripple the country’s power system.

Russia has regularly launched similar strikes since October, forcing the Ukrainian government to bow to Kremlin demands in a bid to demoralize it.

Ancient Ukrainian artifacts were returned Friday, March 10 during a ceremony at the embassy in Washington DC.

Items including a stone ax and three swords were returned to the US consulate.

It is estimated that hundreds of items have been stolen from museums since Russia invaded Ukraine.

The Conflict Observatory, a US government-backed research group, has used satellite imagery to reveal how Putin’s forces stole about 15,000 paintings from the Oleksii Shovkunenko Art Museum in Kherson.

According to Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture, Russia has damaged more than 550 culturally significant sites and objects in the country.

Rishi Sunak said new support measures for Ukraine agreed between Britain and France should put Kiev in the “strongest possible position” to negotiate a ceasefire.

Prime Minister and French President Emmanuel Macron used the Franco-British summit to sign off on joint training of Ukrainian marines and supply of arms to the country to fight invading Russian forces.

During a press conference in Paris, leaders said the immediate priority was to strengthen Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s forces and enable them “to launch a successful counteroffensive.”

Russia has launched a huge wave of rocket attacks on Ukraine, killing a number of civilians and shutting down Europe’s largest nuclear power plant for hours.

It’s the first search mass attack in weeks, with the attacks involving the use of hypersonic cruise missiles — one of Moscow’s most valuable weapons, which travel at such speeds that they can evade air defenses.

“The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. They will not shirk responsibility for anything they have done.”

In all, Russia is said to have fired 81 missiles, with Ukraine’s military saying 34 cruise missiles were successfully shot down, as well as four of the eight Iranian-made Shahed drones that were sent. Eight guided missiles did not reach their target. Ukraine said six hypersonic missiles had been launched, with Russia’s Defense Ministry confirming their deployment.

The capital Kiev, Kharkiv and the Black Sea port of Odessa were all hit as air raid sirens blared across the country, while blasts were also reported from the northern city of Chernihiv and western Lviv region, as well as Dnipro, Lutsk and Rivne.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, among the projectiles fired were six Kinzhal (Dagger) hypersonic missiles, which are difficult to intercept because they are reportedly traveling at up to 10 times the speed of sound, which translates to about 8,000 miles per hour.

Russia has used hypersonic missiles since the conflict’s earliest stages and claims to have destroyed a fuel depot in the Black Sea city of Mykolaiv and an underground ammunition dump in western Ivano-Frankivsk in the opening battles.

Ukraine has confirmed these targets were hit, but did not specify what weapons were used.

My colleague Joe Sommerlad reports:

Hackers took over Russian state media on Thursday to tell listeners to rush to nuclear bomb shelters and take anti-radiation pills.

Radio and TV broadcasts in Moscow and the western Sverdlovsk region were interrupted with a false warning of a missile attack on the country.

The Kremlin blamed a cyberattack for the false alarm urging listeners to take potassium iodine, put on gas masks and seek shelter.

William Mata has the full story:

Wildlife groups are calling on the UK to ban the transport of eels to Russian conservation projects over fears they will be sold to China as food.

The alarm was raised after a shipment of half a million eels was brought to Kaliningrad. Charities have said the profits Russia made from these sales could fund the war in Ukraine.

The multi-member organization Wildlife and Countryside Link (WCL), which represents the RSPCA, CPRE and the Marine Conservation Society, has called on Defra (Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) to act.

With the European eel population declining by 90 percent over the past four decades, protection has been needed, despite the arrival of hundreds of millions of baby or glass eels each year.

Ukraine has bravely resisted Putin’s distorted attempt to restore territory lost to Moscow with the collapse of the Soviet Union and continues to defy odds, using Western military aid to defend itself against Russian attacks.

Main battle tanks from the US, UK and Germany are now being delivered for the first time and Mr Zelensky toured London, Paris and Brussels in early February 2023 to call for the dispatch of fighter jets to stay ahead of the Russian air threat, but allies seem to have reservations have, although Joe Biden has since visited Kiev in solidarity.

Much of the fighting has recently centered on the key eastern city of Bakhmut, with bombardment and heavy artillery barrage taking place as Russian forces launch a new major offensive to mark the one-year anniversary of the forthcoming war.

Thomas Kingsley and Joe Sommerlad report: