???? Live: Suspect detained over St Petersburg blast that killed pro-war blogger, Russia says
A 26-year-old Russian citizen has been detained by police for detonating a bomb in a St Petersburg café that killed a pro-war blogger and wounded dozens of others, Russian authorities said on Monday. Follow our live blog for the latest updates on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
11:29am: Russia accuses Ukraine, Navalny ‘agents’ of blogger killing
Russian anti-terror investigators on Monday accused Ukraine’s security services and “agents” linked to opposition leader Alexei Navalny of being behind a bomb attack that killed a top Russian military blogger.
“The terrorist attack was planned by Ukrainian security services with the help of agents working with the so-called Anti-Corruption Foundation,” Russia’s anti-terror committee said, referring to Navalny’s organisation.
11:05am: Ukraine says Russian forces ‘very far’ from capturing Bakhmut
Ukraine said on Monday that Russian forces were “very far” from capturing the eastern town of Bakhmut and that fighting raged around the city administration building where the Wagner mercenary group claimed to have raised the Russian flag.
“Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly,” Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Reuters by telephone.
11:03am: Putin creates fund for soldiers fighting in Ukraine
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday signed a decree creating a special fund to support soldiers fighting in Ukraine and their families.
The decree in support of the “Defenders of the Fatherland” was published on the official government website.
The measures are “aimed at ensuring a decent life” for soldiers involved in the Ukraine offensive, and for their partners and children, according to the decree.
Putin had announced the support measure at the Federal Assembly on February 21, almost a year after he sent his troops to Ukraine. “Our duty is to support the families that have lost their loved ones and to help them raise their children and give them an education and a job,” Putin then said.
10:58am: Control in Bakhmut ‘a symbolic victory’ for Russia, but Ukraine vows to fight on
A video released Monday appeared to show the leader of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group standing on the roof of the city hall in Bakhmut, claiming Russian forces had gained ‘legal’ control of the city.
“People who know Bakhmut well say that, judging by what’s in the background, this looks plausible. It looks like he really was there [in Bakhmut],” reports FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Kyiv, Gulliver Cragg.
“It’s a symbolic victory for the Russians, but it doesn’t mean that the fight for Bakhmut is over. The Ukrainian armed forces still occupy a sizeable chunk and say they’re going to fight on,” Cragg adds.
10:07am: Suspect detained in St Petersburg blast that killed blogger, Russia says
Russia’s Investigative Committee on Monday said that Darya Trepova, a suspect in the killing of war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in a St Petersburg bomb blast on Sunday, had been detained, Reuters reported.
The interior ministry’s website said Trepova is 26 years old, was born in St Petersburg and is a Russian national. State news agency TASS said Trepova had previously been detained for protesting against the war in Ukraine
8:10am: Ukraine’s Zelensky to visit Poland on Wednesday
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is expected to visit Poland on Wednesday, April 5, Polish President Andrzej Duda’s foreign affairs adviser Marcin Przydacz said on Monday.
7:28am: German Vice Chancellor Habeck arrives in Ukraine on surprise visit
German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck has arrived in Ukraine on a surprise visit, Germany’s energy and economy ministry said on Monday, in his first trip to the country since the outbreak of war.
On the agenda is the reconstruction of Ukraine and cooperation in the energy sector, the Spiegel news magazine reported.
6:47am: Bomb that killed Russian war blogger wounded 32, Russian state media reports
The number of people wounded in the bomb blast that killed a prominent Russian military blogger in St Petersburg on Sunday has risen to 32 from 25 reported earlier, Russia’s RIA state news agency reported.
Citing the ministry of health, RIA reported on Monday that 10 of the people were in a serious condition.
Vladlen Tatarsky was killed in a St Petersburg café in what appeared to be the second assassination on Russian soil of a figure closely associated with the war in Ukraine.
It was not immediately known who was behind the killing. Russia’s state Investigative Committee said it had opened a murder investigation.
3:11am: Russia to place nuclear weapons near Belarus’ borders with NATO
Russia will move its tactical nuclear weapons close to the western borders of Belarus, the Russian envoy to Minsk said on Sunday, placing them at NATO’s threshold in a move likely to further escalate Moscow’s standoff with the West.
The weapons “will be moved to the western border of our union state and will increase the possibilities to ensure security”, the ambassador, Boris Gryzlov, told Belarusian state television.
President Vladimir Putin said on March 26 that Moscow will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, one of Russia’s most pronounced signals on nuclear weapons since the beginning of its invasion of Ukraine 13 months ago,
2:40am: Ukraine says army still ‘holds’ Bakhmut
Ukraine’s army said Sunday it still “holds” the eastern city of Bakhmut, after Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed it had captured the town “in a legal sense” by occupying its administration building.
“The enemy has not stopped its assault of Bakhmut. However, Ukrainian defenders are courageously holding the city as they repel numerous enemy attacks,” the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said on its Facebook page.
12:43am: Russia says US behind Ukraine’s pressure on Moscow-linked Orthodox Church
Russia’s foreign ministry said late on Sunday that the US was behind the pressure that Ukrainian authorities have been exerting on the Russian-aligned wing of the Orthodox Church in Kyiv.
The Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC), which Kyiv says has ties with Russia, defied an eviction order last week from the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery in the capital. On Saturday, a top Ukrainian cleric from the church was sentenced to house arrest.
“It’s no secret that the (President Volodymyr) Zelensky regime is not independent in its anti-clerical policy. The Orthodox schism, hitting this sphere of life, is a goal that has been long proclaimed in Washington,” the foreign ministry said in a statement, without providing evidence.
12:00am: Wagner Group claims capture of Ukraine’s Bakhmut ‘in a legal sense’
The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said late on Sunday that his forces have raised the Russian flag over the administration building of the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine.
“From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken,” Prigozhin said in an audio message posted by his press service on the Telegram messaging app. “The enemy is concentrated in the western parts.”
>> Read our live blog for all of yesterday’s developments as they unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
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