- Russian forces struck targets across Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region on Tuesday to prepare the path for an expected armoured thrust to try to take more territory as the five-month-old war entered a new phase.
FIGHTING
* Russia does not send conscripts to Ukraine to fight in its "special military operation", the Russian state news agency TASS quoted Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu as saying.
* Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in his nightly video message on Monday, said there had been no significant changes on the battlefield in the past 24 hours and that Ukrainian forces were repelling and destroying Russia's offensive capabilities on a daily basis.
* President Putin congratulated on Monday Russian forces on their "victories in the Luhansk direction" and "liberating" the region.
* Russian rocket strikes hit Ukraine's southern city Mykolaiv on Tuesday morning, mayor Oleksandr Senkevych said.
* The cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk came under shelling overnight in the Donetsk region, its governor Pavlo Kyrylenko told Ukrainian TV. At least one person was killed after a market was struck in Sloviansk on Tuesday, local police said.
* Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts.
DIPLOMACY AND ECONOMY
* British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told Zelenskiy during a call on Tuesday he believed Ukraine's military could retake territory recently captured by Russian forces, Johnson's office said.
* Zelenskiy renewed his appeal for security guarantees while addressing a roundtable conference hosted by the Economist. Europe needs to understand, he said, that the war in Ukraine was about Europe's safety and Ukraine was the "fence" protecting it.
* No decision has been made yet on expanding Russia's rouble-for-gas scheme to include liquefied natural gas (LNG), the Kremlin said.
* Britain said it would on Tuesday introduce new sanctions on Belarus over its support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine, and also sanctioned six Russians it said were spreading disinformation.
* An international conference to support Ukraine has outlined a series of principles to steer Kyiv's recovery and condemned Moscow's actions.
* Russia's former president Dmitry Medvedev said a reported proposal from Japan to cap the price of Russian oil at around half its current price would lead to a market shortage that could push prices above $300-400 a barrel.
QUOTES
* "The city doesn't exist anymore," said Nina, a young mother who has fled Lysychansk to take refuge in the central city of Dnipro. "It has practically been wiped off the face of the Earth."