Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian security services say they have detained Wall Street Journal reporter on espionage charges

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Far-right Austrian MPs walk out of Zelenskiy address to parliament

Lawmakers from the pro-Russia, far-right Freedom party walked out of the lower house of Austria’s parliament on Thursday during a speech by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, protesting that it violated Austria’s neutrality.

Reuters reports Zelenskiy addressed the chamber via video link, thanking Austria for its humanitarian aid and help with projects such as clearing landmines. Austria says its neutrality prevents it from military involvement in the conflict and while it supports Ukraine politically it cannot send the country weapons in its fight against the Russian invasion.

The Freedom party (FPO), however, had warned days before that it would hold some form of protest against the address. Its lawmakers attended the start of the speech and then left.

Zelenskiy addresses Austria’s lower house of parliament, including empty seats. Photograph: Lisa Leutner/Reuters

“It is sad that the FPO is the only party in parliament that takes our ever-lasting neutrality seriously, thereby also standing up for peace,” the FPO leader, Herbert Kickl, had said in a statement on Tuesday.

Lawmakers who walked out of the chamber left small placards on their desks featuring the party logo and either “space for neutrality” or “space for peace”.

The scene after members of the Austrian parliament from the Freedom party leave the plenary hall in Vienna. Photograph: Lisa Leutner/Reuters

Of the five parties in parliament, the FPO has the third-biggest number of seats in the lower house.

Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports on developments in Donetsk. It writes on its official Telegram channel:

At night, the Russian army launched a rocket attack on Druzhkivka, where it damaged a house, as well as on the Dobropillya community, where two houses were damaged, reported the head of the Donetsk administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko. Also, as a result of shelling with cluster munitions and artillery of the Kurakhove community, houses and electrical networks were damaged.

Four bankers who helped Putin's friend set up Swiss bank account convicted

Four bankers who helped a close friend of Vladimir Putin move millions of francs through Swiss bank accounts have been convicted of lacking diligence in financial transactions.

The four were found guilty on Thursday of helping Sergey Roldugin, a concert cellist who has been dubbed “Putin’s wallet” by the Swiss government.

The executives – three Russians and one Swiss – helped Roldugin, who is godfather to Putin’s eldest daughter Maria, deposit millions of francs in Swiss bank accounts between 2014 and 2016.

Reuters reports the men, who cannot be identified under Swiss reporting restrictions, were found guilty at a hearing at Zurich district court and were given suspended sentences of seven months each.

Russian security services detain Wall Street Journal journalist on espionage charges

Russia’s top security agency says a reporter for the Wall Street Journal has been arrested on espionage charges.

Associated Press report the Federal Security Service (FSB) said Thursday that Evan Gershkovich was detained in the Ural Mountains city of Ekaterinburg while allegedly trying to obtain classified information.

The security service alleged that Gershkovich “was collecting classified information about the activities of one of the enterprises of the Russian military industrial complex”.

The FSB didn’t say when the arrest took place. Gershkovich could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted of espionage.

China said its military was willing to work together with the Russian military to strengthen strategic communication and coordination, the Chinese defence ministry said on Thursday.

The two countries would work together to implement global security initiatives, Reuters reports Tan Kefei, a spokesperson at the Chinese defence ministry, said at a regular press conference.

Tan said the two countries would deepen military trust and jointly safeguard international fairness and justice. They will also further organise joint maritime, air patrols and joint exercises, Tan said.

Dymtro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, has tweeted to criticise the fact that Russia will take over chairing the UN security council on 1 April. He writes:

Russian UN security council presidency on 1 April is a bad joke. Russia has usurped its seat; it is waging a colonial war; its leader is a war criminal wanted by the ICC for kidnapping children. The world can’t be a safe place with Russia at UNSC.

Russia was last in the chair at the security council in February 2022. It staged its latest invasion of Ukraine on 24 February.

Lawyer confirms detention of Russian man sentenced to prison after daughter's anti-war picture

Alexei Moskalyov, a Russian man who was sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting the Russian armed forces, and whose daughter was taken into care, has been detained after fleeing house arrest, human rights activist and lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov said to Reuters on Thursday.

It was earlier reported that he was arrested in Minsk, having fled his house arrest.

There is an interesting line in Reuters’ daily update on Ukraine which notes that the intensity of Russian attacks appears to have been declining. It writes:

The average number of daily Russian attacks on the frontline reported by Ukraine’s general staff has declined for four straight weeks since the beginning of March, to 69 in the past seven days from 124 in the week of March 1-7. Just 57 attacks were reported on Wednesday.

Reuters journalists near the front west of Bakhmut and further north also reported a notable decline in the intensity of Russian attacks last week.

The report goes on to say that Russian officials say their forces are still capturing ground in street-by-street fighting inside Bakhmut and that Reuters is not able to verify battlefield reports.

Nevertheless, in its late night report last night, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces conceded that “Enemy forces had a degree of success in their actions aimed at storming the city of Bakhmut.”

• This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.

Russian authorities preparing campaign to recruit 400,000 – report

The UK Ministry of Defence reports, citing Russian media, that authorities are preparing to launch a major recruitment campaign aimed at signing up 400,000 new troops to fight in Ukraine.

Ukrainian volunteers who have been evacuating civilians from the frontlines of the war with Russia say some parents have been hiding their children in basements to prevent them from being taken, the Guardian’s Isobel Koshiw and Oleksiy Savechnko report.

While parents have given different reasons, most volunteers have attributed the phenomenon to a combination of poverty and the psychological condition of the families, who have been living under bombing for months.

In early March, Ukraine’s government gave local authorities in the eastern city of Bakhmut, the site of one of the longest and bloodiest battles of Russia’s war, permission forcibly to evacuate children.

At present, this includes only settlements at risk of coming under Russian occupation, which the government has said is limited to Bakhmut. There are no legal powers for areas just as exposed along Ukraine’s 600-mile frontline, such as Avdiivka, a town south of Bakhmut:

Russia advances in Bakhmut

Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months.

The US thinktank the Institute for the Study of War’s regular update appears to support this, saying, “geolocated footage published on March 28 and 29 indicates that Russian forces advanced in southern and southwestern Bakhmut.”

The mining city of Bakhmut and surrounding towns in the eastern industrial region of Donetsk have been the focal point of assault for much of the war. Neither side has full control and both have suffered heavy losses.

“Enemy forces had a degree of success in their actions aimed at storming the city of Bakhmut,” the General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said in a regular nighttime report.

“Our defenders are holding the city and are repelling numerous enemy attacks.”

The fate of Moskalyov’s daughter Maria, who drew the pro-peace sketch, is unclear, AFP reports. Maria was taken away from her father in early March and placed in a local “rehabilitation centre” for minors, with the pair denied contact.

On Wednesday, Moskalyov’s lawyer, Vladimir Biliyenko, said he had visited the “rehabilitation centre” the day earlier but the girl was not there.

“It seems that they are hiding Masha,” he told AFP, referring to the girl by her diminutive name. He said a lot of supporters wanted to see her, too.

Biliyenko said it was now “difficult to predict” what will happen to Maria. Moskalyov is at risk of losing parental rights in a separate trial set to begin on 6 April.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday defended Moskalyov’s sentencing, describing the father’s parenting as “deplorable”. But in a letter published on social media Maria called her father “the bravest person in the world”.

“I love you very much and know that you are not guilty of anything,” the letter read.

“Everything will be ok and we will be together. You are my hero,” the letter said.

Moskalyov’s lawyer confirmed the authenticity of the letter.

Alexei Moskalyo’s family said they had faced pressure from Russian police since last April when his daughter, a sixth-grader, refused to participate in a patriotic class at her school and made several drawings showing rockets being fired at a family standing under a Ukrainian flag and another that said “Glory to Ukraine!”

School officials at the time summoned the police, who questioned the girl and threatened her father.

Police then began examining Moskalyov’s social media activity and the father was eventually charged with discrediting the armed forces for his posts in which he called the Russian regime “terrorists” and described the Russian army as “rapists”.

The high-profile case was criticised by Russian human rights groups and led to an online campaign to reunite father and daughter.

Police in the Tula region south of Moscow said that Moskalyov had escaped house arrest in the early hours of Tuesday and that they had “started looking for the suspect”.

Here is our story on Moskalyo’s sentencing and escape:

Man who fled after sentencing after daughter’s drawings reportedly arrested

A Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts – following an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings – has reportedly been arrested in Minsk.

Independent Russian news outlet SOTA Project is reporting that police have apprehended Moskalyo in Minsk, Belarus. His lawyer was unable to confirm that Moskalyo had been arrested, but said on Telegram that he could not reach his client and suspected the news was true.

Opening summary

Welcome back to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest developments as they happen.

Our top story this morning:

Russian forces have had some success in the eastern frontline city of Bakhmut, Ukrainian military officials said on Wednesday evening, adding that their fighters were still holding on in a battle that has lasted several months.

And the Russian man who fled house arrest after being sentenced to two years in prison for discrediting Russia in social media posts, following an investigation prompted by his daughter’s anti-war drawings, has reportedly been arrested in Minsk.

Independent Russian news outlet SOTA Project is reporting that police have apprehended Moskalyo in Minsk, Belarus. His lawyer was unable to confirm that Moskalyo had been arrested, but said on Telegram that he could not reach his client and suspected the news was true.

We’ll have more on these stories shortly. In the meantime here are the key recent developments:

• The head of the UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has made a second visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine amid an escalation in the fighting around it. Rafael Mariano Grossi was shown around the plant by Russian occupying forces and officials, telling reporters: “It is obvious that military activity is increasing in this whole region, so every possible measure and precautions should be taken so that the plant is not attacked.”

• Russia has stopped informing the US about its nuclear activities, including missile test launches, after Moscow suspended its participation in the New Start arms control treaty last month, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said. The White House on Tuesday said the US had told Russia it would cease exchanging some data on its nuclear forces after Moscow’s refusal to do so.

• Russia began exercises with the Yars intercontinental ballistic missile system and several thousand troops, its defence ministry said on Wednesday. Vladimir Putin has aimed to make the Yars missile system, which replaced the Topol system, part of Russia’s “invincible weapons” and the mainstay of the ground-based component of its nuclear arsenal.

• The German government has agreed to spend an additional €12bn on military support. The Bundestag’s budget committee gave the green light on Wednesday for about €8bn to be spent directly on purchasing weapons and equipment for Ukraine. The other €4bn will go to the German military to replenish stocks. Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks to Ukraine after Easter, the Spanish defence minister, Margarita Robles, has said.

• An explosion was reported near a Russian military airbase in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, according to footage shared on social media. The Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, posted to Telegram that “a UAV [drone] was shot down in the Simferopol region” and that there were “no casualties or damage”.

• Ukrainian forces reportedly shelled the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Melitopol, south of the Zaporizhzhia region, and Russian media reported on Wednesday that as a result the city’s power supply had been cut. Ivan Fedorov, the exiled mayor of Melitopol, which has been occupied by Russian forces since March 2022, said on the Telegram messaging app there had been several explosions.

• Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Russia’s mercenary Wagner group, said the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut had “practically destroyed” the Ukrainian army but his forces had also been “badly damaged”. The Russian-installed leader in the region said Russian forces were moving forward in Bakhmut despite fierce resistance and had almost taken full control of a metals plant there.

• Russian forces trying to encircle the town of Avdiivka in recent days have made only marginal gains despite heavy losses in armoured vehicles, including a tank regiment, Britain’s Ministry of Defence has said.

• Vladimir Putin conceded that sanctions on Russia could have “negative” consequences for the economy but insisted Moscow was adapting to the penalties and that unemployment “remains at an all-time low”.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has extended an invitation to his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, to visit Ukraine. In an interview with the Associated Press, Zelenskiy said: “We are ready to see him here. I want to speak with him.”

• Zelenskiy said Ukraine needed 20 Patriot batteries to protect against Russian missiles, and even that may not be enough “as no country in the world was attacked with so many ballistic rockets”. He added that a European nation sent another air defence system to Ukraine, but it didn’t work and they “had to change it again and again”. He did not name the country.

• Ukraine’s deputy prime minister, Iryna Vereshchuk, has urged Russians not to adopt children who she said were “stolen” from her country during the war and deported to Russia. Vereshchuk, posting to Telegram, said orphans had been “stolen in Ukraine” and allegedly given up for adoption in Russia.

• Poland has urged the EU to limit the amount of Ukrainian grain entering the bloc’s market, its prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said, amid anger among farmers over the effect of imports on Polish grain prices.

• Ukraine’s sports ministry has condemned what it said was a partial change of position by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete in international competitions as neutrals. Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, described the IOC’s decision as “shameful”.