Russia-Ukraine war: 900 Russian bombs launched at Ukraine in March, Zelenskiy says – as it happened | World news

Ukraine hopes to have enough ammunition for its troops to repel Russian aggression starting from April, amid a Czech-led initiative to source shells for supply, Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said on Tuesday.

Estonia’s prime minister, Kaja Kallas, called on Nato allies to increase their defence spending to over 3% of gross domestic product (GDP), saying her country is already investing more than 3% of its GDP in defence and that all Nato allies should follow suit.

Russia has launched 130 missiles of various types, more than 320 Shahed attack drones and almost 900 guided bombs in attacks on Ukraine so far this month, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.

A Russian energy ministry official earlier revealed plans to defend oil and gas facilities with missile systems. “We are jointly working, including with colleagues from the Russian National Guard, to cover objects, on installing, accordingly, protection systems such as Pantsir,” Artyom Verkhov, director of energy ministry’s department for gas industry development, told a parliament meeting.

The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said he will propose that the EU uses 90% of the revenues from Russian assets frozen in Europe to buy arms for Ukraine via the European Peace Facility fund. Borrell told reporters in Brussels he would propose that the remaining 10% be transferred to the EU budget to be used to boost the capacity of the Ukrainian defence industry. He said he would submit the proposal to EU member states on Wednesday, ahead of a summit of EU leaders on Thursday and Friday.

Yulia Navalnaya, the widow of the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, said that Vladimir Putin was not the legitimate president of Russia and that the official results of the election had no meaning. “We proved to ourselves and others that Putin is not our president. We did not elect him,” Navalnaya said of the “noon against Putin” protests held on the last day of the presidential election on Sunday.

Russia appointed Adm Alexander Moiseyev as acting navy chief, replacing Nikolai Yevmenov, according to the state RIA news agency, which confirmed earlier reports of the reshuffle.

About 9,000 children will be evacuated from the Russian border city of Belgorod and from several districts in the wider region of the same name due to Ukrainian shelling, Vyacheslav Gladkov, the regional governor, said earlier today. The first group of 1,200 children will be evacuated on 22 March, Gladkov said.

Vladimir Putin will travel to China in May for talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in what could be the Russian president’s first overseas trip of his new presidential term, sources told Reuters. “Putin will visit China,” one of the sources, said. The details were independently confirmed to Reuters by four other sources, who also spoke on condition of anonymity. Putin’s trip to China is thought likely to take place in the second half of May, according to one source.