Ukraine-Russia war – latest: Fighting continues in Bakhmut as Lavrov laughed at

Pressure from Russian forces mounted Saturday on Ukrainians hunkered down in Bakhmut, as residents attempted to flee with help from troops who Western analysts say may be preparing to withdraw from the key eastern stronghold.

A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city in Donetsk province, according to Ukrainian troops who were assisting them.

A Ukrainian army representative who asked not to be named for operational reasons told The Associated Press that it was now too dangerous for civilians to leave Bakhmut by vehicle and that people had to flee on foot instead.

The death toll from a Russian missile strike that hit an apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 11 on Saturday after a woman’s body was found in the debris, the state emergency service said.

One child was among those killed in Thursday’s early-morning strike on the five-storey residential building, the service said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Officials from the regional administration said in another post that a Russian S-300 missile had hit the building.

In a post on Telegram shortly after the strike, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky promised to hold Russia accountable.

The Biden administration is close to tightening rules on some overseas investments by US companies in an effort to limit China’s ability to acquire technologies that could improve its military prowess, according to a US official familiar with the deliberations.

The soon-to-be-issued executive order from president Joe Biden will limit American investment in advanced technologies that have national security applications — such as next-generation military capabilities that could help China improve the speed and accuracy of military decision making, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov says his country will “no longer rely” on the West for energy trade.

He made the remark during the foreign ministers’ G20 meeting in New Delhi on Friday, 3 March.

Mr Lavrov was asked how the war in Ukraine has impacted the country’s energy strategy at the Raisina Dialogue, a multilateral conference,

“We would not anymore rely on any partners in the west. We would not allow them to blow the pipelines again,” he said.

Ukrainian forces defending Bakhmut are facing increasingly strong pressure from Russian forces, British military intelligence said on Saturday, with intense fighting taking place in and around the eastern city.

Ukraine is reinforcing the area with elite units, while regular Russian army and forces of the private military Wagner group have made further advances into Bakhmut’s northern suburbs, the British Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence bulletin.

The Ukraine armed forces’ general staff said in a Facebook post late on Saturday that Russian troops were trying but failing to surround Bakhmut, adding defenders had repelled numerous attacks in and around the city.

The battle has raged for seven months. A Russian victory in the city, which had a pre-war population of about 70,000 and has been blasted to ruins in the onslaught, would give Moscow the first major prize in a costly winter offensive.

Oleh Zhdanov, a prominent Ukrainian analyst of military affairs, said late on Saturday that he could not detect any immediate signs Kyiv was going to order a retreat from the city.

“At the moment the situation is more or less stabilized. In terms of the advancement of Russian troops, we practically stopped (it),” he said in a YouTube interview.

The British defence ministry said two key bridges in Bakhmut have been destroyed within the last 36 hours, adding that Ukrainian-held resupply routes out of the city are increasingly limited.

In a first, two Ukrainian pilots are in Arizona to fly flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military, an American defence official said on Saturday, as Washington remains mute on whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv.

The US and allies have been flooding Ukraine with weapons from Javelin missiles to Himars rocket launchers, but sophisticated jets and the largest armed drones have not been pledged to Ukraine by Western allies.

“This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities,” the defence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Arizona “familiarization event” will facilitate dialogue between Ukrainian and US personnel and provide an opportunity to observe how the US Air Force operates, the defense official said.

While it is the first event of its kind, there is an ongoing robust military-to-military dialogue with Ukraine. Other allies have also conducted similar events in the past, the official said.

Estonia, which is providing Ukraine with more weapons than any other country relative to its economic might, is holding a general election Sunday that will determine whether it can sustain that high level of support.

Prime Minister Kaja Kallas, 45, has emerged in the past year of war as one of Europe’s most outspoken supporters of Ukraine. She’s seeking a second term, with her standing enhanced by her international appeals to impose sanctions on Moscow.

A Baltic nation of 1.3 million people that borders Russia to the east, Estonia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991 and has taken a clear Western course, joining NATO and the European Union.

Russia’s long-standing foreign minister Sergei Lavrov provoked open laughter from the audience at an international conference in India after he falsely claimed that his home country was a victim of Ukrainian aggression.

Mr Lavrov was responding to a question from the audience at the Raisina Dialogue 2023 series in New Delhi when the 72-year-old made the statement.

“How has the war affected Russia’s strategy on energy, and will it mark a privilege toward Asia? And if it does, how is India going to feature in it?” asked a member of the audience.

Civilians continued to flee Bakhmut on Saturday as Russian and Ukrainian troops battled in the streets of the besieged city.

A woman was killed and two men badly wounded after trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city, according to Ukranian soldiers trying to help them leave.

Oleksandr Marchenko, the city’s deputy mayor, said 4,000 civilians are still living in shelters and have no access to electricity, water or gas.