Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 404

As the Russia-Ukraine war enters its 404th day, we take a look at the main developments.

Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, April 3, 2023:

Diplomacy

The European Union said it will guard against any abuse during Russia’s presidency of the United Nations Security Council during the month of April.
Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany has criticised former high-ranking politicians in Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the country’s labour movement for issuing an appeal for peace talks with Russia.
The US State Department said Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, in a rare phone call since the start of the Ukraine war, to immediately release detained Americans, including Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
US basketball star Brittney Griner, released from a Russian penal colony in a prisoner exchange last year, has urged the White House to keep using “every tool possible” to win the release of Gershkovich, who was detained on charges of spying in Russia.
Russia will not send fencers to an Olympic-qualifying event in Poland this month because of “unacceptable” conditions, the head of the Russian Fencing Federation said.

A well-known Russian military blogger, Vladlen Tatarsky, was killed in an explosion in a café in Russia’s second-largest city of Saint Petersburg on Sunday.
A pro-Russian official in Ukraine held Kyiv responsible for the blast, but a top Ukrainian official speculated that internal Russian opposition to the Kremlin’s invasion was to blame.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the military situation around the city of Bakhmut, besieged by Russian forces for months, is “especially hot”.
Six civilians have been killed and eight wounded in Russian shelling of Kostiantynivka, an industrial city in eastern Ukraine, according to Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff.
Oleksiy Danilov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, has outlined a series of steps the government in Kyiv would take after the country reclaims control of Crimea, including dismantling the strategic bridge that links the seized Black Sea peninsula to Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin warned he would be forced to react if the United Kingdom supplied Ukraine with armour-piercing ammunition containing depleted uranium.
Meanwhile, the British defence ministry said excessive alcohol consumption has been the cause of many deaths among Russian forces in Ukraine.

Russia said it is extending until the end of the year oil production cuts of 500,000 barrels per day, a response to Western sanctions that were due to expire at the end of June.

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