Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 376

Here is the situation as it stands on Monday, March 6, 2023:

Fighting

• Ukraine’s military said its forces repelled 95 Russian attacks in the Bakhmut area over the previous day. “The situation in Bakhmut can be described as critical,” Ukrainian military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said in a video commentary.
• The head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force warned that Moscow’s position around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was in peril unless his troops receive ammunition, the latest sign of tension between the Kremlin and the private militia chief.
• “If Wagner retreats from Bakhmut now the whole front will collapse,” Yevgeny Prigozhin said. “The situation will not be sweet for all military formations protecting Russian interests.”
•  The Russian army hit a command centre of the Ukrainian forces’ Azov Regiment in the southeastern Zaporizhia region, Russia’s defence ministry said.
• Near Vuhledar, Ukraine said senior officers of Russia’s 155th Brigade, which Kyiv says suffered heavy recent losses, refused to obey orders to attack.
• “The leaders of the brigade and senior officers are refusing to proceed with a new senseless attack as demanded by their unskilled commanders – to storm well-defended Ukrainian positions with little protection or preparation,” Ukraine’s military said in a statement, which could not be independently verified.
• A woman and two children were killed in Russian mortar shelling of a village in the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, Ukraine’s presidential office said.
• At least one person was wounded in the southern Russian region of Belgorod after Russian forces shot down three missiles, the governor said.

• The death toll from a Russian missile attack that hit an apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia rose to 11 after a woman’s body was found in the debris.
• Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelenskyy paid tribute to troops defending Bakhmut during the “painful and difficult” battle for the country’s front-line eastern Donbas region.

Diplomacy

• Russian defence minister Sergey Shoigu visited Mariupol, the city in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region captured by Russian forces last year after a months-long siege.
• Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara is working hard to extend a UN-backed initiative that enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia.
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen reiterated there is no evidence so far that China is planning to send lethal arms to Russia for its war on Ukraine.
• Germany is making slow progress in enforcing sanctions against Russian oligarchs and institutions, according to government numbers seen by the Reuters news agency.

Weapons

• Two Ukrainian pilots are in the US state of Arizona to practice on flight simulators and be evaluated by the US military as Washington remains mute on whether it will send fighter jets or sophisticated remotely piloted drones to Kyiv.
• German defence contractor Rheinmetall is in negotiations about building a tank factory in Ukraine, the newspaper Rheinische Post reported, citing an interview with CEO Armin Papperger.
• In addition to Leopard 2 tanks, Rheinmetall wants to buy 96 Leopard 1s from Swiss defence firm Ruag to send to Ukraine, the Swiss newspaper Tages-Anzeiger reported.