Russia-Ukraine war: what we know on day 44 of the invasion | Ukraine

The Kremlin has admitted suffering “significant losses” of troops since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, in a rare admission of how badly the war has gone. The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he hoped the besieged city of Mariupol would be “liberated from nationalistic battalions” sooner rather than later.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has highlighted the bravery of his nation in his latest late-night national address. “Being brave is our brand,” he said, while calling for bolder sanctions on Russia. He also claimed Russian troops were preparing “elaborate propaganda scenarios” to make it look like civilians they had killed in Mariupol were killed by Ukrainian soldiers.

A Russian airstrike on a railway near Barvinkove station in Donetsk Oblast has blocked three evacuation trains from leaving, according to reports. Thousands of passengers who were meant to be evacuated on the trains have been placed at the station, according to the Ukrainian media outlet Hromadske.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Iryna Venediktova, said 26 bodies had been found under two ruined buildings in Borodyanka, a town about 25km west of Bucha. She did not say if the authorities had established the cause of death, but accused Russian troops of carrying out airstrikes on the town, which is being searched by Ukrainian authorities after Russian troops occupying it withdrew.

Ukraine is bracing for a renewed Russian offensive on its eastern front, as Russian forces withdraw from the shattered outskirts of Kyiv to regroup and intensify their attacks across the Donbas region. The Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych said the besieged southern city of Mariupol was holding out and that he believed the Russian efforts to surround Ukrainian troops in the east would be in vain.

The mayor of Mariupol, Vadym Boichenko, says more than 100,000 people still urgently need to be evacuated from the city. Speaking on national television, he described the situation in the Russian-besieged Ukrainian port city as a humanitarian catastrophe.

Zelenskiy called on the Greek parliament to use its influence to rescue the remaining population in Mariupol, which has had large ethnic Greek populations for centuries.

In his address, Zelenskiy said that the “Russian state and the Russian military are the greatest threat on the planet to freedom, to human security, to the concept of human rights.” In Mariupol, he said, “the same cruelty, the same heinous crimes” that occurred in Bucha and in the Kyiv region were being replicated, accusing Russian forces of re-staging the war to suit their country’s propaganda.

The United Nations general assembly has voted to suspend Russia from the UN human rights council over reports of “gross and systematic violations and abuses of human rights” by invading Russian troops in Ukraine. Ninety-three countries voted in favour of the US-led motion, while 24 countries voted against and 58 countries abstained.

Russia will probably renew its attack on Kyiv if it succeeds in taking full control of the eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, the deputy chief of staff…