TOP HEADLINES

· Russian rockets and artillery slammed into a residential district in the city of Bakhmut, killing three men and two women and wounding nine, Ukraine's prosecutor general said, adding it was being investigated as a war crime.

· The head of Russia's mercenary outfit Wagner said it could take months to capture the embattled Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow's "monstrous bureaucracy" for slowing military gains. READ MORE BELOW

· Russia and Ukraine exchanged 101 prisoners of war in their latest prisoner swap, authorities said.

· A senior Ukrainian official ruled out peace talks with Moscow unless Russia withdraws from Ukraine. "Other options only give Russia time to regroup forces and resume hostilities at any moment," Mykhailo Podolyak, a political adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, wrote on Twitter. 

· The U.S. remains steadfast in its support for Ukraine, a leading Democratic senator said before heading to the world's largest global security conference in Germany. The Munich Security Conference will be focused on Ukraine. 

· The U.S. and its allies plan a major array of new sanctions against Russia for the February 24 anniversary of the conflict, a senior U.S. official said. Victoria Nuland, the under secretary of state for political affairs, said these would focus on "limiting the flow of technology to the Russian defense industry."

· Estonia called on allies to do more to help Ukraine. The Baltic state's Defense Minister Hanno Pevkur made the appeal following talks in Tallinn with visiting U.S. counterpart Lloyd Austin. "Whilst the United States is the biggest contributor in absolute terms, Estonia is in relative terms," Pevkur told reporters. 

· Oleksandra Matviichuk, a Ukrainian rights activist whose NGO was co-winner of last year's Nobel Peace Prize, called for the world to "hold Russian war criminals accountable," urging the United Nations and European Union to back Kyiv's call for a special tribunal.

· Israel's Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said his country was "committed to the sovereignty" of Ukraine during the first visit by an Israeli minister to the country since the Russian conflict began. 

· NATO must be prepared for a long standoff with Russia beyond the immediate crisis triggered by the conflict in Ukraine, alliance chief Jens Stoltenberg said. 

· President Alexander Lukashenko said Belarus would join the offensives in Ukraine "only if attacked" first by Kyiv's army. "I'm ready to fight together with the Russians from the territory of Belarus in one case only: if so much as one soldier from (Ukraine) comes to our territory with a gun to kill my people," the veteran strongman told a rare press conference with foreign journalists in Minsk.

· France's state-controlled energy giant EDF reported a record annual loss and massive debt as the fallout from the Ukraine conflict and idling of several nuclear reactors weighed on the company. EDF's debt ballooned to €64.5 billion ($68.6 billion) in 2022 while losses totalled €17.9 billion.

· World Athletics will look at whether Russians should compete while the Ukraine war is raging only after it decides about the country's doping ban at its council meeting next month, president Sebastian Coe said. 

IN DETAIL

Wagner chief slams Moscow's 'monstrous bureaucracy'

The head of Russia's mercenary outfit Wagner said it could take months to capture the embattled Ukraine city of Bakhmut and slammed Moscow's "monstrous bureaucracy" for slowing military gains.

Russia has been trying to encircle and capture the battered industrial city ahead of February 24, the first anniversary of what it terms its "special military operation" in Ukraine.

"I think it's (going to be in) March or in April," Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin said in one of several messages posted online.

"To take Bakhmut you have to cut all supply routes. It's a significant task," he said, adding: "Progress is not going as fast as we would like.

"Bakhmut would have been taken before the New Year, if not for our monstrous military bureaucracy."

Prigozhin has previously accused the Russian military of attempting to "steal" victories from Wagner, a sign of his rising clout and the potential for dangerous rifts in Moscow.

Wagner's claims to have captured ground without help from the regular army have also spurred friction with senior military leadership.

In Bakhmut, Artem, a deputy commander with a Ukrainian mortar unit, said fighting remained intense.

"There's a regular Russian army here and they also have regular artillery groups and they shoot accurately as well," he said.