TOP HEADLINES

• The Group of Seven industrial powers on Tuesday criticized Russia's threat to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, promising to intensify sanctions on Moscow for the war with neighboring Ukraine. READ MORE BELOW

• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko held a meeting with the Russian-installed head of Ukraine's Donetsk region on Tuesday, the state-run Belta news agency reported.

• Russian forces are stepping up their use of heavy artillery and air strikes in the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. Russia was suffering significant losses in the battle, the commander of Ukraine's ground forces claimed.

• Inspections of ships moving grains from Ukraine have restarted after a pause which threatened to shut down the Black Sea shipping corridor, the RIA news agency said, citing the Russian foreign ministry.

• Ukraine will try to unblock exports of food and grain through Poland in a second day of talks in Warsaw on Tuesday after some of its staunchest allies in central Europe imposed bans on its products to protect their markets.

• The Kremlin said that Brazil's efforts to mediate in the conflict in Ukraine "deserved attention," but it had not seen any plans for a peace deal presented by France. 

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IN DEPTH

Russian President Vladimir Putin has met his commanders in two regions of Ukraine that Moscow claims are now independent states. The trip comes as Russian forces stepped up heavy artillery bombardments and air strikes on the devastated eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut.

The Kremlin said Putin had attended a military command meeting in the southern Kherson region and visited a national guard headquarters in eastern Luhansk. It did not say when the visits took place.

Putin heard reports from commanders of the airborne forces and the Dnieper army group as well as other senior officers who briefed him on the situation in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in the south.

"It is important for me to hear your opinion on how the situation is developing, to listen to you, to exchange information," Putin, told the commanders.

Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions that Putin says are independent from Kyiv, following referendums that the West described as a sham. Russian forces only partly control the four regions.

Russian troops retreated from Kherson city, the regional capital, last November, and have been reinforcing their positions on the opposite bank of the Dnipro River in anticipation of a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

While numerous Western leaders have made their way to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy since Russian forces attacked 14 months ago, Putin has visited parts of Ukraine under Russian control.

Last month, he visited Crimea - that was reclaimed by Russia in 2014 despite objections from the UN Security Council - and the southeastern city of Mariupol in Donetsk region.

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