TOP HEADLINES

• The United Nations has put Russian military forces and armed groups on its "list of shame" over the killing and maiming of hundreds of children in its offensive against Ukraine, according to a document seen by AFP news agency. In an annual report on the treatment of children in conflict zones, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "appalled by the high number of grave violations against children in Ukraine" committed in 2022. READ MORE BELOW

• Ukraine's armed forces have halted a Russian offensive towards the cities of Kupiansk and Lyman in the east of the country, and are advancing in the south, a senior Ukrainian defense official said.

• Moscow's forces are retreating in Ukraine's east and south following Kyiv's counteroffensive, the head of Russia's Wagner mercenary group said. "On the ground now ... the Russian army is retreating on the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson fronts. The Armed Forces of Ukraine are pushing back the Russian army," Yevgeny Prigozhin said.

• Russia's Ministry of Defense claimed 4 vehicles and one artillery system had been neutralised in the Kherson region and 93 military units had been halted by missiles, according to a post on telegram.

• Russia's FSB security service said it had detained five people who were trying to buy 1 kg of a substance that is used in nuclear fission for $3.5 million on behalf of a citizen of Ukraine, the TASS news agency reported. 

• Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmygal warned that his country's counteroffensive against Russian forces "will take time" but said he was "optimistic" about its success. "We will do very smart, offensive operations. And because of this, it (the counter-offensive) will take time," Shmygal said on the sidelines of a Ukraine reconstruction conference in London.

• Russia has formed special groups to collect and hide bodies of people killed in the aftermath of the breach of the Kakhovka dam in southern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. He described the situation in Russian-occupied parts of the region as "catastrophic to put it mildly."

• UK military spies said Russia appears to be training combat dolphins in the Crimean peninsula to counter Ukrainian forces. In its latest update on the conflict, UK Defence Intelligence said the Russian Navy had invested heavily in security at the Black Sea Fleet's main base at Sevastopol since last year.

• U.S. President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has refused to join Western sanctions on Russia, jointly backed Ukraine's "territorial integrity" as they voiced alarm over the conflict.

IN DETAIL

UN puts Russian army on 'list of shame'

The United Nations has put Russian military forces and armed groups on its "list of shame" over the killing and maiming of hundreds of children in its war against Ukraine, according to a document seen by AFP news agency.

In an annual report on the treatment of children in conflict zones, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was "appalled by the high number of grave violations against children in Ukraine" committed in 2022. 

"I am particularly shocked by the high number of attacks on schools and hospitals and protected personnel, and by the high number of children killed and maimed attributed to the Russian forces and affiliated armed groups," Guterres said in the report, which was distributed to members of the Security Council.

According to the document, 477 children were killed in Ukraine last year, including 136 deaths attributed to Russian forces and affiliated groups and 80 to Ukrainian armed forces. A further 909 children were maimed, 518 of them by Russian forces and proxy groups and 175 by Ukrainian forces, the report said.

The report will be released publicly next week.

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