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13.03EDT

RT France has been put into liquidation by a French court, the organisations former president said.

The French arm of Russias RT broadcasters accounts were frozen over Vladimir Putins invasion of Ukraine.

Xenia Fedorova, RT France ex-president, tweeted: The court of Nanterre took the decision to put RT France into liquidation - a media outlet which has not pleased Emmanuel Macron since its launch and which was sanctioned by the EU a year ago as [a preventative measure] due to the conflict in Ukraine.

Fedorova added that more than 100 employees will be made redundant.

The EU banned Russian state-controlled media outlets RT and Sputnik in March 2022 in a bid to crack down on disinformation over the war in Ukraine.

Updated at 13.03EDT

The funeral of the prominent Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed when an explosion tore through a St Petersburg cafe last Sunday, has taken place in Moscow today.

Dozens of mourners including Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the private mercenary Wagner group, turned out for the service, with many carrying red flowers.

Investigators in Russia have charged Darya Trepova, a 26-year-old St Petersburg resident, with terrorist offences over Tatarskys killing.

Moscow and Kyiv have pointed the finger at each other over the attack.

Updated at 12.35EDT

Ukraines ministry of defence with the latest figures on the conflict.

It said 177,680 Russian troops have been killed and 7,020 armoured combat vehicles have been destroyed.

"Whenever you do a thing, act as if all the world were watching."Thomas Jefferson

Total combat losses of the enemy from February 24, 2022 to April 8, 2023: pic.twitter.com/Z1TUHuSN2S

Updated at 12.39EDT

Mykola Kuleba, the founder of the humanitarian organisation Save Ukraine, has provided an update after 31 children were reunited with their families in Ukraine this week after a long operation to bring them back from Russia where they had been taken from occupied areas during the war.

Now the fifth rescue mission is nearing its completion. It was special regarding the number of children we managed to return and also because of its complexity, Kuleba said.

A grandmother who had been due to reunite with two of her grandchildren died suddenly on the trip and the children had to remain in Russia, Kuleba, Ukraines former commissioner for childrens rights, told a media briefing in Kyiv.

He said all of the children who had been brought back to Ukraine by Save Ukraine had said no one in Russia was trying to find their parents in Ukraine, Reuters reports.

There were kids who changed their locations five times in five months, some children say that they were living with rats and cockroaches, he said.

The children were taken to what Russians called stays in summer camps from occupied parts of Ukraines Kharkiv and Kherson regions, Kuleba said.

Moscow, which controls chunks of Ukraines east and south, denies abducting children and says they have been transported away for their own safety.

Updated at 11.49EDT

Ukrainian forces are working to strengthen defensive lines and positions along the border with Belarus and Russia, the defence ministry has said.

The ministry, citing Lt Gen Serhiy Nayev, commander of the joint forces of Ukraines armed forces, posted to Facebook:

The expansion of the system of engineering barriers in the areas bordering Belarus and Russia is ongoing. Anti-tank minefields are being created in tank accessible areas and probable paths of pushing the enemy deep into our territory which are roads, forest lanes, bridges, power lines, etc.

Nayev added that Ukrainian engineering units have equipped several dozens of mine fields using more than 6,000 anti-tank mines in the past week. Ukrainian soldiers were working around the clock, despite the weather conditions, he said.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, met with his Belarusian counterpart and close ally, Alexander Lukashenko, for talks in Moscow on Wednesday. Moscow is Minsks closest political and financial backer.

Lukashenko allowed Putin to use the territory of Belarus as a launch pad for the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Last month, Putin announced that Russia would deploy tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Updated at 09.25EDT

Volodymyr Zelenskiy shared Iftar with Ukrainian Muslim soldiers observing Ramadan on Friday, in what he said would become an annual new tradition of respect.

The Ukrainian leader said he participated in the first official Iftar alongside representatives of the Muslim clergy and leaders of the Mejlis, the single highest executive-representative body of the Crimean Tatars.

Addressing participants at the dinner, Zelenskiy said we affirm that Ukraine values every person, values every community, adding that diversity is part of Ukraines character.

Updated at 07.25EDT

Ukrainians have been marking the one-year anniversary of a missile strike on a Kramatorsk railway station in eastern Ukraine, which killed at least 58 people, including several children.

Ukrainians honored victims of missile attack at Kramatorsk train station that happened last year. On April 8, 2022, at 10:28 a.m., the Russian army shelled the train station, where thousands of civilians were waiting to be evacuated. At least, 58 people died, 121 were injured. pic.twitter.com/epGdn5OOu6

The attack took place on 8 April 2022, when the station was packed with women, children and elderly waiting to be evacuated. The authorities had urged residents to leave the region before an expected Russian military assault.

More than 100 people were wounded in the strike, Human Rights Watch said. Many lost limbs.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said at the time that it was a deliberate attack on civilians using a Tochka U short-range ballistic missile. The US also blamed Russia, saying it believes it used a short range ballistic missile. Russia has denied responsibility.

Updated at 06.24EDT

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Russia-Ukraine war as it happened: Ukraine to boost defences along border with Belarus - The Guardian