(Reuters) – Western leaders meeting in Brussels on Thursday will agree to strengthen their forces in Eastern Europe and increase military aid to Ukraine as the Russian assault on its neighbour enters its second month.
ON THE GROUND
* Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday about 15,000 civilians had been illegally deported to Russia from besieged Mariupol since Russian forces seized parts of the southern port city.
* Ukraine said on Thursday its forces had destroyed the “Orsk”, a large Russian landing ship near the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port of Berdyansk on the Azov Sea. Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Malyar said the ship was capable of carrying 45 armoured personnel carriers and 400 people. Reuters was unable immediately to verify the report.
* NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said the alliance would boost its forces in Eastern Europe by deploying four new battle groups in Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia.
REPERCUSSIONS
* The U.S. Embassy in Moscow on Wednesday received a list of its diplomats declared “persona non grata”, a State Department spokesperson said, in what Russian media said was a response to a U.S. move ousting Russian staff at the United Nations.
* Russia plans to switch its gas sales to “unfriendly” countries to roubles, President Putin said, responding to a freeze on Russia’s assets by foreign nations.
CIVILIANS
* UNICEF said 4.3 million of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been uprooted by the month-long war.
* More than 145,000 babies are in urgent need of nutrition support in Ukraine, UNICEF said.
QUOTES
* “Come from your offices, your homes, your schools and universities, come in the name of peace, come with Ukrainian symbols to support Ukraine, to support freedom, to support life,” Zelenskiy said in his appeal for a worldwide March 24 demonstration.
* “We, the French and Europeans, will do everything to stop this war without entering it,” said French President Macron.
(Compiled by Philippa Fletcher, Alex Richardson, Grant McCool, Michael Perry, Peter Graff; Edited by Gerry Doyle and Hugh Lawson)
