Ukrainian soldier shot dead on camera is awarded Hero of Ukraine honour; Georgian PM warns Kyiv to stay out of domestic politics after popular protests
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has awarded the Hero of Ukraine to Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier who was executed by machine gun fire on camera after being captured by Russian soldiers. Zelenskiy said: “Today I conferred the title of Hero of Ukraine upon Oleksandr Matsievskyi, a soldier. A man whom all Ukrainians will know. A man who will be remembered forever. For his bravery, for his confidence in Ukraine and for his ‘Glory to Ukraine!’”
Georgian prime minister Irakli Garibashvili has told Ukraine’s political leadership to stay out of Georgian politics. The criticism comes after Ukrainian political leaders expressed their support for protesters in Tbilisi. Garibashvili described the comments as a “direct intervention” in domestic politics and told his Ukrainian counterparts to “take care of yourself and your country, and we will take care of our country”.
Belorussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko has arrived in Iran for an official visit to meet local leaders and discuss “trade and economic cooperation”.
There are reports of partisan attacks on a railway track in Russian-occupied part of Kherson region according to the Ukraine military’s National Resistance Center. A video posted by the Atesh partisan group appears to show a railway track between the settlements of Abrikosivka and Radensk being blown up.
Ukrainian special forces unit Kraken has destroyed two Russian observation towers in Bryansk in a drone attack. A third tower was previously destroyed on 5 March.
Anton Gerashchenko, a Ukrainian interior ministry adviser, has published a video on his Telegram channel showing what appears to be an attack on the town of Vuhledar in Donetsk region using incendiary munitions.
Ukraine and Russia both claimed that hundreds of enemy troops had been killed in the previous 24 hours in the fight for Bakhmut, with Kyiv fending off attacks and a small river that bisects the town now marking the new frontline. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a Ukrainian military spokesperson, claimed 221 pro-Moscow troops had been killed and more than 300 wounded in Bakhmut. Russia’s defence ministry said that as many as 210 Ukrainian soldiers had been killed in the broader Donetsk part of the frontline.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russian forces did not make any advances in Bakhmut on Saturday.
Ukraine’s military said it repelled more than 92 Russian assaults in five areas over the past day, according to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces.
The Turkish defence minister, Hulusi Akar, said he believed a deal allowing Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea would be extended from its 18 March deadline. Russia’s foreign ministry said Russian representatives had not yet taken part in negotiations on extending the deal.
