These are the key events from Saturday, April 5:

Fighting

• A Russian missile attack has killed at least 18 people, including nine children, in a residential area of the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, local officials said, but Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it targeted a military gathering there.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says European military planners could be ready within a month with details of a foreign troop contingent in Ukraine seen as critical to ending the war with Russia.
• Russia launched a drone attack at a thermal power plant in Ukraine’s city of Kherson, accusing Moscow of violating a United States-brokered energy ceasefire.
• Russia claimed its forces captured two more villages in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region in the past 24 hours. According to a statement from the Russian Defence Ministry, Russian forces now control the settlements of Panteleimonivka and Rozivka in Donetsk.
• Ukraine said an official in the central city of Dnipro died in hospital after a blast rocked his car.
• Russian commander Apti Alaudinov was quoted by the state RIA news agency as saying the situation in Russia’s Belgorod region is “under control” after the Ukrainian army tried to break through the border.
• Germany has been paying for Ukraine’s access to a satellite internet network operated by France’s Eutelsat, as Europe seeks alternatives to Elon Musk’s Starlink.

Ceasefire

• Zelenskyy said the deadly strike on his home city of Kryvyi Rih showed that Russia did not want a ceasefire.
• The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin and United States President Donald Trump had no plans to talk after a visit to Washington by Putin’s investment envoy.
• US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said “there is a lot that has to happen” in the coming weeks to reach a ceasefire in Ukraine and that negotiations will not continue forever.
• NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the ball regarding a Ukraine ceasefire is in the Russian court, after meeting with NATO foreign ministers in Brussels.
• The United Kingdom and French foreign ministers accused Putin of dragging his feet in ceasefire talks and demanded a swift response from Russia after weeks of US efforts to secure a truce.

• Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told Reuters news agency any potential peace agreement between Ukraine and Russia would be “difficult to digest” but would still be better than the alternative of more death and destruction.

Politics and diplomacy

• European NATO allies and Canada said they are willing to ramp up defence spending but are cool on American demands for the size of their military budgets. US allies have spent billions of dollars more on defence but almost a third still don’t meet NATO’s target of at least 2 percent of their gross domestic product.
• The Ukrainian team will head to the US in the near future for discussions on a new framework on the minerals deal, public broadcaster Suspilne reported, citing Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha.
• A former Russian defence official was convicted of taking bribes and sentenced to seven years in a penal colony, as Putin continues a drive to punish corruption in the armed forces, leading to a rash of prosecutions.
• The EU proclaimed a “new era” in ties with Central Asia at a major summit in Uzbekistan, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine accelerates the region’s drift from Moscow’s orbit and Brussels presses its influence in the region in the face of Russian and Chinese competition.
• NATO members Poland, Finland and all three Baltic states have queued up over the past few weeks to withdraw from the Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel landmines, in the face of what they say are growing military threats from Russia.
• The Vatican’s Foreign Minister Archbishop Paul Gallagher held a phone call on Friday with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov to discuss the war in Ukraine and plans to stop the fighting.
• Germany said it would buy explosive drones for the first time as Berlin boosts investments in its armed forces to counter the threat from Russia.

Source

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Al Jazeera and news agencies