Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

* Russia blamed sanctions for the supply halt. NUCLEAR PLANT, FIGHTING * An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convoy has arrived at the city of Zaporizhzhia near the Russian-held nuclear power plant in Ukraine's south.

U.N. nuclear inspectors set off for Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant on Wednesday, saying their mission was to prevent a nuclear accident and try to stabilise the situation after weeks of shelling nearby. DIPLOMACY, ECONOMY

* Germany's chief of defence warned the West not to underestimate Moscow's military strength, saying Russia has the scope to open up a second front should it choose to do so. * European Union foreign ministers decided to make it more expensive and lengthier for Russians to obtain visas to travel to the bloc, but stopped short of agreeing to the EU-wide visa ban that Ukraine and several member states had called for.

* Russia halted gas supplies via a major pipeline to Europe, intensifying an economic battle between Moscow and Brussels and raising the prospect of recession and energy rationing in some of the region's richest countries. * Russia blamed sanctions for the supply halt.

NUCLEAR PLANT, FIGHTING * An International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) convoy has arrived at the city of Zaporizhzhia near the Russian-held nuclear power plant in Ukraine's south. The team is expected to visit the Russian-occupied plant on Thursday morning.

* The head of the Ukrainian military administration of Nikopol across the Dnipro river from the Zaporizhzhia plant said Russian forces were shelling near the plant to try to give the IAEA the impression that Ukraine was attacking it. Russia accuses Ukraine of shelling the plant. * Ukrainian forces have had "successes" in three areas of the Russian-occupied region of Kherson, a Ukrainian regional official said, two days after Kyiv announced the start of a southern counter-offensive to retake territory.

* Russia's defence ministry said Ukraine's attempts to mount a counter-offensive in the south of the country had failed, with their forces suffering heavy losses in equipment and men. Reuters was unable to verify the battlefield reports.

QUOTE "Russia is very well capable of expanding the conflict regionally," General Eberhard Zorn, the highest-ranking soldier of the Bundeswehr, told Reuters in an interview.

"That this would be a very unreasonable thing for Russia to do is a different story." (Compiled by Himani Sarkar, Robert Birsel and Philippa Fletcher)