Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

FIGHTING * Russia has reinforced its troops and used artillery to conduct "assault operations" in Sievierodonetsk, but Russian forces retreated after failed attempts to advance in the nearby town of Bakhmut, Ukraine's military said.

Ukraine said it had recaptured a chunk of the factory city of Sievierodonetsk, the focus of a Russian offensive to take the eastern Donbas region, and could hold it for up to two weeks as fighting raged on. FIGHTING * Russia has reinforced its troops and used artillery to conduct "assault operations" in Sievierodonetsk, but Russian forces retreated after failed attempts to advance in the nearby town of Bakhmut, Ukraine's military said. * In the southern region of Odesa a missile hit an agricultural storage unit, wounding two people, the regional administration's spokesman wrote on Telegram. * Ukraine's intelligence services are in communication with the captured Azovstal steelworks fighters and Kyiv is doing all it can to ensure their release, Ukrainian Interior Minister Denys Monastyrskiy said late on Friday. * Russia will continue its military operation in Ukraine until all its goals have been achieved, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

DIPLOMACY * Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida is leaning toward attending a summit of NATO leaders in late June to spur coordination with the West over Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Kyodo News reported, citing unnamed government sources. ECONOMY * Russian President Vladimir Putin denied on Friday that Russia was preventing Ukrainian ports from exporting grain, saying the best solution would be to ship it through Belarus if sanctions on that country were lifted. * The EU on Friday blacklisted Russian military commanders who it said led troops involved in atrocities in Ukraine, calling them the "butchers" of Bucha and Mariupol.

QUOTES * "Victory will be ours," said Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, speaking on Friday in a video address to mark 100 days of the war.