Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city across the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, local officials said on Sunday. FIGHTING * The governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, said the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk.

Russian forces have blown up a bridge linking the embattled Ukrainian city of Sievierodonetsk to another city across the river, cutting off a possible evacuation route for civilians, local officials said on Sunday. FIGHTING * The governor of Luhansk province, Serhiy Gaidai, said the Russians had destroyed a bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River linking Sievierodonetsk with its twin city of Lysychansk. * In Lysychansk itself, Russian shelling killed one woman and destroyed four houses and a shopping centre, Gaidai said. * The head of the Sievierodonetsk administration said a little more than a third of the city remained under the control of Ukrainian forces and about two-thirds were in Russian hands. * Southwest of Sievierodonetsk, Russian forces were firing mortars and artillery around a number of settlements, according to Ukraine's general staff. But it said Ukrainian forces had repulsed Russian attempts to advance towards some communities. * Russian forces fired Kalibr cruise missiles to destroy a depot containing U.S. and European weapons in western Ukraine's Ternopil region, Interfax reported. * The governor of the Ternopil region said a rocket attack on the city of Chortkiv fired from the Black Sea had partly destroyed a military facility, injuring 22 people. A local official said there were no weapons stored there. * Interfax also said Russian forces had shot down three Ukrainian SU-25 fighter jets near Donetsk and Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine. * Russia is using its overmatch in force ratio and artillery to gradually seize territory in and around Ukraine's Sieverodonetsk, Britain's Defence Ministry said. * Reuters could not independently confirm the battlefield accounts. PRISONERS * The leader of the Russian-backed separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine said there was no reason to pardon two British nationals who were sentenced to death last week after being captured while fighting for Ukraine.

ECONOMY * It might look and smell like McDonald's but now it's Vkusno & tochka. A new era for Russia's fast-food and economic scene dawned as McDonald's restaurants flung open their doors in Moscow under new Russian ownership and with the new name, which translates as "Tasty and that's it". * Ukraine has established two routes through Poland and Romania to export grain and avert a global food crisis although bottlenecks have slowed the supply chain, Ukraine's deputy foreign minister said. DIPLOMACY * Security concerns raised by Turkey in its opposition to Finnish and Swedish NATO membership applications are legitimate, the Western military alliance's Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said in Finland.

QUOTES "No one can say whether and how many victims there have been in the last 24 hours in Sievierodonetsk, where intense fighting continues," Gaidai said on the Telegram messaging app. "Everyone wants to evacuate now, probably, but so far there is no such possibility," (Compiled by Kim Coghill and Frances Kerry)