Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

FIGHTING * Russia's defence ministry said Thursday's cruise missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine's armed forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers. * Russian forces have been slowly advancing west following shelling and probing assaults towards the town of Siversk in Ukraine's Donetsk region from Lysychansk, Britain's defence ministry said on Friday.

A Ukrainian city far from the frontline mourned its dead and cleaned its streets on Friday, a day after a Russian missile attack killed at least 23 people and wounded scores. ECONOMY/DIPLOMACY

* The European Union's executive, the European Commission, formally proposed on Friday new sanctions on Russia, including a new import ban on Russian gold. EU governments must still sign off on the measures, expected as early as next week. * Ukraine is hurrying to clinch a deal with Russia, Turkey and the United Nations next week to export grain via its Black Sea ports, a senior Ukrainian official source said on Friday.

* U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen condemned Russia's "brutal and unjust war" in Ukraine and said Russian finance officials taking part in a G20 meeting in Indonesia shared responsibility for the "horrific consequences" of the war. * A British aid worker who was detained by Russian-backed separatists in Ukraine and accused of being a mercenary has died, an official in the self-proclaimed Donetsk People's Republic said on Friday.

* Poland will buy 116 used Abrams tanks from the United States, the Polish defence minister said on Friday, as Warsaw strengthens its armed forces following Russia's invasion of Ukraine. FIGHTING

* Russia's defence ministry said Thursday's cruise missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia was directed at a building where top officials from Ukraine's armed forces were meeting foreign arms suppliers. Ukraine has denied any military target was hit, saying the attack killed at least 23 people and struck a cultural centre used by retired veterans. * Russian forces have been slowly advancing west following shelling and probing assaults towards the town of Siversk in Ukraine's Donetsk region from Lysychansk, Britain's defence ministry said on Friday. "Bakhmut is likely to be the next objective, once Siversk is secured," the ministry tweeted in a regular bulletin.

* Ukraine is using Western-supplied long-range weapons and 155mm "smart" shells to hit Russian ammo dumps and supply lines, forcing Moscow to rethink how it supplies fuel and ammunition to the front line, a Ukrainian general said. * Reuters could not independently verify the battlefield accounts. (Compiled by Nick Macfie)