Ukraine says unprecedented bloodshed in Bakhmut

Ukrainian and Russian armed forces are fighting extraordinarily bloody battles in the smashed eastern city of Bakhmut, but pro-Kyiv forces are still holding on, Ukraine's military said on Saturday.

Fighters of Russia's Wagner mercenary group have captured two more areas of Bakhmut, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Saturday.

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Earlier, Russian missiles hit residential buildings in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday, killing 11 people, wounding 21 and reducing parts of apartment blocks to a tangled mess of metal and concrete.

Four were killed and 10 wounded by Ukrainian shelling of a residential area in the Russian-controlled town of Yasynuvata south of Sloviansk, the top Russian-installed official in the region said.

A woman carries flowers during the funeral ceremony of a Ukrainian serviceman in the town of Bakhmut. AFP

A mother and her daughter were killed in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson on Saturday by a Russian artillery strike, the regional administration said.

Russia's regular spring military draft is proceeding as scheduled and there are no plans to send out mass electronic notices under a system just signed into law by President Vladimir Putin, a top official said on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian pianist Roman Lopatynskyi rehearsed in the dark and played concerts by candlelight as air raid sirens resounded across his native Kyiv. The 29-year-old is participating in the International Competition for Young Pianists in Memory of Vladimir Horowitz, which is being held outside Ukraine for the first time since its inception in 1995 due to the Russian invasion.

Ukraine's national ice hockey players have been forced to train with air raid sirens interrupting practice, sending them underground for cover as they worry about their loved ones, but they have managed to keep their focus.

Reuters