War in Ukraine: Latest developments

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

- UN chief visits ruined Ukraine towns  -

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls the war "an absurdity" during a visit to sites of alleged Russian crimes in Ukraine on his first visit to the country since Russia invaded nine weeks ago.

Guterres is due to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky after holding talks in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin. 

"The war is an absurdity in the 21st century. The war is evil," Guterres says during a visit to the ruined town of Borodianka, calling on Russia to cooperate with an international war crimes probe.

- Russian soldiers probed over Bucha crimes -

Ukrainian prosecutors say they have identified 10 Russian soldiers suspected of committing war crimes in the Kyiv suburb of Bucha.

"Ten servicemen of the 64th motorised infantry brigade of the Russian armed forces, part of the 35th army, are suspected of cruel treatment of civilians and other violations of laws and customs of war," the Ukrainian prosecutor general's office says.

- Make oligarchs pay, says US -

The US proposes using assets seized from Russian oligarchs to compensate Ukraine for damage caused by the war.

President Joe Biden is to announce the move along with a request to Congress to increase funding for Ukraine's military.

- Kremlin warning on weapons -

The Kremlin says that Western arms deliveries to Ukraine are a threat to European security.

"The tendency to pump weapons, including heavy weapons into Ukraine, these are the actions that threaten the security of the continent, provoke instability," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells reporters.

He was reacting to comments by Britain's Foreign Secretary Liz Truss, who called on Kyiv's allies to send more tanks and other heavy weapons to Ukraine.

- Putin warning on intervention -

Russian President Vladimir Putin warns that if Western forces intervene in Ukraine, they will face a "lightning-fast" military response.

"We have all the tools for this, that no-one else can boast of having," the Russian leader tells lawmakers, implicitly referring to Moscow's ballistic missiles and nuclear arsenal.

"We won't boast about it: we'll use them, if needed. And I want everyone to know that," he says.

- Depots hit -

Russia says it used missiles to destroy two arms and ammunition depots in eastern and southern Ukraine and also carried out airstrikes on dozens of military sites.

On Wednesday, it also claimed to have destroyed a "large batch" of Western-supplied weapons at a factory in central Ukraine.

- Return of the ruble -

The administrator of the Russian-controlled city of Kherson in southern Ukraine says that the ruble will soon be introduced in areas under Moscow's control.

- 'We have to be stronger' -

Bulgarian Prime Minister Kiril Petkov urges fellow EU members to be "stronger" and find alternatives to Russian gas, a day after Moscow cut off its supplies to Bulgaria.

"We have to be stronger. We have to be tough," Petkov said during a visit to the war-scarred Kyiv suburb of Irpin, adding: "If we are able to do it, everybody in Europe should be able to."

- 'Extremely difficult weeks' -

Ukraine's Defence Minister Oleksiy Reznikov says the country faces "extremely difficult weeks" as Russia ramps up its offensive in the Donbas region, which it has vowed to "liberate".

Moscow "will try to inflict as much pain as possible", Reznikov writes on Facebook, adding Ukrainians will need to show "extraordinary unity".

Kyiv said Tuesday that a string of villages in the east had fallen to Russian forces.