DIPLOMACY, SANCTIONS, AID

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in Moscow that conditions for a ceasefire in Ukraine should be created as soon as possible.

FIGHTING

The following reports could not be immediately verified by Reuters:

* Russia's defence ministry said its missiles destroyed six facilities powering railways used to deliver foreign weapons to Ukrainian forces in the eastern Donbas region.

* Four people were killed and nine wounded in Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region, the region's governor told Ukraine's public broadcaster.

Two villages in Russia's Belgorod region came under fire from Ukraine, and at least two people were wounded, the region's governor said.

* Ukraine's general staff said Russia was shelling its second biggest city, Kharkiv, in eastern Ukraine and towns and villages to the south but that Ukrainian forces had repelled assaults on three settlements.

* Russian forces carried out strikes on Ukrainian positions in the Azovstal steel plant, the main remaining Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol where more than 1,000 civilians are also sheltering, Ukrainian officials said.

* Ukrainian human rights ombudswoman Lyudmyla Denisova said the Russian military had destroyed 347 health facilities including all in the Luhansk part of the Donbas, threatening thousands of lives. All of Luhansk province was without electricity on Monday after Russian attacks, the governor said.

QUOTES

* "NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. War means war." - Russia's Sergei Lavrov.

* "In terms of Russia's war aims, Russia has already failed and Ukraine has already succeeded." - US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Australian Associated Press