Russia-Ukraine war live: Ukraine ‘operation’ is ‘difficult’ Kremlin says, as US thinktank warns Russian forces ‘constrained’ in Bakhmut

‘This is a very difficult operation’ Kremlin spokesperson tells Bosnian Serb TV; Institute for the Study of War says Russia constrained by ‘pervasive issues’ with combat capability

Hello and welcome back to our continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be bringing you the latest.

Our top stories this morning: Russia’s military operation against Ukraine is “very difficult” but certain goals have been achieved, Tass news agency cited Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying on Wednesday.

A Ukrainian military commander has said that Russian forces in Bakhmut had been pushed back by up to 2km in some areas, after counter offensives. Col Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, who heads Ukraine’s ground forces, made the comments in a post on Telegram. He said: “In some areas of the front, the enemy could not resist the onslaught of the Ukrainian defenders and retreated to a distance of up to two kilometers.”

Russia’s oil pipeline operator Transneft said that a filling point on the Europe-bound Druzhba pipeline in a border area between Russia and Ukraine had been targeted in a “terrorist” attack, according to the Tass news agency. Transneft said nobody was injured in the incident, which it called a “terrorist attack”, according to Reuters.

It comes as Ukraine’s military said its forces have seriously damaged Russia’s 72nd independent motorised rifle brigade near Bakhmut, made up of thousands of troops. Serhiy Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for Ukrainian troops in the east, said the situation remained “difficult” in Bakhmut but Moscow was increasingly forced to use regular army units because of heavy losses among the Wagner private army group.

France’s anti-terrorism prosecution office on Wednesday announced it had opened an investigation for possible war crimes and crimes against humanity after an AFP video journalist was killed on Tuesday by Grad rocket fire near Chasiv Yar, in eastern Ukraine.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Wednesday he thought the Ukraine Black Sea grain deal could be extended for at least two more months, as officials held the first day of talks on an extension in Istanbul. Russia has said it would not extend the pact beyond 18 May unless a list of demands is met to remove obstacles to its own grain and fertiliser exports. Cavusoglu was speaking to reporters on his return from a trip to Moscow.

Russian forces are planning to “evacuate” more than 3,000 workers from the town that serves the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, resulting in a “catastrophic lack” of personnel, Ukraine’s state-owned Energoatom company claimed on Wednesday.

Former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been criticised again for his links to Russia after attending a Victory Day party at the Russian embassy in Berlin. Schröder was seen at the reception on Tuesday marking the defeat of Nazi Germany in the second world war, along with senior figures from the far-right Alternative for Germany party and the far-left Linke party.

Russia may formally “denounce” the treaty on conventional armed forces in Europe that it pulled out of in 2015, according to a decree signed by President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday.