POLITICS/DIPLOMACY
* Ukrainian membership of the NATO military alliance is the
only option for the country's future security, Defence Minister
Oleksii Reznikov said on Thursday.
* The person who leaked U.S. classified documents prompting
a national security investigation is a gun enthusiast in his 20s
who worked on a military base, the Washington Post reported.
* The Black Sea will never be a "NATO sea", Kremlin
spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday after Ukraine's foreign
minister urged the Atlantic alliance to play a bigger security
role in the region.
* Norway's foreign ministry said on Thursday it would expel
15 Russian embassy officials who it said were intelligence
officers operating under the cover of diplomatic positions.
* Hungary's government will quit the Russia-controlled International Investment Bank (IIB), the Economic Development Ministry said on Thursday. On Wednesday, Washington imposed sanctions on three officials of IIB in Budapest, including a Hungarian.
BATTLEFIELD
* Ukraine and Russia traded barbs over how much invading
Russian forces control the city of Bakhmut, for months the focal
point of Moscow's bid to advance through eastern Ukraine.
* Hundreds of cemeteries near front lines will be closed to
Ukrainians wanting to pay their respects at graves of their
relatives for Orthodox Easter this weekend due to the danger of
land mines and unexploded ordnance.
* As many as 354,000 Russian and Ukrainian soldiers have
been killed or injured in a conflict that may last well beyond
2023, according to purported U.S. intelligence documents posted
online.
ECONOMY
* Russia on Thursday said there would be no extension of the
UN-brokered Black Sea grain deal beyond May 18 unless the West
removed a series of obstacles to the export of Russian grain and
fertiliser.
* The U.S. Commerce Department said it was imposing export
controls on more than two dozen companies in China, Turkey and
other countries for supporting Russia's military and defence
industries.
IN-DEPTH STORIES
* ANALYSIS-Russia's military production, state splurge ease
sanctions pain
* INSIGHT- Ukraine's tech entrepreneurs fight war on
different front
(Compiled by Reuters editors)
