March 27, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday visited the region of Zaporizhzhia, which remains partially occupied by Russia.

He stopped by a military hospital and met with the chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and members of the military.

Earlier Monday, Zelensky announced the visit to Zaporizhzhia and posted a picture on Telegram, along with the message, “I am honored to be here today, next to our military."

“I am thankful to each of our warriors for defending Ukraine, our sovereignty, our cities, and our children,” he added. “We will definitely win.”

During his visit to the military hospital, Zelensky commended the work of the doctors and nurses and thanked them for their service.

"You are the ones who save lives,” Zelensky said, according to his office. “I want to thank you on behalf of all of us, on my own behalf, for your very important and powerful work.”

The Ukrainian president also met with IAEA Director Rafael Grossi who is also visiting the region to get a first-hand assessment of "the nuclear safety & security situation at the facility," Grossi tweeted earlier.

Grossi reported a "rich exchange" with Zelensky on the protection of the plant and its staff, and said in a tweet that the president showed him the recent damage to the Dnipro hydroelectric station.

The dam is "an essential part of the system that sustains the nuclear safety of the [Zaporizhzhia] nuclear power plant,” Grossi said in a tweet.

See Grossi's tweet about his meeting with Zelensky:

The head of Russia's Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, paid another visit to the front lines inside the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to video geolocated by CNN.

The video was uploaded Monday and was filmed by Russian journalist Alexander Simonov. It’s unclear exactly when it was shot.

The river runs north and south through the city’s eastern outskirts.

In the video, a fighter wearing a balaclava says “the enemy is 150-180 meters to the Northwest away from us….every private house is a fortification, every five-nine story building is a fortress.”

The fighter says that on the previous day, Wagner had raided northern Bakhmut and claimed that they’d killed more than 30 Ukrainian soldiers. CNN cannot verify the claim.

“We are moving forward, Bakhmut is going to fall and we will have the victory,” he says.

Prigozhin says, “We are riding through the front line. We are looking at what we could do better, do faster.”

One of the fighters says that they are at school number five in Bakhmut. CNN has geolocated the video to that location, in the southern part of central Bakhmut.

Later, Prigozhin says from another location that he is at a cemetery in the nearby town of Soledar, and adds, “We bury the bodies of Ukrainians that we weren’t able to hand over. We take pictures, and number them in order to hand them over later.”

Prigozhin has paid several visits to Bakhmut and its immediate surroundings in recent weeks.

What both sides are saying: Both Ukrainian and Wagner officials acknowledge street-by-street fighting in the city, with the Ukrainians claiming that they have stabilized the situation in Bakhmut.

Wagner says it now controls all of a metallurgical plant known as AZOM on the northern edge of the city.

Social media video geolocated by CNN shows long rows of freshly dug graves at a cemetery in the southern Russian region of Krasnodar reserved for fighters of the Wagner mercenary group.

A woman can be heard in one of the videos saying it's the cemetery where all the "Wagnerites" are buried, and claimed that the graves are all from the end of 2022 and the first months of 2023, but CNN cannot independently verify that.

The video shows dozens of long rows of graves — all with the same floral tribute — and is one of several to have been recently filmed at the cemetery near the city of Goryachy Klyuch. There are two cemeteries in the area that now contain Wagner graves.

Some background: The burial of Wagner fighters in the area has sparked a dispute. Earlier this month, Sergey Belopolsky, the mayor of Goryachy Klyuch, banned the further burial of Wagner fighters. Then, Krasnordar Gov. Veniamin Kondratiev overturned the ban after complaints from the head of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin.

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, is expected to visit the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) in Ukraine this week.

In a statement released Saturday, the IAEA quoted Grossi as saying he wanted to see "how the situation has evolved since September and to talk to those operating the facility."

Grossi also said the situation at the plant remains "precarious" despite an IAEA presence at the site for seven months, according to the statement.

He continues to work on a proposal to protect the plant, the statement said further.

The Kremlin said it will press on with plans to store nuclear weapons in Belarus, after Western leaders criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's intentions as "dangerous and irresponsible."

Meanwhile, there have been strikes in the Donetsk region and the battle for Bakhmut is intensifying.

Here are the latest developments:

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, has updated the casualty figures from Monday’s missile strike in the eastern city of Sloviansk.

“As of 13:00, there are 2 dead, 29 wounded in Sloviansk,” he posted on Facebook, noting the developments in local time.

Kyrylenko said earlier that a number of high-rise buildings and offices had been damaged or destroyed.

City authorities said there's one child among the injured.

The Kremlin has maintained its position on storing nuclear weapons in neighboring Belarus, after Western leaders condemned Russian President Vladimir Putin's plans as "dangerous and irresponsible."

Putin announced Saturday that Moscow plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, which is among Russia's closest allies. It helped Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, allowing the Kremlin's forces to enter the country from the north.

The statement from Putin over the weekend prompted strong reaction in the West. NATO said it is "vigilant" and "closely monitoring the situation," and Lithuania called for new sanctions against Russia.

The US has downplayed the move, saying there are no indications Russia will use nuclear weapons.

At least one person was killed and 25 wounded in Russian missile strikes on Monday against the eastern city of Sloviansk, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration.

A number of high-rise buildings and offices were damaged or destroyed by the missile strikes at around 10:30 a.m. local time, Kyrylenko said, adding that two S300 missiles were used.

“In addition, at the same time [the town of] Druzhkivka was hit by a missile attack — two S300 missiles hit the Druzhkivka orphanage and almost completely destroyed it,” Kyrylenko said. 

There are “currently no casualties in Druzhkivka,” he said.

It’s not known whether the orphanage was occupied.

Russian bombardments killed one person in the city of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region on Monday, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Zelensky posted video of the aftermath of the attack, showing widespread damage and two fires. It is unclear whether rockets or missiles were used.