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There are sandbags around the statues and anti-tank obstacles by the side of the streets, trenches in the nearby forests and land mine warnings in the woods. Signs painted on walls point to the nearest shelter, while air raid sirens occasionally wail across the city, which still sometimes comes under missile attack.
showing how residents of the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, are living their lives as normally as they can while Russia’s invasion of their country continues into its second year.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that last year's blasts on the Nord Stream gas pipelines had been carried out on a "state level", dismissing the idea an autonomous pro-Ukraine group was responsible as "complete nonsense" .
The Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines connecting Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea were hit by a series of unexplained explosions last September, in what Moscow has called an act of "international terrorism".
Intelligence reviewed by U.S. officials suggests that a pro-Ukraine group - likely comprised of Ukrainians or Russians - attacked the Nord Stream gas pipelines in September, but there are no firm conclusions, the New York Times reported last week.
There was no evidence that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy or other Ukrainian government officials were behind the attacks which spewed natural gas into the Baltic Sea, the newspaper said, citing U.S. officials.
"One should always look for those who are interested. And who is interested? Theoretically, of course, the United States is interested," Putin said.
The United States strongly denies any involvement in the Nord Stream blasts, Reuters said. The White House in February dismissed a blog post by a U.S. investigative journalist alleging Washington was behind explosions as "utterly false and complete fiction."
Poland’s prime minister said Tuesday that his government may hand its Soviet-made MiG-29 fighters jets over to Ukraine “within the next four to six weeks,” .
Poland’s leaders said last week that sending the warplanes would be only done within a larger international coalition. Slovakia has also declared readiness to provide its MiG-29 planes to Kyiv and the two NATO nations have urged others to join in.
Ukrainians paid tribute to fallen soldiers at the Wall of Remembrance in Kyiv on March 14 to commemorate Volunteer Day. This tells the story.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his military chiefs agreed on Tuesday to keep defending Bakhmut, which the country's top general said was vital to the defense of the whole eastern front, Reuters reported.
Zelenskyy's office said the president, top government officials and military commanders had discussed the situation in the small eastern city, where Russian and Ukraine forces are taking heavy casualties.
"After considering the defensive operation in the Bakhmut direction, all ... expressed a common position to continue holding and defending the city of Bakhmut," it said in a statement.
General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, said the defense of Bakhmut was of "paramount strategic importance".
Ukrainian forces are surrounded on three sides in Bakhmut but show no signs of fall back to a new defensive line. Russia sees taking Bakhmut as a stepping stone for its troops to advance on two bigger cities in the Donetsk region: Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.
President Vladimir Putin said that what was at stake in Ukraine was Russia's very existence as a state, Reuters reported.
In comments to workers at an aviation factory Tuesday, Putin repeated his claim that the West was bent on pulling Russia apart.
"So for us this is not a geopolitical task, but a task of the survival of Russian statehood, creating conditions for the future development of the country and our children," he said.
Putin has accused the West of using Ukraine as a tool to wage war against Russia and inflict on it a "strategic defeat."
The United States and its allies say they are helping Ukraine to defend itself from an imperial-style invasion that has destroyed Ukrainian cities, killed thousands of civilians and forced millions to flee their homes.
Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, voted on Tuesday to approve an amendment that would punish those found guilty of discrediting "volunteer" groups fighting in Ukraine, extending a law that censors criticism of Russia's armed forces, Reuters reported.