• Russian anti-aircraft forces have shot down dozens of Ukrainian weapons and are "cracking them like nuts," President Vladimir Putin said in a brief excerpt of an interview aired on Saturday.

RIA news agency, which first cited the comments, quoted Putin as responding to a question about U.S.-supplied arms by saying, Russia was coping easily and had already destroyed the weapons by the dozen.

But the clip of an an interview to be aired on Sunday made clear that Putin had in fact been responding to a different question, which was not shown.

"Our anti-aircraft systems are crunching them like nuts. Dozens have been destroyed," Putin said.

Although the exact kind of weapon was not clear, Russia says it has destroyed both aircraft and missiles fielded by Ukraine.

• French President Emmanuel Macron said it is vital that Russia is not humiliated so that when the fighting stops in Ukraine a diplomatic solution can be found, adding that he believed Paris would play a mediating role to end the conflict.

Macron has sought to maintain a dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin since Moscow's invasion of Ukraine in February. His stance has been repeatedly criticised by some eastern and Baltic partners in Europe, as they see it as undermining efforts to pressure Putin to the negotiating table.

"We must not humiliate Russia so that the day when the fighting stops we can build an exit ramp through diplomatic means," Macron said in an interview to regional newspapers published on Saturday. "I am convinced that it is France's role to be a mediating power."

Macron has spoken with Putin regularly since the invasion as part of efforts to achieve a ceasefire and begin a credible negotiation between Kyiv and Moscow.

"I think, and I told him, that he is making a historic and fundamental mistake for his people, for himself and for history," Macron said.

France has supported Ukraine militarily and financially, but until now Macron has not been to Kyiv to offer symbolic political support like other EU leaders, something Ukraine has wanted him to do. Macron said he had not ruled out going.

Paris sends offensive weapons including Caesar howitzer canon taken from French army stocks. Macron said he had asked weapons manufacturers to accelerate production.

• Ukraine rebuked French President Emmanuel Macron on Saturday for saying it was important not to "humiliate" Russia, a position Ukrainian foreign minister Dmitro Kuleba said "can only humiliate France".

Kuleba responded on twitter: "Calls to avoid humiliation of Russia can only humiliate France and every other country that would call for it.

"Because it is Russia that humiliates itself. We all better focus on how to put Russia in its place. This will bring peace and save lives."

Macron has spoken with Putin regularly since the invasion as part of efforts to achieve a ceasefire and begin a credible negotiation between Kyiv and Moscow, although he has had no tangible success to show for it.

Asked about the mediation offer on national television, Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said there was "no point in holding negotiations" with Russia until Ukraine had received new weapons from the West and pushed Russian forces back "as far as possible to the borders of Ukraine".

Russia now occupies about a fifth of Ukrainian territory. Kyiv is receiving more powerful weapons from the West.

"Our armed forces are ready to use (the new weapons)...and then I think we can initiate a new round of talks from a strengthened position," David Arakhamia, Ukrainian lawmaker and a member of the negotiation team, said on Friday.

Among other things, the United States will give Ukraine precision HIMARS rocket systems allowing it to hit Russian positions from a longer range.

• Britain's defence ministry said on Saturday that Russian air activity remains high over Ukraine's Donbas region with Russian aircraft carrying out strikes using both guided and unguided munitions.

"The increased use of unguided munitions has led to the widespread destruction of built-up areas in the Donbas and has almost certainly caused substantial collateral damage and civilian casualties," the ministry said in a tweet.

It said Russia increased its use of tactical air to support its creeping advance, combining air strikes and massed artillery attacks to bring its firepower to bear as its operational focus has switched to the Donbas.

• Reinforced Russian troops backed by airstrikes pummeled a portion of eastern Ukraine on Saturday, blowing up bridges and shelling apartment buildings as they fought to capture two cities that would put a contested province under Moscow’s control, Ukrainian officials said.

Russian and Ukrainian forces battled street-by-street in Sievierodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk, regional governor Serhiy Haidai said. Russian strikes killed four people, including a mother and child, in the nearby village of Hirske, Haidai said.

The cities are the last major areas of Luhansk province still held by Ukraine. The Russian attacks are central to the Kremlin’s reduced wartime goal of seizing the entire Donbas region, where Moscow-backed separatists have fought Ukrainian forces for eight years and established self-proclaimed republics.

Russia also escalated attacks in Donetsk, the other province that makes up the Donbas, the Ukrainian military said as the war reached its 101st day.

• Reflecting the close combat, Russian and Ukrainian military officers blamed each other for a fire that destroyed a 1912 wooden church at the Sviatohirsk monastery, one of Ukraine’s holiest Orthodox Christian sites. The sprawling, 16th-century monastery, which sits on the bank of the Siverskiy Donets River, has been hit several times previously during the war, most recently on Wednesday, when three monks were killed.
• In his nightly video address Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of “deliberately and systematically destroying Ukrainian culture and its historical heritage, along with social infrastructure like housing and everything needed for normal life.”

Zelenskyy said 113 churches have been damaged or destroyed during the invasion, including some that survived the battles of World War II.

In recent days Russian forces have focused on capturing Sievierodonetsk, which had a prewar population of about 100,000. At one point they held 90% of the city, but Ukrainian soldiers clawed back some ground, Haidai reported Friday. Zelenskyy described the city’s situation as “extremely difficult” on Saturday.

Reuters/AP