Kyiv said its troops were still holding out in a brutal fight for Bakhmut, while Washington said that even if the eastern Ukrainian city should fall to a Russian offensive, it would not necessarily give Moscow momentum in the war.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office said he had discussed Bakhmut with his chief of the general staff and commander of ground forces, who both "spoke in favour of continuing the defensive operation and further strengthening positions in Bakhmut".
Volodymyr Nazarenko, a Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut, said there had been no order to retreat and "the defence is holding", albeit in conditions of "utter hell".
In the latest sign of a feud between Russia's military and the Wagner private army leading its Bakhmut assault, Wagner's boss Yevgeny Prigozhin said his aide had been barred from the military's operational headquarters after Prigozhin formally demanded more ammunition.
At least one person was wounded in the southern Russian region of Belgorod after Russian forces shot down three missiles, the governor of the region bordering Ukraine said.
Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu has visited Mariupol, the port city in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region captured by Russian forces last year after a months-long siege, his ministry said.
Inside Russia
Russia's FSB security service said it had thwarted a Ukrainian-backed car bomb attack against prominent nationalist businessman Konstantin Malofeyev, who has been a cheerleader for Moscow's war in Ukraine. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
Russia's federal budget deficit widened sharply in the first two months of the year as Moscow drastically raised expenditure while revenue fell amid slumping oil and gas takings, the finance ministry said.
Russia said it was declaring the German-based anti-corruption group Transparency International an "undesirable organisation".
