Foreign ministers of India, Australia, Japan and the United States denounce Russia’s nuclear threat; German chancellor makes first Washington trip since before invasion 

Putin’s nuclear war threats ‘unacceptable’ say quad ministersForeign ministers of the so-called Quad group denounced Russia’s threat to use nuclear weapons in the Ukraine war as unacceptable, according to a statement issued after a meeting on Friday.The ministers also said they opposed any unilateral actions to increase tensions in the South China Sea, and expressed concerns about the “militarisation” of disputed territories, in a thinly veiled reference to China.The Quad groups India, Australia, Japan and the United States.

Reuters reports that Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of Russia’s Wagner mercenary force, said in a video published on Friday that the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut was “practically surrounded” by Russian forces and that Kyiv’s forces had access to only one road out.

Prigozhin in the video called on Volodymr Zelenskiy to withdraw his forces from the city, which Russia has been trying to capture without success for months.

Suspilne, Ukraine’s state broadcaster, offers this summary of news from the past 24 hours on its official Telegram channel:

In Zaporizhzhia, the rubble of a five-story building, which was hit by a Russian rocket the previous night, continues to be dismantled. The number of dead has increased to five, 10 people are considered missing.In the last day, Russian troops fired more than 360 projectiles in the Kherson region: residential buildings were damaged, one person died, 17 were injured.In Donbas, the Russian army continues to fire on populated areas along the entire frontline. On 2 March, as a result of shelling in the Donetsk region, two people were killed and five were injured.

The claims have not been independently verified.

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Switzerland’s defence ministry on Friday said it had received a request from its German counterparts to allow Rheinmetall AG to acquire some of Switzerland’s mothballed Leopard 2 tanks. 

The request said the tanks would not be sent to Ukraine, but would be used to backfill gaps created by the handover of Leopard 2s by Germany and Nato and EU allies, a ministry spokesperson told Reuters.