Russia: Total of 959 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered at the plant

More than 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers, including senior commanders, remain inside the besieged Azovstal steel plant in Ukraine's port city of Mariupol, a pro-Russian separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, says.

since Monday.

It said that the injured are being treated in a hospital in a part of the eastern Donetsk region controlled by pro-Russian rebels.

Kyiv's defence ministry says it will do "everything necessary" to rescue the personnel still in the plant's tunnels.

Ukraine says it hopes to exchange Azovstal fighters for Russian soldiers it is holding.

Russia expels dozens of French, Italian and Spanish diplomats in tit-for-tat responses to the expulsion of Russian diplomats over the Ukraine conflict.

The foreign ministry says 27 Spanish, 24 Italian and 34 French diplomats have been declared "persona non grata".

All three countries condemn the move, with Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi calling it a "hostile act" which will make resolving the war through peaceful means more difficult.

The United States reopens its embassy in Kyiv after closing it for three months due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the State Department says.

"The Ukrainian people, with our security assistance, have defended their homeland in the face of Russia's unconscionable invasion" Secretary of State Antony Blinken says in a statement.