Wagner has spearheaded Russia's assault on Bakhmut, which had a pre-war population of 75,000, and has made steady but incremental progress around the city's outskirts
The former Italian prime minister created a storm last month when he said Putin had been pushed into the war in Ukraine and wanted to put 'decent people' in charge of Kyiv
Russian TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, famous for staging an on-air protest against Russia's war in Ukraine, confirmed she had escaped house arrest
Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February, the pope has on several occasions condemned the conflict, while at the same time holding back on direct criticism of Vladimir Putin