Moscow ‘has deal with Belarus to station nuclear weapons’, says Putin – as it happened

Russia's president says deal struck to station weapons on ally's territory, according to Tass news agency

• What we know on day 395 of the invasion

More than 5,000 former criminals have been pardoned after finishing their contracts to fight in Russia's Wagner mercenary group against Ukraine, the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said on Saturday.

The Wagner group, originally staffed by battle-hardened veterans of the Russian armed forces, took on a much more prominent role in the Ukraine war after the Russian army suffered a series of humiliating defeats last year, Reuters reported.