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The president of war-torn Ukraine said Wednesday he had held a meaningful dialogue with China’s leader after Beijing unveiled a peace plan to end the armed conflict between Kyiv and Moscow. Yet despite the talks between President Volodymyr Zelensky and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, there were no signs of peace returning to the frontline of an armed conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people are believed to have been killed and injured.

Soldier by soldier, trench by trench, street by street, Russian and Ukrainian forces enter their final bloody battle for Bakhmut, the symbolically important eastern Ukrainian city, in an otherwise devastating war. Ukrainian and Russian soldiers suffer massive casualties.

Kyiv says Russia has shelled a block of flats in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk, killing nine people, including a toddler. However, Russia said later that Ukrainian forces also attacked a town in Russian-controlled Donetsk, killing at least four and injuring 10 people. The clashes have overshadowed the Orthodox Easter many in Ukraine and Russia celebrated.

More details have emerged about Western special forces inside Ukraine after Worthy News initially reported that troops from the NATO military alliance were in the wartorn nation.

Ukraine has admitted that Russia is concentrating all its efforts on capturing the eastern city of Bakhmut by Easter. The announcement came as Moscow announced that any peace talks on ending its invasion of Ukraine should focus on creating a “new world order.”

Kyiv says Russia has launched massive attacks on provinces that Moscow annexed but not yet fully controls, killing at least four people and injuring seven, including at least two children. The strikes came before Easter after authorities warned Christians not to gather in large groups.

The people in Ukraine are preparing for a sad Easter as there are no signs of a ceasefire. However, as Christian residents in Ukraine prepared to celebrate the Biblical victory over death in the resurrection of Christ on Sunday, there was a reminder that war is never far away.

The U.S. will send Ukraine about $500 million in ammunition and equipment and will spend more than $2 billion to buy an array of munitions, radar and other weapons in the future, U.S. officials said, as the Ukrainian troops prepare for a spring offensive against Russian forces.

Palm Sunday was far from peaceful in Ukraine, with Kyiv saying at least three civilians were killed and six wounded in Russian shelling of the town of Kostiantynivka. The reported destruction came as Ukrainian forces desperately tried to push back Russian forces in Ukraine’s volatile east.

European Union leaders began meeting in Brussels on Thursday to discuss Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and how to continue to support the war-torn nation, including with massive military aid.

As war raged in Ukraine on Tuesday, the Ukrainian, Chinese, Russian, and Japanese leaders competed for world attention.

Slovakia and Poland have confirmed they are delivering fighter planes to war-torn Ukraine despite warnings from Moscow that this will further escalate the armed conflict. The announcement came as Hungary again postponed a crucial vote on the expansion of the NATO military alliance at a time when it maintains close relations with Russia.

United Nations investigators say Russia’s “forced deportation” of Ukrainian children to areas under its control amounts to a war crime after Christian missionaries expressed concerns about the plight of orphans.