There was a brief moment of respite and levity amidst a raging war when Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited a 16-year-old wounded girl in a Kyiv hospital on Thursday and was told that he is a TikTok star.

       Katya Vlasenko and her family came under attack while trying to flee Russian fire. According to reports, she covered her younger brother with her body during the Russian shelling as they ran from their home town.

       However, on Thursday she had some happy news for the Ukrainian leader, praised globally for his courage under fire as his country and people came under a weeks-long Russian attack.

       “And everybody supports you on TikTok,” Katya told Mr Zelensky, prompting a smile from the president.

       “So we have occupied TikTok?” he asked.

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       “All talk about you, it is all about you,” she said.

       Mr Zelensky presented her with a bunch of white and pink flowers as she lay in bed and said: “It is not easy, but we do the right thing.”

       Japan and Australia have impose new sanctions on Russian entities as punishment for the invasion of Ukraine. According to a UK military intelligence assessment, Russian troops are facing food and fuel shortages amid Moscow’s “faltering invasion of Ukraine”.

       Russian president Vladimir Putin’s forces are being forced to divert “large numbers” of troops to defend its supply lines, rather than continuing its offensive, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has said.

       US president Joe Biden is due to speak with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping on Friday to discuss among other things “Russia’s war against Ukraine” even as more than 350,000 people remain sheltered in the battered port city of Mariupol.

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       (Additional reporting from agencies)

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