Russia claims strikes against besieged Ukrainian forces, Ukraine reports repelled attacks

Russia said on Thursday that its forces had continued to strike besieged Ukrainian troops in Krasnoarmeysk (known as Pokrovsk in Ukraine) in the Donetsk region, while the Ukrainian side said it had repelled Russian attacks.

Russia's Defense Ministry said that Russian troops had captured 64 buildings in Krasnoarmeysk over the past 24 hours, repelled over 10 Ukrainian attacks and hit Ukrainian targets, including drone storage and launch facilities, temporary deployment areas for Ukrainian armed formations and foreign mercenaries, in 149 areas.

The ministry said Russia's air defense systems intercepted two guided aerial bombs and shot down 261 fixed-wing drones over 24 hours and destroyed Ukrainian armored combat vehicles, artillery pieces, and ammunition depots.

The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported that by 8:00 on Thursday, Ukrainian forces had launched offensives against two concentrations of Russian personnel, weapons, and military equipment, repelled over 100 attacks by Russian troops in Pokrovsk and in other areas, and reinforced military units defending the city.

Ukraine also said its forces carried out a strike on a drone storage, assembly, and launch site in Donetsk airport area on Wednesday and hit Russia's Volgograd oil refinery.

China's software and information technology services industry saw a rapid expansion in the first two months of this year, reporting double-digit growth in terms of revenues, official data showed Tuesday.

In the January-February period, the total revenue of the software sector rose 11.7 percent year on year to more than 2.15 trillion yuan (about 311.83 billion U.S. dollars), while the total profits climbed 7.3 percent to 269.3 billion yuan, according to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Software exports increased by 12.7 percent on a yearly basis.

Software products registered steady growth in revenue in the two months, accounting for 21.9 percent of the industry's total revenue. Information technology services maintained double-digit growth and raked in roughly 1.45 trillion yuan in revenue, taking up 67.2 percent of the industry's total revenue.