President Zelensky of Ukraine has been informed by Chinese President Xi Jinping that China will send a special representative to his country.
Following Beijing’s declaration that it wished to serve as a peace mediator in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Mr. Xi spoke by phone with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Wednesday, according to state media. This action was long overdue.
The phone call’s contents were not immediately made public.
Zelensky tweeted after the call, “I had a long and meaningful phone call with President Xi Jinping.”
‘I believe that this call, as well as the appointment of Ukraine’s ambassador to China, will give a powerful impetus to the development of our bilateral relations.’
China has tried to appear neutral in the war but refused to criticize Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
The Chinese government released a peace proposal in February and called for a cease-fire and peace talks.
Mr Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin issued a joint statement before the February 2020 invasion saying their governments had a ‘no limits friendship.’
‘Negotiation is the only viable way out,’ state TV said in a report on Mr Xi’s comments to Zelenskyy.
‘There is no winner in a nuclear war,’ the report said. ‘All parties concerned should remain calm and restrained in dealing with the nuclear issue and truly look at the future and destiny of themselves and humanity as a whole and work together to manage the crisis.’
China has ‘always stood on the side of peace’, state media reported following the call.
‘On the issue of the Ukraine crisis, China has always stood on the side of peace and its core position is to promote peace talks,’ CCTV reported Xi as saying during the conversation.
As part of a persistent onslaught that occurred as Ukraine was preparing its soldiers for an anticipated spring counteroffensive, a Russian missile struck a museum building in a Ukrainian city on Tuesday, killing one of its employees and injuring 10 others.
According to Ukrainian officials, the local history museum in Kupiansk, which is in the Kharkiv region, was struck by S-300 air defense missiles fired by the Russian military during the raid.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the president of Ukraine, shared a video from the scene showing the demolished structure and emergency personnel assessing the damage.
“The terrorist country is doing everything to destroy us completely,” Zelenskyy said. “Our history, our culture, our people. Killing Ukrainians with absolutely barbaric methods.”
Kharkiv regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said that three people were hospitalized, seven received minor injuries and two others were still believed to be under the debris. Emergency responders were working to recover them.
Kupiansk was captured by Russian forces in the earlier stages of the Russian invasion and was reclaimed by Ukrainian forces in a surprise counteroffensive in September that saw the Russians driven out of broad swaths of the Kharkiv region.
A woman also died in Russian shelling of the town of Dvorichna, near Kupiansk, and two civilians were killed in the eastern Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian presidential office.
The Ukrainian military is now preparing for a new massive counteroffensive, relying on the latest supplies of Western battle tanks and other weapons and fresh troops that were trained in the West.
Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Maj. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov, in an interview with RBC-Ukraine released Monday, described the planned counteroffensive as a “landmark battle in Ukraine’s modern history” that will see the country “reclaim significant areas.”
After Beijing’s top ambassador in Paris questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet republics, undermining China’s ambitions to be considered as a potential mediator between Russia and Ukraine, European nations have demanded explanations from Beijing.
Lithuanian, Latvian, Ukrainian, French, and European Union representatives have all reacted angrily to comments made by Lu Shaye, China’s ambassador to France, who claimed that the Baltic States and other former Soviet states lack “effective status in international law.”
When asked if Crimea, which Russia illegitimately annexed in 2014, was a part of Ukraine, Lu made the remark.
“Even these ex-Soviet countries don’t have an effective status in international law because there was no international agreement to materialize their status as sovereign countries,” Lu said, after firstnoting that the question of Crimea “depends on how the problem is perceived” as the region was “at the beginning Russian” and then “offered to Ukraine during the Soviet era.”
The remarks appeared to disavow the sovereignty of countries that became independent states and United Nations members after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 – and come amid Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine under leader Vladimir Putin’s vision the country should be part of Russia.
China has so far refused to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or call for a withdrawal of its troops, instead urging restraint by “all parties” and accusing NATO of fueling the conflict. It has also continued to deepen diplomatic and economic ties with Moscow.
EU foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell responded Sunday calling the remarks “unacceptable.”
“The EU can only suppose these declarations do not represent China’s official policy,” Borrell said in a statement on Twitter.
France also responded Sunday, with its Foreign Ministry stating its “full solidarity” with all the allied countries affected and calling on China to clarify whether these comments reflect its position, according to Reuters.
Several leaders in former Soviet states, including Ukraine, were quick to hit back following the interview, which aired Friday on French station LCI.
Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkevics called for an “explanation from the Chinese side and complete retraction of this statement” in a post on Twitter Saturday.
He pledged to raise the issue during a meeting of EU foreign ministers Monday, where relations with China are expected to be discussed.
“It is strange to hear an absurd version of the ‘history of Crimea’ from a representative of a country that is scrupulous about its thousand-year history,” Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Presidential Administration, also wrote on Twitter.
“If you want to be a major political player, do not parrot the propaganda of Russian outsiders…”
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not immediately respond to a request for comment from CNN on Monday.
Beijing has formal diplomatic relations with post-Soviet states, which include Russia.
This is not the first time that Lu – a prominent voice among China’s so-called aggressive “wolf-warrior” diplomats – has sparked controversy for his views.
But they place Beijing under the spotlight at a particularly sensitive moment for its European diplomacy.
Ties have soured as Europe has uneasily watched China’s tightening relationship with Russia and its refusal to condemn Putin’s invasion.
Beijing in recent months has sought to mend its image, highlighting its stated neutrality in the conflict and desire to play a “constructive role” in dialogue and negotiation, further fueling debate in European capitals over how to calibrate its relationship with China, a key economic partner.
That debate intensified this month following a visit to Beijing from French President Emmanuel Macron, who signed a raft of cooperation agreements with China during a trip he framed as an opportunity to start work with Beijing to push for peace in Ukraine.
Voices in former Soviet states, where many remember being under Communist authoritarian rule, have been among those in Europe critical of such an approach.
“If anyone is still wondering why the Baltic States don’t trust China to ‘broker peace in Ukraine,’ here’s a Chinese ambassador arguing that Crimea is Russian and our countries’ borders have no legal basis,” Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis wrote on Twitter Saturday following Lu’s interview.
Moritz Rudolf, a fellow and research scholar at the Paul Tsai China Center of the Yale Law School in the US, said China had been “increasingly successful in being perceived as a responsible power that might play a constructive role in a peace process in Ukraine.”
“It remains to be seen whether the leadership in Beijing realizes how damaging those words may turn out to be for its ambitions in Europe if the Foreign Ministry does not distance the (People’s Republic of China) from the words of Ambassador Lu,” he said.
He added that China’s “official position and practice” contradict Lu’s comments, including as China had not recognized the sovereignty of Russia over Crimea or any territory it annexed since 2014.
Others suggested Lu’s remarks may also shed light on Beijing’s real diplomatic priorities.
For Russia, giving up control of Crimea is widely seen as a non-starter in any potential peace settlement on Ukraine. This means Beijing may have a hard time giving a straight answer on this question, according to Yun Sun, director of the China Program at the Washington-based think tank Stimson Center.
“The question is impossible to answer for China. China’s relationship with Russia is where its influence comes from,” she said, adding that didn’t mean Lu could have given a “better answer.”
“Between sabotaging China’s relationship with Russia and angering Europe, (Lu) chose the latter.”
Other Ukrainian brands have the opportunity to take their place as a result. According to Yuriy Sorochynskiy, he and his partner are “filled with immense satisfaction” that their Ukrainian vodka Nemiroff is still doing well on the international market.
“We are thrilled and excited to see our brand being recognised globally,” adds the company’s chief executive.
“And we are grateful to our customers abroad who are choosing Nemiroff out of solidarity with Ukraine.”
Vodka, the neutral, clear spirit that a great many people would say only tastes of alcohol, doesn’t normally make newspaper headlines.
With annual global sales of $46.6bn (£37.5bn), its a ubiquitous product that drinkers around the world add to soft drinks, use as the base for a cocktail, or down neat as a “shot”.
Yet last year, vodka suddenly found itself in the international media spotlight following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The start of the conflict resulted in Western consumers, retailers and governments boycotting and banning Russian vodkas.
At the same time, Western vodka brands that have Russian sounding names, such as global bestseller Smirnoff, were quick to point out that they aren’t actually from Russia. Smirnoff is instead owned by UK drinks giant Diageo.
The national origin of vodka is both hotly contested and difficult to define due to changing borders and countries over the centuries. But most drinks historians would agree that today’s Poland, Russia and Ukraine are the historic heart of vodka production.
With Russian vodkas still mostly absent from international shelves, previously little-known Ukrainian brands are continuing to take their place. Yet maintaining production in a war-torn country is, unsurprisingly, not without its difficulties.
Immediately following the Russian invasion, Nemiroff had to close its main distillery for a month. This is located in the city of Nemyriv, some 250km (155m) south west of the capital Kyiv.
Image caption,The geographic and national origin of vodka is hotly contested
Like most businesses in Ukraine it has subsequently been affected by power cuts due to Russian attacks on electricity infrastructure. Despite this, the firm says it has seen a big rise in exports, including a two-fold increase in sales in the UK.
“It’s heart warming to see people supporting our country through their purchasing decisions,” says Mr Sorochynskiy.
Fellow Ukrainian vodka boss Dima Deinega says that his distillery, based in the city of Zhytomyr, west of Kyiv, “has showcased amazing resilience”.
“We’ve dealt with shelling and no power supplies but are still able to produce and export vodka,” says Mr Deinega, whose brand is called Dima’s.
“[Global] sales were rising consistently before the war, but have increased significantly with people looking for ways to support Ukraine via our charitable initiatives, as well as to support Ukrainian products as a whole,” says Mr Deinega.
Image caption,Dima Deinega says his vodka firm has shown its “resilience”
Katherine Vellinga grew up in Canada, the daughter of Ukrainian emigrees. Back in 2005 she had decided to move to Ukraine, and she became increasingly interested in Ukrainian vodka. So much so, that she and her husband bought a small distillery and brand called Zirkova.
Following Russia’s invasion the distillery had to close. To maintain some production, Ms Vellinga decided to open a second facility, this time more than 7,000km (4,000 miles) away in Ontario.
Supervised by the firm’s master distiller, the company’s Canadian brand is called Zirkova Unity, and all its profits go to Ukrainian charities. Production has continued in Canada despite the firm’s main distillery, in the Ukrainian city of Zolotonosha, south of Kyiv, reopening last September.
Commenting on the move to Canada, Ms Vellinga says that “necessity was the mother of invention”. She adds: “Our people in Ukraine encouraged us to keep fighting, to be resilient, to find a way to survive as that was the only way we could help Ukraine.
“We made a decision to survive and Ukrainians encouraged us to keep going.”
But does all vodka taste the same? “Absolutely not!” says Tony Abou Ganim, a US-based vodka expert.
“All you need to do is line up six vodkas, made from different raw materials, and coming from different parts of the world, to very quickly realise that all vodkas are not the same!”
In Poland, Russia and Ukraine, the heart of the so-called “vodka belt”, the spirit is traditionally drunk neat.
And although the origin of the drink is hotly debated, Poland certainly has the strictest legal rules that govern vodka’s production. Polish vodka can only be made from wheat, rye, oats, potatoes or triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye), water and yeast.
This contrasts with vodkas from around the world that can use maize, rice, sugar, grape juice or even milk, plus any number of other ingredients or additives.
Image caption,Zirkova’s Katherine Vellinga says that decent vodka does have flavour
“Vodka is not a flavourless drink,” says Mariusz Dampc of the Polish Vodka Museum in Warsaw. “That is a very Western view,” he adds. “Polish vodka is all about the soil, the water, the climate and the human element: the terroir.”
Ms Vellinga adds that many “new world vodkas” – which she defines as those made outside of the drink’s historic heartland shouldn’t use the name.
“You can taste the difference between true vodka made out of grain or potato, and poor substitutes that use cheap ingredients such as corn, sugar beet, rice and sorghum,” she says. “Newer vodka brands adhere to this modern mistaken notion that vodka should be utterly tasteless and neutral, which is far from the truth.
The Russian military is in a state of decline as a result of battlefield setbacks and Western sanctions, but Moscow will still have enough weaponry to continue the conflict in Ukraine, according a new independent report.
According to one estimate, the research from the Center for Strategic and International Studies provides stark estimates of Russian military losses, including close to 10,000 units of critical equipment like tanks, vehicles, artillery pieces, and aerial drones.
However, it also states that Russia can use Cold War-era and earlier stocks on the front lines to make up in numbers for any technology it may have lost.
“The quality of the Russian military in terms of advanced equipment will likely decline, at least over the near term,” the CSIS report says.
It notes how Russian losses of main battle tanks, especially modern ones, have been severe.
“Moscow is estimated to have lost anywhere from 1,845 to 3,511 tanks one year into the war,” the CSIS report says, with losses of its newer, upgraded T-72B3 main battle tank, first delivered in 2013, noted as especially damaging.
The Netherlands-based open source intelligence website Oryx says it has visual evidence of more than 500 variants of T-72B3 destroyed, damaged, abandoned or captured as of this week.
“They’re going backwards in terms of equipment,” the officials said of Russian armor, noting that T-55 tanks, introduced in 1948, are now turning up on the battlefield.
The CSIS report highlights the problem Russia faces in new tank construction, citing Russian media reports.
One tank plant, UralVagonZavod, can make about 20 tanks a month. But Russia loses, on average, almost 150 tanks of all types in Ukraine each month, it says.
And then there’s the lack of modern hardware.
The CSIS report says Moscow has to refurbish and put its decades-old tanks back into action because it just doesn’t have the resources to build new ones, with Western sanctions leaving it unable to source parts and tools needed to put together a modern tank.
Sanctions have cut Russian access to optical systems – needed for tank gunners to pick out targets – ball bearings and machine tools, the CSIS report said.
Specifically for optical systems, Russia relied on French imports during its pre-war production, the report said.
With those imports cut off by sanctions, it’s forced to put older, less sophisticated gunner’s sights in even its most modern tanks, resulting in a possible loss of up to two kilometers in range, it said.
In the case of high-quality ball bearings – “critical to producing any type of moving vehicle,” the report said – 55% of Russia’s pre-war supply came from Europe and North America. With those sources now lost, it may try to make up the deficit with domestically produced supplies or imports of lower quality from China or Malaysia, the report said.
Either way, Russia can’t get the quality it did before the war.
“Moscow is under pressure to adapt, often turning to less-reliable and costlier suppliers and supply routes, lower-quality imports, or trying to reproduce Western components internally. This is likely hampering the rate and quality of Russian defense production,” the report said.
The loss of Western components is not just felt in tanks, the report says.
Manned and unmanned aircraft, missiles and electronic warfare equipment need modern, high-tech parts – including microchips – that Russian can’t source adequately from internal suppliers and has difficulty importing because of Western sanctions, it said.
Retired Lt. Gen. explains where US defense systems need to be placed in Ukraine
But the report cautions that Ukraine and its Western supporters should not expect these supply problems to quickly stop the hostilities.
“Sanctions and export controls are not a silver bullet that will force Russia to bring the war to an end,” it said.
Russia still retains numerical advantages over Ukraine, the report said, because it has large inventories in reserve.
“Russia’s military capabilities still greatly outnumber those of Ukraine on most indicators, including man-, air-, land, and naval power,” the report says.
“While an accurate count of Moscow’s current military stocks is not available publicly, it has been roughly estimated that, as of February 2023, the total number of aircraft at the Kremlin’s disposal has been 13-15 times more than Kyiv’s. Russia has nearly 7-8 times more tanks and 4 times more armored fighting vehicles, while its naval fleet is 12-16 times larger than Ukraine’s,” it says.
The numerical advantages will enable Moscow to run a war of attrition over the next year, throwing numbers on the battlefield until Ukraine, even with fewer losses, runs out of hardware, the report says.
To offset the Russian numerical advantages, even of inferior weaponry, it is vital that Western countries keep technologically superior armaments flowing to Ukraine.
For instance, the older tanks are vulnerable to hand-held Javelin missiles, it says.
“This is the crux of this war in its second year: the Russian military can rely on its mass and continue feeding older or less than state-of-the-art technology as long as it thinks it can simply outlast the Western deliveries of weapons and systems to Ukraine,” the CSIS report says.
Evan Gershkovich, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was rejected his request to have the conditions of his espionage-related detention changed on Tuesday at a court hearing in Moscow.
The US citizen was detained in Russia last month as part of the Kremlin’s campaign against Western news organizations since it invaded Ukraine the previous year.
Until May 29, Gershkovich is being kept in a pre-trial detention facility at the notorious Lefortovo prison. On account of his espionage, he might spend up to 20 years in prison. The claims of spying against Gershkovich have been vigorously refuted by The Wall Street Journal.
He appeared in Moscow City Court to ask that his pre-trial detention be under house arrest rather than in jail.
He was pictured standing in a glass cage, standing with arms folded as journalists scrambled into the room. Gershkovich was smiling at times, in his glass cage, as proceedings were about to get underway.
During the hearing, he told the judge that he did not need the decision of his appeal translated into English. “No no, I don’t need translation,” said Gershkovich, who is a bilingual Russian-English speaker.
“On April 18, 2023, the Moscow City Court upheld the decision of the Lefortovsky District Court of Moscow dated March 30, 2023 against Evan Gershkovich, who is suspected of committing a crime under Art. 276 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation,” the court said in a statement.
Gershkovich’s legal team said it offered bail amounting to about $613,000 to the court to release the reporter from detention, but the court denied bail.
“We suggested that the court consider the choice of preventive measures not related to isolation from society, including house arrest, since Evan has a registration in the territory of Moscow; or a ban on certain actions; or a bail in the amount of 50 million rubles,” lawyer Maria Korchagina said.
“Dow Jones, the owner of the WSJ, provided a letter of guarantee that if Evan is released from custody, they are ready to provide bail in the amount of 50 million rubles. But our request was denied,” she added.
The US Ambassador to Russia, Lynne Tracy, was photographed standing to the right of the cage with lawyers. Tracy said she spoke to Gershkovich on Monday, and he remains strong and is in good health.
“The charges against Evan are baseless, and we call on the Russian Federation to immediately release him,” she said, speaking after the court made its ruling on Tuesday.
Members of the press filmed Gershkovich and subsequently left the court room.
Tatyana Nozkhkina, a lawyer for Gershkovich, said later that his team will keep appealing against the detention of the reporter. The next court date is at the end of May, when the court is due to decide on an extension of his detention.
Nozkhkina said her client was keeping in good spirits in jail, reading Russian classic novels as well as watching cooking shows on TV and exercising.
“He does not complain,” she said outside the court.
Gershkovich’s arrest marked the first detention of an American reporter in Russia on allegations of spying since the Cold War, rattling White House officials and further straining ties between Moscow and Washington.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken discussed his arrest on Sunday, according to a statement released by the Russian Foreign Ministry, as relations between both parties have soured since the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Russia’s main security service, the FSB, claimed that Gershkovich, a correspondent based in Moscow, had been trying to obtain state secrets. The Wall Street Journal categorically rejected the accusation.
Last week, the US State Department officially designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained in Russia, giving further backing to the assertions by the US government and the Wall Street Journal that the espionage charges against the reporter are unfounded.
US President Joe Biden has also been blunt about Gershkovich’s arrest, urging Russia to “let him go.”
In December, the US negotiated the release of basketball star Brittney Griner, detained last year on what the US described as false drug smuggling charges, in a prisoner swap for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout. But the swap did not include another American whom the State Department has declared to be unlawfully detained, Paul Whelan.
As US officials begin to consider ways to secure Gershkovich’s release, some are concerned about a prisoner swap in this case incentivizing the detainment of American journalists.
Brazil’s president was harshly criticized by the White House for saying that the US had encouraged the conflict in Ukraine.
Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva stated the US needs to “start talking about peace” when he made the remark at the conclusion of his weekend visit to Beijing.
John Kirby, a spokesman for the White House on national security, claimed today that Mr. Lula was “parrotingRussian and Chinese propaganda” with his comments.
The leader of Brazil is “simply misguided,” he continued.
Dmitro Kuleba, the foreign minister for Ukraine, visited Iraq today for the first time since the war began in an effort to secure diplomatic backing.
To put an end to the conflict, Baghdad has demanded a cease-fire and offered to intervene between Ukraine and Russia.
However, Ukraine’s top diplomat stressed that his country would not participate in peace negotiations unless Russia withdrew from its territory. This travel to Iraq is the first by a Ukrainian foreign minister in 11 years.
Baghdad “has experience in communication with countries that have tension between them” and “is ready to be in service of peace,” Iraq’s foreign minister Fuad Hussein said at a joint news conference in Baghdad.
But Mr Kuleba said while Ukraine sees Iraq as “a country that is capable of building bridges”, it was important to note that “Ukraine wants peace and Russia wants war”.
“It is important for me to hear your opinion on how the situation is developing, to listen to you, to exchange information,” Mr Putin told the commanders.
Mr Putin also presented servicemen with icons.
“The head of state also congratulated the servicemen on the Easter holiday and gave them copies of icons as a gift,” the Kremlin said.
According to the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin has visited military headquarters in the southern Kherson and eastern Luhansk territories, which Russia holds in part.
The Russian president attended a military command meeting in the Kherson region to hear commanders’ reports and to consult with other senior officers about the circumstances in the provinces of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, both of which Moscow has annexed.
Additionally, Putin went to the Luhansk region’s national guard headquarters, which Moscow annexed last year.
The Kremlin did not say when Mr Putin attended the meetings or what comments he made.
Last November, Russian troops were ordered to withdraw from the city of Kherson and surrounding areas in the south of Ukraine.
Russia’s top commander in Ukraine, General Sergei Surovikin, said it was no longer possible to supply the city and other parts of the west bank of the Dnipro River that it sat on.
The announcement marked one of Russia’s most significant retreats and another humiliating setback for Mr Putin.
The Kherson region was illegally annexed in September, along with three other Ukrainian regions – Luhansk, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia. The international community has not recognised the annexations.
Two Russian individuals who identify themselves as former Wagner Group leaders have admitted to a human rights advocate that they murdered children and people in Ukraine.
The allegations were made in video interviews with Gulagu.net, a human rights organization that works to end corruption and abuse in Russia.
Former Russian prisoners Azamat Uldarov and Alexey Savichev, who both received pardons from Russian presidential decrees last year, according to Gulagu.net, discuss their conduct in Ukraine during Russia’s invasion in the videos that have been broadcast online.
CNN cannot independently verify their claims or identities in the videos but has obtained Russian penal documents showing they were released on presidential pardon in September and August of 2022.
Uldarov, who appears to have been drinking, details how he shot and killed a five- or six-year-old girl.
“(It was) a management decision. I wasn’t allowed to let anyone out alive, because my command was to kill anything in my way,” he said.
According to Gulagu.net, the testimonies were given to founder and Russian dissident Vladimir Osechkin over the span of a week. It said Uldarov and Savichev were in Russia when they spoke.
“I want Russia and other nations to know the truth. I don’t want war and bloodshed. You see I’m holding a cigarette in this hand. I followed orders with this hand and killed children,” Uldarov said, describing his motivation for the interview.
The Wagner Group is a Russian private mercenary organization fighting in Ukraine, headed by Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin.
It has recruited tens of thousands of fighters from Russian jails, offering freedom and cash after a six-month tour. It’s estimated by Western intelligence officials and prison advocacy groups that between 40,000 and 50,000 men were recruited.
Uldarov said in the eastern Ukrainian cities of Soledar and Bakhmut – which have seen some of the fiercest fighting – Wagner mercenaries “were given the command to annihilate everyone.”
“There is a superior over all the commanders – it’s Prigozhin, who told us not to let anyone get out of there and annihilate everyone,” he added. CNN has previously reported on former Wagner fighters making similar claims.
At one point in the interview, Savichev described how they “got the order to execute any men who were 15 years or older.”
He also talked about getting orders to ‘sweep’ a house. “It doesn’t matter whether there is a civilian there or not. The house needs to be swept. I didn’t give a f**k who was inside,” he said.
“Whether a hut or a house, the point was to make sure that there wasn’t a single living person left inside,” he said. “You can condemn me for this. I will not object. It’s your right. But I wanted to live, too.”
Savichev said Wagner fighters who did not follow orders were killed.
In February, CNN spoke to two former Wagner fighters who described how recruited Wagner convicts are pushed to the front lines in a human wave, reminiscent of World War I charges. Deserters, or those who refuse orders are killed and there was no evacuation of the wounded, they said.
Wagner Group chief Prigozhin, when asked about the men and the contents of the 1.17 hour-long video, said he had not yet had the “technical ability to watch the entire video.”
However, he added, in his response on Telegram: “Regarding the execution of children, of course, no one ever shoots civilians or children, absolutely no one needs this. We came there to save them from the regime they were under.”
Andriy Yermak, head of the Ukrainian president’s office, said in a tweet Monday that the group must be held accountable.
“Russian terrorists confessed to numerous murders of Ukrainian children in Bakhmut and Soledar. Confession is not enough. There must be a punishment. Tough and fair. And it will definitely be. How many more crimes like these have been committed?” he said.
In January, US Treasury Department designated Wagner Group as a significant transnational criminal organization, and imposed a slew of fresh sanctions on a transnational network that supports it.
The US Department of State concurrently announced a number of sanctions meant to “target a range of Wagner’s key infrastructure – including an aviation firm used by Wagner, a Wagner propaganda organization, and Wagner front companies,” according to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
Hungary has vowed to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports as Slovakia became the third European nation to halt imports due to concerns that a glut is driving down prices and endangering farmers in other European nations.
The European Union must do more to defend Hungarian farmers, according to the agriculture minister of Hungary, Sandor Farkas, who stated on Monday that Budapest may stop imports after June.
“Ukrainian grain imports got stuck in Hungary, driving down prices by about one-third, year on year,” he told parliament, saying he will use “all possible” means to protect Hungarian farmers from market disruptions.
While Slovakia announced its decision to temporarily restrict Ukrainian agricultural imports, several central and eastern European nations claimed they were also considering taking similar action.
To safeguard the interests of their own farmers, officials from Poland and Hungary recently issued prohibitions on the import of Ukrainian grains in response to a recent spike in the price of inexpensive Ukrainian agricultural products within the bloc.
Jaroslaw Kaczyski, the head of the ruling party in Poland, claimed that despite Poland’s support for Ukraine, it was compelled to take action to defend its farmers as the Polish countryside is currently experiencing a “moment of crisis.”
The European Commission has rejected the bans and said in a statement that the “EU’s trade policy is of exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable”.
EU representatives are expected to discuss the issue later this week.
Ukrainian officials have said they regret Poland’s decision, saying while Polish farmers may be suffering, Ukrainians have it worse.
“The first step, in our opinion, should be the opening of transit, because it is quite important and it is the thing that should be done unconditionally and after that we will talk about other things,” Ukrainian Agriculture Minister Mykola Solsky said on Monday.
Talks between Ukrainian authorities and those in Poland, Romania and Slovakia are expected in the coming days.
What’s behind the tensions?
After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, Moscow blocked the Black Sea port’s sea routes, stalling Ukrainian ships from transporting grains and other agricultural products to the rest of the world.
The blockade ended in August with Black Sea grain deal, under which Russia allows the transport of Ukrainian grain.
The EU has lifted all duties on Ukrainian grains and introduced “solidarity lanes” to ensure there are no further obstacles in global exports.
But this move has angered farmers across Eastern and Central Europe.
Roads have been blocked in countries such as Bulgaria and Romania, with farmers protesting that cheaper Ukrainian grain has made them suffer huge financial losses.
Bulgaria’s Agriculture Minister Yavor Gechev said on Monday that while his country is in solidarity with Ukraine “a local glut is being created on the agricultural market, because instead of export corridors, our countries are becoming warehouses”.
His country is also working to ban imports from Ukraine, he said.
Following a boom in inexpensive commodities, Poland and Hungary have banned the importation of grain and other food items from Ukraine.
The goal of the action, according to the Polish prime minister’s office, was “to protect the Polish agricultural market against destabilization.”
In response, Ukraine stated that it “regrets the decision of its Polish counterparts” and was prepared to assist Poland in an inquiry into any potential abuses.
István Nagy, the minister of agriculture for Hungary, declared on Sunday that the country will temporarily outlaw the import of grain, oil seeds, and other agricultural products from Ukraine, claiming the action was required “in the absence of meaningful EU measures.”
The European Commission condemned the move, saying it was not for individual members to decide trade policy.
“It is important to underline that trade policy is of EU exclusive competence and, therefore, unilateral actions are not acceptable,” the commission’s Arianna Podestà told CNN.
When Russia invaded Ukraine it blocked ports and sea routes used to export Ukrainian grain to Africa and the Middle East.
Fearing widespread famine, the European Union lifted duties on grain from Ukraine to ease distribution to those global markets.
Ukrainian grain has since flowed into Poland but much of it has remained in the country, bringing down the price and causing Polish farmers to suffer significant financial losses.
Farmers across central and eastern Europe have been demonstrating against Ukrainian grain imports.
Protesters blocked traffic and border checkpoints with tractors along the border between Romania and Bulgaria, in an effort to prevent Ukrainian trucks from entering their country.
Local producers say they cannot compete with the price of Ukrainian grain and have demanded compensation from the European Commission.
Anger grew after the European Commission announced a draft decision to extend duty-free and quota-free imports of Ukrainian grain until June 2024, prompting the resignation of the Polish agriculture minister.
There has been similar opposition in Bulgaria, where producers have complained of warehouses full of products they cannot sell.
“Bulgaria is in solidarity with Ukraine, but a local glut is being created on the agricultural market, because instead of export corridors our countries are becoming warehouses,” Bulgaria’s agriculture minister Yavor Gechev said.
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, Vladimir Kara-Murza, a well-known human rights activist and Kremlin skeptic, has been given a 25-year prison term for publicly criticizing Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
An interview with CNN in which Kara-Murza condemned the “regime of murderers” under Russian President Vladimir Putin led to his initial detention one year ago.
Treason, disseminating untrue information about the Russian army, and aiding the actions of an undesirable group were among the crimes for which he was on trial. After its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, Russia made criticizing the military illegal. According to the court, he would spend his prison time “in a strict regime correctional colony.”
Kara-Murza will appeal the sentence, his lawyer, Vadim Prokhorov, told CNN on Monday.
Monday’s sentencing draws further attention on Putin’s brutal crackdown against freedom of expression, which has intensified since he invaded Ukraine last February.
Kara-Murza has long been critical of Putin and has survived two poisonings.
In March 2022, he spoke before the Arizona House of Representatives against the war, and in an interview with CNN in April 2022, the political dissident condemned Putin’s regime for targeting critics. He was arrested shortly afterwards for “failing to obey the orders of law enforcement,” according to his wife.
The sentencing will likely draw further international condemnation of Putin. Last week, Hugh Williamson, the Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement that the dissident was facing prison time for “no more than raising his voice and elevating the voices of others in Russia who disagree with the Kremlin, its war in Ukraine, and its escalating repression within Russia.”
The British government criticized what it called the “politically motivated” sentencing. “Vladimir Kara-Murza bravely denounced Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for what it was – a blatant violation of international law and the UN Charter. Russia’s lack of commitment to protecting fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, is alarming,” Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said on Monday.
The charge of treason in Russia was broadened in 2012 to include consultations or any other assistance to a foreign state or international or foreign organizations. It was used against Kara-Murza over his condemnation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In March, the United States imposed sanctions on a number of Russian individuals connected to what the Treasury Department called Kara-Murza’s “arbitrary detention” and called for his “immediate and unconditional release.”
In the final hearing of his trial last week, Kara-Murza said he was “proud” of his political views.
“I’m in jail for my political views; for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, for many years of struggle against Putin’s dictatorship, for facilitating the adoption of personal international sanctions under the Magnitsky Act against human rights violators. Not only do I not repent of any of this, I am proud of it,” Kara-Murza said.
The original Magnitsky Act, signed into law in December 2012, blocks entry into the US and freezes the assets of certain Russian government officials and businessmen accused of human rights violations. The law was subsequently expanded to give global scope to the Russia-focused legislation.
Kara-Murza said he blamed himself for not being able to convince enough of his “compatriots” and politicians of democratic countries of the danger that the current regime in the Kremlin poses for Russia and the world.
He also expressed that he hoped “that the day will come when the darkness over our country will dissipate.” “Even today, even in the darkness surrounding us, even sitting in this cage, I love my country and believe in our people,” he added. “I believe that we can walk this path.”
War upended Natalia’s life a year ago. She left the violence in Mariupol, a city in southeast Ukraine, with her family, and entered Russia.
In order to go to Nakhodka, a seaside village on the Sea of Japan near North Korea, she and many other Ukrainians were pushed by Russian officials to travel 4,000 miles by train via Siberia. Compared to the front lines, Alaska is closer.
Going to Russia was the only choice for many residents of Mariupol at the time because there wasn’t a reliable escape route to territory controlled by the Ukrainians. Although Natalia claims she was not coerced into leaving, Ukraine claims that these migrants were forcibly removed. “It was a decision we made,” she said.
In the absence of a reliable evacuation corridor to Ukrainian-held territory, going to Russia was the only option for many people in Mariupol at that time. Ukraine describes these refugees as forcibly deported, though Natalia says no one forced her to leave. “It was our decision,” she told CNN by phone from Russia’s far east, where she has resettled since arriving last spring.
Now, as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into a second year, she and others lead an uncertain existence, unsure if, or when, they will ever be able to return home or be welcome when they get there.
Over the course of many months, CNN has managed to reach a handful of Ukrainians through a group chat run by Russian volunteers for current and former residents of a hotel used as a temporary shelter, where they stayed while searching for longer-term work and housing. CNN is not using their full names in this story for privacy and security reasons.
Many of the new arrivals in Nakhodka, in Russia’s Primorskiy Krai region, were reluctant to say much about their circumstances or share their opinions, but others shared enough to get a clearer snapshot of life in Russia’s far east and how Ukrainians there are adjusting.
Some offered mildly pro-Russian views, others declined to answer questions about the war, while some even gave scathing criticism of Ukraine. No one directly criticized Moscow but, of course, it’s not clear how freely people felt they could speak.
The United Nations estimates more than 2.8 million Ukrainians have taken refuge in Russia over the past year. Some – largely those who could afford it – have transited through Russia to other countries in Europe, and many have even made it back to Ukraine.
International law prohibits forcible transfers of people and stipulates that evacuees should be moved home as soon as hostilities have ceased. CNN requested comment from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs on Ukraine’s allegation that its citizens have been forcibly deported to Russia, and on the situation for Ukrainians now living in Russia’s far east, but has not received a response.
Their mere presence in Russia is ultimately a win for the Kremlin, according to Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, who has done extensive research on the mass migration of Ukrainians to Russia since the full-scale war began. Russia, he says, needs more people.
“In many parts of the country, they don’t have enough citizens to make those municipalities function,” he said. There is also “a propaganda benefit, positioning these people as somehow, willingly seeking citizenship in Russia, which fits this broader narrative that Putin and the Kremlin [are pushing]… trying to rebrand the war as saving Ukrainians from purported Nazis.”
Russia has tried several experiments to attract people to its resource-rich far east, including from ex-Soviet states. Now, state programs are being repurposed to accommodate fleeing Ukrainians. Those who agree to go to Russia’s far east are promised a cash payment, housing assistance, Russian citizenship and potentially even free land.
The cost of living in Primorskiy Krai, whose main city is Vladivostok, is the 11th-highest in Russia, more expensive even than Moscow and St. Petersburg regions, according to official figures. This is due in part to the rate of new home-building lagging behind the national average.
Natalia, who was an office worker in Mariupol, has now found work in a local food-processing plant. She told CNN she’s struggling with the cost of rent. She hopes to find a job that better matches her skills, but for now it’s all she can find. She misses home, but at least the maritime climate reminds her of coastal Mariupol. Her husband and daughter are with her, and she says she has no family remaining in Ukraine.
“Nothing’s changed (in the past year) except the place,” she said. “But I no longer have a job that I love and a home I love.”
Russian authorities took her Ukrainian passport and swapped it with a Russian one, Natalia says. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality” and that everyone has a right to leave any country, even their own.
When Natalia spoke to CNN, she seemed resigned to making the relocation work for her family long term. Under the terms of her resettlement, she must live there for at least three years, or be forced to repay any state benefits her family has received.
Ukrainian people who have signed on for the years-long program are in “basically a degree of indentured servitude,” Raymond said. “Being in a contract, so to speak, for three years puts them in a very vulnerable position.” It’s critical to recall that their core rights under international law mean “they have a right to return, and they have a right to return safely,” regardless of any agreement, he said.
Natalia is allowed to travel freely but says she won’t go back to Ukraine. “Those who left for Russia are immediately considered criminals by the Ukrainian authorities, so I am forbidden to go there,” she told CNN by phone. “I don’t want to take the risk,” she added, even if she still had a Ukrainian passport.
Others who spoke to CNN also expressed reluctance to return. “We will stay in Russia. I don’t even want to think about Ukraine,” Valeriya, another Ukrainian who ended up in Nakhodka, told CNN by text.
“At this point, the absence of clarity is the biggest problem” when it comes to Ukrainians in Russia, and whether they are free to return home, Raymond said.
“There is, understandably, within Ukraine an absolute outrage against those who are perceived as collaborators. But the fact of the matter is that we are dealing here with a civilian population … that was seeking refuge in a time of war,” he said. Raymond says there have been local examples in Ukraine of reprisals against perceived collaborators – even against those who merely fled east because it was their only way out of the war zone.
Kyiv, he says, must make it crystal clear that Ukrainians citizens who ended up in Russia can come home, otherwise, many likely won’t. And that only serves Russia’s interests.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration referred CNN’s questions to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office. In a statement, it told CNN that it recognizes that for many people “the only safe passage was through Russia. Of course, they are not considered collaborators […] They need to get to any third country and address a local Ukrainian consulate. It will issue them Ukrainian documents to return to Ukraine.” It’s less clear whether those Ukrainians who remain in Russia long term will be welcomed back without issue.
By law, Ukraine considers those who publicly deny occupation, assist the Russian military in Ukraine, or even call for support of Russian actions, to be collaborators and liable for criminal penalties.
Oksana, another of the Ukrainians in Nakhodka who says she now has both Ukrainian and Russian passports, says she would like to return to Mariupol to visit, but only if it’s part of Russia.
“Somehow things are better in Russia – quieter, whereas it is a total mess in Ukraine. It is just unclear what it is that our government is doing,” she told CNN by phone, adding: “I am for peace all over the world.”
Fellow Ukrainian Marina wrote in a text message that after three years, “We will see. It depends on the job and material well-being. So far, it’s not very easy.”
Raymond suspects that many of those who ended up in Russia’s far east are less affluent, and therefore less likely to take the long, expensive trip back to Ukraine should they want to go. War after war, the same pattern can be seen – those with the least money have the fewest options, he says.
“It is those who don’t have the means to flee through Europe, through the Baltics, that often get stuck in situations where they can be exploited.”
The United States’ National Security Council declined to say whether Ukraine should do more to assure citizens who fled to Russia that they can re-enter with no issue. But it said the US is providing assistance to identify and locate Ukrainian refugees who have been detained and interrogated in Russia and is imposing sanctions and visa restrictions on Russian officials and companies in order to hold Russia accountable for what the US describes as forcible deportations.
Oksana says Russia was never part of her plan, even as she took shelter in a squalid basement shelter in Mariupol while the city was besieged by Russian forces.
“I was going to stay and die there, were it not for my daughter who said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to eat like this and die in the basement.’” With Oksana’s brother already in Russia’s far east, they decided to go.
Oksana says the volunteers have been helpful and that although some locals have suggested she “go back,” others have encouraged her to stay – which, for now, is what she intends to do.
In a historic speech to the Irish parliament, Joe Biden stated that the UK and Ireland “should be working closer” to protect Northern Ireland against political violence.
The president delivered speeches to both the Dail and Seanad, making him just the fourth US president to do so.
He addressed at a joint session of the Oireachtas, following in the footsteps of John F. Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, and Bill Clinton.
Senators and TDs were reminded by Mr. Biden that “peace is precious” and “it still needs its champions.” It still requires nurturing.
According to him, the Good Friday Agreement also had a “significant positive impact” in the Republic of Ireland.
Reflecting on discussions with the Taoiseach, he spoke of ‘how Ireland and the United States can work together with the United Kingdom and the European Union to support the people of Northern Ireland’.
‘I think that the United Kingdom should be working closer with Ireland in this endeavour.
Mr Biden was given a huge welcome as he arrived at Leinster House (Picture: Sky News)The US opened his speech and said ‘mom you said it would happen’ (Picture: REUTERS)It was a packed Dail Eireann, the lower house of the Irish Parliament for his speech (Picture: Getty)
‘Political violence must never be allowed again to take hold on this island.’
He called for ‘liberty against tyranny’ as she said Ireland and the US have stood together against Putin since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, and added that they would fight to ‘oppose Russia’s brutal aggression.’
He opened his address to a joint sitting of by saying: ‘Well mom, you said it would happen.’
He went on to jokingly apologise to the infant daughter of Labour senator Rebecca Moynihan, who was in the chamber, for putting her through a policy speech, saying it is ‘as bad as what my children have been put through’.
‘People of Ireland, it’s so good to be back in Ireland,’ he said, making a remark in Irish which translates as: ‘I am home.’
He added: ‘I only wish I could stay longer.’
Among the members inside the house were Bertie Ahern, who brokered the Good Friday Agreement with Tony Blair in 1998.
A more controversial figure in attendance was Gerry Adams, an Irish republican politician who was the president of Sinn Féin from 1983-2018.
He was part of the broadcast ban in 1983-84 after the IRA bombed a Brighton hotel where Margaret Thatcher was staying in 1983.
The speaker of the Dail, Sean O Fearghail, spoke ahead of Joe Biden’s speech and said ‘‘You are one of us,’ thanking the US president for his support of Ireland.
He said: ‘All through your political career, Mr President, you too have been a faithful and supportive friend of Ireland. You have been there, to quote the well-known song, ‘in sunshine or in shadow’.
‘So, on this historic occasion – your homecoming – we warmly welcome you back to your roots.
‘From the bottom of our hearts we thank you for all you have done, and continue to do, for us here in Ireland.’
On the third day of his trip to Ireland, he met with Irish premier Leo Varadkar and president Michael D Higgins.
Speaking with the Taoiseach he hailed the importance of US and European leadership and praised American leadership since the Russian invasion of Ukraine last year.
Mr Varadkar said he wanted to ‘thank you and your administration and your country’s leadership when it comes to Ukraine because I never thought in my lifetime that we’d see a war of this nature happening in Europe again’.
He said: ‘Democracy and liberty and the things that we believe in are on retreat, or in retreat, in large parts of the world, and if it wasn’t for American leadership, and if it wasn’t for America and Europe working together, I don’t know what kind of world we’d live in.’
Mr Biden, who met with the Irish leader in Washington on St Patrick’s Day, praised Irish values and the country’s acceptance of thousands of Ukrainian refugees as he spoke of a ‘stronger and stronger relationship’ between the US and Ireland.
The pair are set to discuss efforts to restore powersharing in Northern Ireland, with Mr Varadkar thanking Mr Biden for US support for the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Biden told Mr Varadkar it had been great to see him in Washington last month, and said: ‘I think there really is an opportunity to make serious progress, not just because of the accord that was signed 25 years ago, but in terms of the way Ireland is moving, the way it is taking its place in the world, working on helping countries around the world that are dealing with starvation, the way you’ve – I know it’s not easy – welcomed Ukrainians here and the leadership you’ve shown.’
Speaking to Mr Varadkar, the US President appeared to reference the progress made in securing the Windsor Framework – the deal between the EU and UK to amend the Northern Ireland Protocol – as he spoke of co-operation between the Taoiseach and Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as ‘very valuable as well’.
This morning President Biden took part in several honorary ceremonies including helping plant a tree in the garden of Aras an Uachtarain.
He also signed the visitor’s book at the home of the Irish President with the words of a proverb and said ‘Your feet will bring you where your heart is’.
He took a shovel to help plant an Irish Oak, and added himself to the list of presidents who have all planted trees in the grounds.
Pope John Paul II and the late Queen Elizabeth II have also carried out the tradition on previous visits.
Speaking to president Michael D Higgins, Mr Biden said: ‘Mr president, I asked whether or not my great-grandchildren can come back and climb this tree when it grows?’
The ceremony also saw the US president ring the Peace Bell, which was unveiled in 2008 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Good Friday Agreement.
Mr Biden rang it four times before shaking hands with the Irish President.
He said one ring was for Ireland, one was for the USA, another was for ancestry and a fourth was for peace.
Mr Biden is expected to set out a ‘shared vision’ for the future of US-Irish relations when he addresses both houses of the Oireachtas.
Mr Biden, who was joined by an official delegation that included the US secretary of state Antony Blinken, was met with cheers from onlookers as his motorcade entered the park.
Arriving at Aras an Uachtarain Mr Biden emerged wearing sunglasses and a broad smile as he walked the red carpet to be met by Mr Higgins and his wife Sabina.
‘It’s a pleasure to be back’, Mr Biden told Mr Higgins.
After signing the visitor’s book in the historic State Reception Room, Mr Biden quipped ‘I’m not going home. Isn’t this an incredible place? All you American reporters, it’s just like the White House, right?’
A military band played the American national anthem as Mr Biden stood outside with his right hand on his heart.
After listening to the Irish national anthem, the president inspected a guard of honour before being introduced to Irish dignitaries.
At Farmleigh he was also invited to watch a sports demonstration by young Gaelic games players.
The White House said Northern Ireland and Ukraine would top the agenda as Mr Biden met with Mr Higgins and Mr Varadkar.
US National Security Council senior director Amanda Sloat told reporters that his Oireachtas address will refer to areas of close partnership between both countries and ‘setting out a shared vision for the future’.
Mr Biden will be accompanied to the Irish Parliament by Marie Heaney, the widow of his favourite poet, Seamus Heaney.
Mr Biden, who is on a four-day trip to the island, will attend a banquet in his honour at Dublin Castle hosted by Taoiseach Mr Varadkar this evening.
His first full day of engagements on Wednesday began in Northern Ireland, where he delivered a keynote address in Belfast.
In his speech to Ulster University, Mr Biden expressed the hope of a return to powersharing at Stormont, saying a stable devolved government could deliver an economic windfall for the region.
His visit north of the border came as the region marks the 25th anniversary of the landmark Good Friday peace accord.
After his address in Belfast, Mr Biden travelled to Dublin and from there to Co Louth, where he can trace some of his Irish ancestors.
In a speech at a pub in Dundalk, he described how he felt as though he had come home.
His remarks also included a gaffe when he appeared to confuse the All Blacks rugby team with the Black and Tans, a contentious police unit from Ireland’s War of Independence era.
Asked about that gaffe, Ms Sloat said: ‘It was clear what the president was referring to, it was certainly clear to his cousins setting next to him.’
Brazil’s President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva is traveling to China this week on a state visit, and it is anticipated that his discussions with Chinese President Xi Jinping would mostly center on trade and the conflict in Ukraine.
Originally scheduled to travel to Beijing last month, 77-year-old Lula was instead admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. The trip was reinstated, according to a Monday announcement from his office, with Brazil’s goal being “to renew its relations with the country that has been its main commercial partner since 2009.”
Businessmen, state governors, congressmen, and ministers are among the Brazilian team that Lula is traveling with as they attempt to sign over 20 bilateral agreements with China on topics including travel, tourism, IT, and agriculture.
Government figures show that China imported the equivalent of over US$89.7 billion in Brazilian products last year, and exported almost US$60.7 billion to Brazil, setting the trade value between the two countries at US$150.4 billion.
According to the Brazilian presidency, trade between the two countries has “increased 21 times since Lula’s first visit to China in 2004.” Lula previously served two terms as Brazilian president, and has already made two official visits to the country.
Among the dozens of accords expected to be finalized during the visit is one regarding the joint Brazilian-Chinese construction of CBERS-6 satellites, a model that “has improved technology that allows for efficient monitoring of biomes such as the Amazon Rainforest even on cloudy days,” according to a handout from the Brazilian government published Monday.
While in China, Lula will also attend former Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff’s inauguration in Shanghai as head of BRICS’s New Development Bank, a commercial bloc formed by the emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Xi and Lula are also expected to discuss the war in Ukraine, with both leaders having previously positioned their countries as potential mediators for the conflict.
Like many leaders in middle income and developing countries, Lula has adopted a policy of non-intervention over the war in Ukraine, rebuffing efforts led by US President Joe Biden to unite the global community in opposition to Russia’s invasion.
In a February interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, Lula – who in his previous term played an important role during nuclear discussions between the US and Iran – predicted that he would “talk a lot with President Xi Jinping about the role that China has to play on the peace issues (in Ukraine).
“This is my work. This is the work that I have to do. I started with the German Chancellor (Olaf Scholz). I talked with (French President Emmanuel) Macron on the phone. I’ll talk with President Biden now. I’ll talk to Xi Jinping, with the Indians, with the – with all the countries. We have to have a group of people and countries that talk about peace.”
Brazilian Foreign Minister Mauro Vieira hinted at hopes for a potential consensus among some countries emerging from Lula’s trip, AFP reported earlier this week.
“By the time Lula returns home, a group of mediator countries will have been created,” Vieira reportedly said.
His visit to China comes amid wider efforts to booster Brazil’s international relations, including a recent trip to Argentina for a meeting of CELAC – a bloc of Latin American and Caribbean states – that also included a delegation from the United States.
The trip will “usher in a new era and a new future for China-Brazil relations,” China’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Wang Wenbin, said.
After his visit to China, Lula is scheduled to go to the United Arab Emirates for a state visit as well.
The extremely sensitive, leaked Military documents that were published on social media provide a negative US assessment of the situation in Ukraine, pointing out Ukraine’s air defense and armament vulnerabilities and foreseeing a protracted stalemate in the conflict.
As Kiev gets ready for a springtime counteroffensive against Russia, the documents, which appear to be from February and March, go into great depth on many of Ukraine’s alleged military weaknesses.
A number of the top-secret documents warn that Ukraine’s medium-range air defenses to shield front-line soldiers will be “totally depleted by May 23,” implying that Russia may soon achieve aerial superiority and Ukraine may no longer be able to gather ground forces for a counteroffensive.
The documents also underscore lingering problems with Russia’s own military offensive, predicting that the result will be a stalemate between the two sides for the foreseeable future.
“Russia’s grinding campaign of attrition in the Donbas region is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Mosco’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023,” states one of the classified documents.
Officials familiar with the situation tell CNN the documents appear to be part of a daily intelligence briefing deck prepared for the Pentagon’s senior leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.
The leaking of the documents, many of which are marked top secret, represents a major national security breach, and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into who may have leaked them while the Pentagon is investigating how the leak impacts US national security. In addition to the assessment of the Ukraine war, the documents include intelligence gathered on allies and adversaries alike.
Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a CNN national security and military analyst, said that the challenges Ukraine faces with its planned counteroffensive have been clear for weeks, including the need to integrate new equipment and new troops and ensure that a sufficient supply chain is in place. He did not think that the document leak would alter Kyiv’s plans.
“I haven’t seen anything in the documents I’ve seen that would cause me as a commander to change my plans,” Hertling said. “It’s given some information to the Russians in terms of unit locations and ammo and equipment capabilities, but I would venture to say the Russians already knew all that anyway.”
In many ways, the assessment of the Ukraine war is similar to what US officials have said publicly, as top Biden administration officials have said the conflict is likely to drag on for months, if not longer.
But the detailed and unflinching assessment of the war is laid out starkly in the briefing slides about the challenges Ukraine faces despite its successes more than a year into the war.
An official from a country part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement with the US told CNN previously that it was alarming to see the leaked Ukraine war information handicapping the country on the battlefield.
“Gains for Ukraine will be hard to accomplish, but it does not help to have the private US assessment pointing to a likely yearlong stalemate revealed publicly,” the official said.
Publicly, US and Ukrainian officials have downplayed the significance of the classified documents.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reassured Ukraine of the United States’ “ironclad” support for the country, following the Pentagon document leaks, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
During a call on Tuesday Blinken “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. support and vehemently rejected any attempts to cast doubt on Ukraine’s capacity to win on the battlefield,” Kuleba wrote Tuesday on Twitter.
“The U.S. remains Ukraine’s trustworthy partner, focused on advancing our victory and securing a just peace,” Kuleba said.
At a press conference Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the department will “turn over every rock until we find the source” of the leaked intelligence documents.
CNN has reviewed 53 leaked documents, all of which appear to have been produced between mid-February and early March.
At least one of the documents appears to have been altered, CNN previously reported, which listed Russian and Ukrainian casualty numbers and more than halved the number of Russian deaths before being spread on pro-Russian Telegram channels.
Still, US officials have acknowledged the bulk of the documents appear to be genuine. Ukraine has already altered some of its military plans because of the leak, a source close to Zelensky told CNN.
“These documents are static. They’re a picture of a specific time. Both United States and Ukraine have the ability to modify what they’re doing and how they’re approaching this issue, and we certainly have plenty of time for Ukraine to do so,” House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday.
Additional documents have also emerged. The Washington Post reported Monday on another leaked document with a bleak assessment from February that challenges with troops, ammunition and equipment could cause Ukraine to fall “well short” of its goals in its planned spring counteroffensive.
A document from February states that the US assesses Ukraine can generate 12 combat brigades for the spring counteroffensive, including three trained in Ukraine and nine trained and equipped by the US. Six of the brigades would be ready by the end of March and the remaining six by the end of April, according to the document.
The leaked documents include a detailed maps of battlefield positions, statistics on the number of troops killed and wounded and estimates of tanks, fighter jets and other weaponry that’s been fielded as well as destroyed.
One slide provides a timeline for when Ukraine’s ground will be frozen, when it will be muddy and when it will be favorable to move through.
There are assessments of Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut, where some of the fiercest fighting between the two sides has taken place this year. In one update in February, the intelligence assessment includes details on villages where Ukraine’s military had withdrawn and which positions it was still controlling.
Ukraine’s government has refuted Yevgeny Prigozhin’s assertion that Russia owns “80%” of Bakhmut.
One of the longest-running and deadliest battles in the Ukrainian War, Bakhmut, was about to be captured, according to Prigozhin’s Telegram post from today.
Despite not being a major strategic node, Bakhmut, a mid-sized mining city in eastern Afghanistan, has emerged as one of the conflict’s most emblematic locations.
Bakhmut is mostly in ruins after ten months of carnage and bombardment, but the battle “continues,” according to Prigozhin, who today displayed a map of the region.
‘In Bakhmut, the larger part, more than 80% is now under our control, including the whole administrative centre, factories, warehouses, the administration of the city,’ he said.
He used a red marker pen to highlight the relatively small, mainly residential area of the city that remained to be captured by Russian forces.
Ukrainian soldiers have been facing off against ‘human waves’ of Wagner mercenaries (Picture: Reuters)Bakhmut has become mostly ruins in the 10 months of battle (Picture: AP)Around 90% of the city’s pre-invasion population has fled (Picture: Anadolu)
‘There,’ Prigozhin said, ‘the war continues.’
Not quite, said Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
‘This statement by Prigozhin is not true,’ Cherevatyi told CNN.
‘I’ve just been in touch with the commander of one of the brigades that are defending the city.
‘I can confidently state that the Ukrainian defence forces control a much larger percentage of the territory of Bakhmut.’
‘Prigozhin needs to show at least some victory in the city, which they have been trying to capture for nine months in a row, so he makes such statements,’ Cherevatyi added.
Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin has said the ‘war continues’ in the city (Picture: AFP)
Wagner, a private military force with close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, has sent wave after wave of recruits into Bakhmut to drag out the fight.
Prigozhin said he has handed some Wagner-dominated sections of the city to the Russian military.
‘We handed over the flanks to the Ministry of Defence. Units of the Ministry of Defence, including the airborne troops, have today taken over both the right and left flanks,’ he said.
‘That is why Zaliznyanskoye, Nikolaevka, and other settlements, which were stormed by units of the Wagner PMC in previous months, are in the area of responsibility of the airborne troops and other units of the Ministry of Defence.’
With Kyiv soldiers facing round-the-clock artillery bombardments, Moscow is now using ‘scorched earth’ tactics on Bakhmut, a Ukrainian commander said Monday.
‘The enemy switched to so-called scorched earth tactics from Syria. It is destroying buildings and positions with air strikes and artillery fire,’ the commander of Ukraine’s ground force, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrskyi, said.
‘The situation is difficult,’ he added, ‘but controllable.’
A conductor for one of Ukraine’s premier opera houses was killed on the front lines while defending his nation from the Russian invasion, and he has since been acclaimed as a hero.
The 40-year-old bassoonist, who was also a conductor and producer, was nominated for multiple honors for his work on Gaetano Donizetti’s comedic opera Rita for the 150-year-old Kyiv Opera.
In the early days following Russia’s full-scale invasion in February of last year, Starovytskyi—better known to his friends and coworkers as Kostey—traded his instrument for a weapon.
According to the news site Ukrainian Pravda, he was initially involved in defending his home city of Brovary before serving in Kharkiv.
The website said Anhelina Karpenko, a singer, wrote in tribute: ‘Once we worked on a production together. Kostey was conducting, and I was singing.
‘We dreamt about the stage, and found an amazing team. Now he will play his music with the heavenly orchestra.’
In a Facebook post, the Kyiv Opera wrote: ‘Another irreparable loss for Ukrainian culture, for our theater, in particular.
‘Kostyantyn Starovytskyi, our colleague, who was in the orchestra at the Kyiv Opera, and later the conductor-producer of Donizetti’s opera “Rita” and one of the directors and authors of the Ukrainian translation of Rossini’s opera “The Marriage Contract”, died while defending the country.
‘Glory to the Hero! Eternal memory! Glory to Ukraine!’
Starovytskyi’s young daughter Yeva, wife Snizhana and elderly mother Liudmyla survive him. A farewell ceremony was held in Brovary, east of Kyiv, this morning.
The war against Vladimir Putin’s Russia has been devastating for culture in Ukraine.
Just a week after the invasion last year, missiles and rockets hit the opera house and concert hall in Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city, killing at least 10 people and injuring 35.
Most notoriously, Russian bombs destroyed a theatre in Mariupol where civilians were sheltering on March 16 2022, killing as many as 600 people according to the Associated Press.
A New York Times investigation from December found 339 Ukrainian cultural sites that had ‘sustained significant damage’ in the war.
However, artists have also been at the forefront of showing defiance against the invaders.
In March last year, a small band was filmed performing in front of the barricades protecting the Kyiv Opera House.
Another video, in which violin players from around the world virtually join a Ukrainian musician in a bomb shelter to play the folk song ‘Verbovaya Doschechka’, went viral soon afterwards.\
According to what appears to be a leak of top-secret Pentagon data, Ukraine’s air defenses may run out of ammunition in a matter of weeks.
There have been several reports presenting American intelligence assessments, one of which claims that two of Ukraine’s main anti-aircraft missile systems will be depleted by May 2.
In a statement on the subject released on Sunday, the Pentagon did not attempt to discount the documents as false despite the fact that they had not been validated.
They have also sparked a stern response from two other US allies, South Korea and Israel, after appearing to leak explosive internal security information.
The documents appear to lay out a detailed timeline of Ukrainian defence capacities, some of which partly rely on allied supplies
One paper described as a ‘Top Secret’ CIA update from last month said Israel’s equivalent of MI5 was encouraging protests against an alleged power grab by its prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The dramatic claim suggests the Israeli government is more splintered than it has been for decades over Mr Netanyahu’s reforms, which would give his ministers power to appoint judges.
Another document suggested CIA spies had been monitoring talks among South Korean officials over the sale of artillery shells to the US that could end up in Ukraine.
The New York Times shared some of the papers which it claims to be genuineThe Pentagon has stressed some other documents appearing online have been altered
The claims are embarrassing for the South Korean government, which has joined international sanctions against Russia but refuses to send weapons to the Ukrainians.
The papers on Ukraine appear to be an assessment of its Ukraine’s S-300 and Buk missile systems, which are the defenders’ main protection against Russian fighter jets and bombers.
The New York Times reports there are no plans to restock the systems, and that current usage indicates they will be in trouble by mid-April and be ‘completely reduced’ by May 23.
This would hammer Ukraine’s ability to hold the frontline in the east of the country, where troops rely on convoys of supplies vulnerable to harassment by Russian bombers.
Ukraine’ ability to hold the frontline of Bakhmut could be hampered if its air defences do run out (Picture: Reuters)
It’s not known whether new arrangements have been made to replenish the systems.
The US Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the leak, admitting the documents ‘appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material’.
Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said the Ukraine-related documents appear to be photographs of documents which were uploaded to the social media platform Telegram.
Some of the slides appear to have been crudely doctored, such as one which massively undercuts publicly known Western estimates of Russian troops killed in action.
US officials confirmed that some of the documents appear authentic while others have been altered.
Ms Singh added in a statement: ‘An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on U.S. national security and on our Allies and partners.
‘Over the weekend, U.S. officials have engaged with Allies and partners and have informed relevant congressional committees of jurisdiction about the disclosure.’
This week, farmers in central and eastern Europe demonstrated against the negative effects of cheap grain imports from Ukraine that have lowered domestic prices and decreased sales for regional producers.
In the border between Romania and Bulgaria, protesters used tractors to obstruct traffic and border checkpoints in an effort to stop Ukrainian trucks from entering their nation, according to local news sources.
Local grain farmers claim they are unable to compete with Ukrainian grain prices and have requested compensation from the European Commission.
Ukraine, often called the “breadbasket of Europe” due to the vast quantities of grain it produces, had its Black Sea ports blockaded by Russia following the invasion in February 2022.
Fearing that the situation was “threatening global food security,” the European Commission set up what it called “solidarity lanes” in May to facilitate exports.
The Commission also temporarily eliminated all duties and quotas on Ukraine’s exports, allowing a glut of cheap Ukrainian grain to flow into Europe.
This has caused “huge market distortions” in neighboring countries, according to European farmers’ association Copa-Cogeca.
Pekka Pesonen, Secretary General of Copa-Cogeca, told CNN “the EU needs to address the severe consequences that open borders and unmanaged imports of some agricultural goods have caused to the bordering EU member states.”
“We call for stabilizing import volumes to match our EU capacity to absorb the inflow of goods,” he added.
Anger grew after the European Commission announced a draft decision to extend duty-free and quota-free imports of Ukrainian grain until June 2024, prompting Polish agriculture minister Henryk Kowalcyzk to resign from his post Wednesday.
In Kowalczyk’s resignation statement, he said that the Polish government – along with those of Slovakia, Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria – had submitted a request to the European Commission to “activate the protection clause in the field of duty-free and quota-free imports of grain from Ukraine.”
“Bulgaria is in solidarity with Ukraine, but a local glut is being created on the agricultural market, because instead of export corridors our countries are becoming warehouses,” Bulgaria’s agriculture minister Yavor Gechev said.
The National Association of Bulgarian Grain Producers said “Bulgarian farmers’ warehouses are full of stagnant produce. There is no market for Bulgarian grain.”
According to their data, 40% of last year’s grain and sunflower harvest remains unsold.
Romanian farmers are also feeling the strain. At protests in Bucharest on Friday, Liliana Piron, executive director of the League of Romanian Agriculture Producers’ Associations, said farmers have “reached a point where they feel they can no longer face the costs” of “unfair competition” from Ukraine.
“We are less than three months away from the new harvest and the danger is real, that the goods we will have ready this season will not be able to be sold at prices above production costs,” Piron said, according to RadioFree Europe.
“We will witness a chain of bankruptcies of Romanian farmers,” she added.
In response to the growing unrest, the European Commission last month proposed support measures worth 56.3 million euros (around $61.3 million) for Bulgarian, Polish and Romanian farmers “to compensate affected farmers for the economic loss due to increased imports.”
“The trade disruptions incurred by the Russian aggression should not take place at the expense of farmers from neighboring countries,” the Commission said in a statement.
Whether you want to go home to be with your family or take advantage of the bank holiday for a long vacation, Easter is frequently a busy period for travel.
Unluckily, this makes it one of the most difficult times to get about London.
Throughout bank holiday weekends, public transportation frequently sees improvements as more people take advantage of their time off and use the already-busy facilities.
Roads can also be busier than usual, with more travellers than usual opting to get in the car to avoid any public transport delays.
So, if you’re planning a journey around the capital this weekend, what should you keep in mind?
Here is what you need to know.
Easter 2023 travel disruption in London
Latest London news
With potential disruption on both the road and public transport, it’s essential to check any journey details in advance, as well as on the day of departure, for the latest updates.
Complete information on travelling around London over Easter 2023 is available on the TfL website.
TfL also recommends using the TfL Go app and the TfL Journey Planner.
Rail
National Rail has warned of several potential problems over the Easter weekend.
While the trains are running, travellers have been warned to plan their journey in advance, with disruption expected from Friday, April 7 to Monday, April 10, 2023.
Concerning London specifically, modernisation to both tracks and signalling on some lines into the London Victoria station will be taking place, and Southern services will not call. They may instead be diverted to London Bridge.
There will also be no trains running to or from London Euston at Easter.
The various Train Operating Companies may also be operating different timetables over the Easter weekend, with full details available on the National Rail website.
Tube
Currently expected disruptions on the London Underground network include:
Jubilee line – On Good Friday, April 7, there is no service on the entire line until 2pm. After 2pm, there will be no service between West Hampstead and Stanmore, which will continue to be the case until April 10.
Metropolitan line – The Metropolitan line will see no service between Aldgate and Harrow-on-the-Hill from April 8 to April 10.
Elizabeth line
From April 7 to April 10, the Paddington to Maidenhead stretch of the line will see a reduced service, and there will be no service from Paddington to Abbey Wood.
However, there will be services running to/ from the Paddington and Liverpool Street national rail terminals and regular service is expected between Maidenhead to Reading and Paddington to Heathrow.
London Overground and DLR
On Good Friday, a Saturday service will run on the London Overground with no service between Euston and Kilburn High Road (which will also be the case on Saturday, April 8).
On Easter Sunday (April 9), there will be no service between Euston and Watford Junction, as well as no service between Gospel Oak and Barking Riverside. The Camden Road to Stratford line will also see no service after 10.15pm.
On Monday, April 10, the London Overground will also be running a Saturday service, with no service between Euston and Watford Junction and Woodgrange Park to Barking Riverside.
Between April 7 and April 10, the DLY will see no direct services between Lewisham and Bank, meaning you will have to change at Poplar.
Trams
Throughout the Easter period (April 7 to April 10), there will be no service westbound from East Croydon to Wandle Park and no eastbound service from Reeves Corner to East Croydon.
On Good Friday and Saturday, April 9, there will be no service before 7.30am and after 6.30pm between Arena and Elmers End. On Easter Sunday and Monday, the same restriction will apply before 9.15am and after 6.15pm.
Road
TfL has warned that roadworks will occur over the Easter bank holiday weekend and that public transport will be the easiest way to get around.
If you are travelling by road, allow more time for your journey. You can also check the status of the capital’s streets via the TfL website.
Cycling
If you’re planning to journey via bike this weekend, the TfL website states that there will be temporary changes to Cycleway 3, saying: ‘Between Monday, April 3 and Monday, May 15 2023, there will be temporary changes to Cycleway 3 around Buckingham Palace and Constitution Hill.
‘These are to support the London Marathon and Coronation events.’
Per reports, “excessive drinking” among Russian soldiers in Ukraine is to blame for a “especially high” number of their fatalities, injuries, and crimes.
The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported that a “substantial percentage” of Vladimir Putin’s soldiers had passed away from “non-combat reasons,” such as drunkenness, in a daily update on Twitter.
The majority of Soviet soldiers were killed or wounded in battle, but other factors, such as “bad weapon handling drills,” “alcohol misuse,” and weather-related injuries like hypothermia, were also to blame.
The MoD said: ‘While Russia has suffered up to 200,000 casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a significant minority of these have been due to non-combat causes.
‘On March 27, 2023, a Russian Telegram news channel reported there have been ‘extremely high’ numbers of incidents, crimes, and deaths linked to alcohol consumption amongst the deployed Russian forces.’
It said that Russian commanders ‘likely identify pervasive alcohol abuse as particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness’.
The MoD added despite the negative impact alcohol is having on troops, ‘heavy drinking [is] pervasive across much of Russian society’ and ‘it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat operations’.
The report is another damning indictment on Russian’s struggling forces, after claims troops have been sent to war with little training and poor equipment.
Morale among soldiers has apparently been low for many months, after forces were told at the start of the war it would be an easy win for Russia.
Currently, much of the fiercest fighting is happening around the city of Bakhmut, in Eastern Ukraine.
Today it was reported that the head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group claimed Bakhmut was now Russian ‘in a legal sense’, after raising a Russian flag over its city hall.
But he admitted Ukrainian forces were still concentrated in western districts.
Although Russia is seen as a nation of big drinkers, the Sun reports that its alcohol consumption per capita is only slightly higher than in the UK, with 11.7 litres compared to the UK’s 11.4 litres.\
In retaliation for the theater sacking its director for opposing the war in Ukraine, a Russian actor slit his wrists in front of spectators.
Actor Artur Shuvalov informed the audience in Ulan-Ude, eastern Siberia, that the producers of the play had been “harassing” him and withholding his salary because he had backed the former director Sergei Levitsky.
With a sudden grab of a knife from his pocket, Artur—who is reportedly fighting cancer—announced that his wife, who was also an actor in the program, had also been dismissed.
Proclaiming the theatre’s management team were ‘responsible’ for his death, he started slicing the knife across his wrists, MailOnline reports.
He said: ‘Throughout the year they have tried to fire me from the theatre, humiliate me, deprive me of work and money.
‘I don’t want to put up with it. But I have no more strength and no more choice.’
He added: ‘I don’t want to hear that artists are “representatives of the oldest professions”.
Artur told the audience he was being ‘harassed’ by the theatre (Picture: Telegram)
‘And I believe that our audience is worthy of smart direction, and not as our artistic director says.
‘Please forgive me again. I’m tired. I have no more choice. I want to say just one thing: Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Dyachenko [artistic director], Natalya Nikolaevna Svetozarova [theater director], these people are to blame for my death.’
The audience watched in horror as other members of the cast rushed to try and help the actor.
Artur was taken to hospital and is said to be in a stable condition.
Since the start of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has imposed censorship laws against ‘discrediting Russian armed forces’.
A number of leading arts figures lost their jobs after criticising the war.
In Kostyantynivka, an industrial city close to the troubled Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, at least six civilians have reportedly been killed, according to Ukraine.
According to the head of the presidential staff, Andriy Yermak, 16 apartment complexes and other structures, including a nursery school, were damaged by missiles and rockets.
The city is only 27 kilometers (17 miles) west of Bakhmut, the scene of months of fierce battle that claimed many lives on both sides.
At least eight people were hurt, according to Mr. Yermak, when the Russians used S-300 surface-to-air missiles and Uragan rockets to attack Kostyantynivka.
The city is near Kramatorsk and Slovyansk, two key cities which Russia is striving to capture in order to complete its occupation of Donetsk region. Kostyantynivka’s population before Russia’s February 2022 invasion was about 70,000.
Explosions also rocked Russian-occupied Melitopol on Sunday, the southern city’s Ukrainian mayor Ivan Fedorov said. He said the blasts targeted the rail depot there.
Melitopol has been hit repeatedly by Ukrainian missiles because it is a transport hub for the Russian military, lying just north of Russian-occupied Crimea.
Russian ammunition hunger
On Saturday Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told fellow Russian commanders that steps were being taken to ramp up ammunition production. “The volume of supplies of the most needed ammunition has been determined. Necessary measures are being taken to increase them,” he said.
Independent military analysts have said repeatedly that Russia is running short of precision weapons, after firing so many in the Ukraine war.
Mr Shoigu and the defence ministry have been sharply criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, who accuses them of depriving his troops of key ammunition. Wagner – officially called a private military company – has suffered heavy losses in the Bakhmut fighting, with convicts released from Russian prisons drafted in to swell the group’s numbers.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky insists that, despite heavy casualties, his forces entrenched in ruined Bakhmut will not surrender the city. The Russians are reported to have made small gains there in recent days.
Bakhmut has little strategic value, but Ukraine has seen it as an important drain on Russia’s military equipment and manpower.
In a Telegram post on Sunday Mr Zelensky praised his compatriots in a message marking a year since Russian forces were expelled from the Kyiv region.
“Ukrainian people! You have stopped the greatest anti-human force of our time. You have stopped a force that despises and wants to destroy everything that gives meaning to people. And we will free all our lands,” he said.
Investigators from Ukraine are examining the Kyiv residence of a leader of the Orthodox Church who is accused of defending Russia’s armed action against Ukraine.
Metropolitan The Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, the most significant monastery in Ukraine, is managed by Pavel Lebed. His Ukrainian Orthodox Church (UOC) branch had previously sided with Moscow’s clergy.
He is allegedly accused of promoting religious and national hate, according to Kiev prosecutors.
Kyiv has been trying to evict him and his followers from the monastery.
Mr Pavel has denied the allegations and argues that the Kyiv authorities have no legal grounds for evicting the monks and staff from the monastery.
In a court appearance on Saturday, reported by the daily Ukrainska Pravda, he called it “a political case” and said “I’ve never been on the side of aggression” – though he did not mention Russia.
“I’m against aggression. And now I’m in Ukraine – this is my land,” he said. He described his current status as “house arrest”.
On Friday hundreds of worshippers gathered at the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra monastery – famous for its historic caves – in support of the monks there, protesting against the eviction order.
A statement from the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) on the Telegram messaging service, says Metropolitan Pavel is suspected of “violating citizens’ equality” based on their racial, national and religious ties.
It says he “repeatedly insulted the religious feelings of Ukrainians”, “humiliated” other faith groups and “tried to create hostile attitudes towards them”.”He also made statements that justified or denied the actions of the aggressor state,” the SBU says. It alleges it has evidence from Metropolitan Pavel’s public speeches and intercepted communications.
Image caption,Worshippers supporting the Orthodox monks thronged the Lavra site on Friday
SBU head Vasyl Malyuk said “today the enemy is trying to use the church environment to promote its propaganda and divide Ukrainian society”.
“But we will not give him a single chance!” he stressed.
Last year, the SBU raided the Lavra and other buildings belonging to the UOC, and dozens of clerics have been arrested on accusations of treason and collaboration with Russia. The UOC, however, says there is no evidence to support the charges.
In recent years many worshippers have joined the independent Orthodox Church of Ukraine, while millions still follow the UOC, which split from Moscow last May after centuries under its control.
The Russian Orthodox Church has allied itself with President Vladimir Putin, echoing Kremlin rhetoric in defending the invasion of Ukraine.
Despite Ukraine pleading with other council members to oppose the action, Russia has assumed the leadership of the UN Security Council.
On a rotating basis, each of the 15 council members has the presidency for one month.
In February 2022, when Russia last held the president, it started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
It denotes that a nation whose president is wanted internationally for alleged war crimes is in charge of the Security Council.
The arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin was issued last month by the International Criminal Court, a non-UN body.
Notwithstanding UkraiUkraine receives Leopard tanks from Germanyne’s complaints, the US claimed it was powerless to prevent Russia, a permanent council member, from taking the helm.
The other permanent members of the council are the UK, US, France, and China.
The role is mostly procedural, but Moscow’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzia, told the Russian Tass news agency that he planned to oversee several debates, including one on arms control.
He said he would discuss a “new world order” that, he said, was coming to “replace the unipolar one”.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia’s presidency “the worst joke ever for April Fool’s Day” and a “stark reminder that something is wrong with the way international security architecture is functioning”.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser, Mykhaylo Podolyak, said the move was “another rape of international law… an entity that wages an aggressive war, violates the norms of humanitarian and criminal law, destroys the UN Charter, neglects nuclear safety, can’t head the world’s key security body”.
President Volodymyr Zelensky called last year for the Security Council to reform or “dissolve altogether”, accusing it of failing to take enough action to prevent Russia’s invasion.
He has also called for Russia to be removed of its member status.
But the US has said its hands were tied as the UN charter does not allow for the removal of a permanent member.
“Unfortunately, Russia is a permanent member of the Security Council and no feasible international legal pathway exists to change that reality,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told a news briefing this week.
She added the US expects Moscow “to continue to use its seat on the council to spread disinformation” and justify its actions in Ukraine.
The UN Security Council is an international body responsible for maintaining peace.
Five nations are permanently represented on the Security Council. They reflect the post-war power structure that held sway when the council was formed.
Members of this group work alongside 10 non-permanent member countries.
The Turkish Parliament has formally ratified the country’s membership, bringing Finland one step closer to joining Nato.
Prior to the start of the Ukrainian War, the Nordic country had maintained its “neutral” status on the international stage.
While Russian hostility grew, Finland hurried to join Nato alongside Sweden.
In the past, the Kremlin declared that the proposed action was “absolutely” a threat and would be responded with “retaliatory steps.”
This evening, Turkey’s parliament ratified Finland’s application to join Nato, lifting the last hurdle in the way of the nation’s long-delayed accession into the Western military alliance.
All 276 lawmakers present voted in favour of Finland’s bid, days after Hungary’s parliament also endorsed Helsinki’s accession.
The path is now clear for Finland to join Nato as its 31st member.
Sweden’s bid to join the alliance, meanwhile, has been left hanging, with both Turkey and Hungary holding out on giving it the green light.
Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attend the funeral of Ukrainian soldier Dmytro Kotsiubaylo (Picture: Getty Images)
Alarmed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a year ago, Finland and neighbouring Sweden had abandoned their decades-long policy of nonalignment and applied to join the alliance.
Full unanimity is required to admit new members into the 30-member alliance, and Turkey and Hungary were the last two Nato members to ratify Finland’s accession.
Turkey’s government accuses Sweden of being too lenient toward groups it deems to be terrorist organizations and security threats, including militant Kurdish groups and people associated with a 2016 coup attempt.
More recently, Turkey was angered by a series of demonstrations in Sweden, including a protest by an anti-Islam activist who burned the Quran outside the Turkish Embassy.
Turkish officials have said that unlike Sweden, Finland fulfilled its obligations under a memorandum signed last year under which the two countries pledged to address Turkey’s security concerns.
Kenya’s President William Ruto is against the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. It has been a year since the war broke out, however, its impact on other countries remain ever potent.
Commodity prices of grain and fertilizers have skyrocketed in Kenya as a result.
Interacting with DW chief International Editor, Richard Walker, President Ruto reiterated his opposition to the ongoing war which has escalated in recent times.
He noted that as a signatory to the UN Charter which codifies the major principles of international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations, Kenya automatically resents the ongoing war.
“Because we are great believers and signatories to the UN Charter, which speaks directly to a rules-based glove, you ensuring that there is respect for countries and their boundaries. Any violation of the UN Charter by anybody in whatever manner is a threat to violation of the same elsewhere, everywhere in the world.”
The UN Charter is an instrument of international law, and UN Member States are bound by it. Ukraine was among the first countries that signed the United Nations Charter, becoming a founding member of the United Nations among 51 countries.
Russia on the other hand is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a status Ukraine wants revoked.
According to Ruto, “our position has been: This can be resolved. We must be a rules-based globe. We must respect the UN Charter.”
“That’s the position of Kenya and not just the position of Kenya. That’s the position of the UN and any country that subscribes to the UN Charter,” he added.
Ruto believes the world must be eager to take into consideration the views of Africa on sensitive issues. He said Africa “is not the continent of disease and poverty anymore” but “the continent that has a future.”
“And as you say correctly, the world is realizing that Africa is an important destination, important because of what the future portends. You know this is the continent that has 30% of the world’s natural resources. And everybody, any reasonable leader anywhere in the world would want to know what Africa thinks and would want a partnership with the African continent.”
Currently, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin.
Upon the arrival of the weapons at the battlefield, Ukraine’s defense minister compared British tanks to Rolls-Royce automobiles.
Oleksii Reznikov approved of Britain after riding in the first Challenger 2 main combat tank to reach the war-torn nation.
I can say that even the driver of a Rolls-Royce will not be as comfortable as this team after personally “piloting” the Challenger, he commented on Facebook while posing with the tank.
He stated that Ukrainian paratroopers had dubbed the challenger a “war cat” and described the vehicles as “works of military beauty.”
In January, the UK government promised 14 Challenger 2 tanks in an effort to persuade other western countries to send weapons to help the Ukrainian army.
Reznikov confirmed they had finally arrived in Ukraine, posting a picture of the tanks flying their blue and yellow flag.
He wrote on Twitter: ‘It was a pleasure to take the first Ukrainian challenger 2 MBT (main battle tank) for a spin.
‘These fantastic machines will soon begin their combat missions.’
Ukrainian Defense Minister checks out Leopard tanks sent to Ukraine by UK
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Ukrainian army volunteers pose as they receive training on Challenger tanks (Picture: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
In a video posted on social media, Reznikov personally thanked the UK defence secretary Ben Wallace for the tank.
He said in English: ‘Marvellous Ben. It’s very good stuff. Thank you very much from Ukraine to the United Kingdom.’
Rezkinov also posed with a variety of western tanks including challengers from Britain, Strykers & Cougars from the US and Marders from Germany.
‘A year ago, no one would have thought that supporting partners would be so powerful,’ he said.
‘That the whole civilised world will reboot and finally resist the bloody aggressor, theRussian terrorist country.’
German-made Leopard tanks have finally arrived in Ukraine after being first approved in January (Picture: Getty)
He added: ‘A year has made a difference. Ukraine has changed the world.’
Germany’s defence ministry said on Monday 18 Leopard 2 battle tanks and 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles had also arrived in Ukraine.
‘Yes, we delivered Leopard tanks as we announced,’ chancellor Olaf Scholz said in Rotterdam. ‘We’re providing very modern [tanks] which we have now delivered.’
The cutting-edge main battle tanks were delivered after Ukrainian crews were trained to use them.
As well as the German and British vehicles, three Leopard tanks donated by Portugal also reached Ukraine, the security source confirmed.
According to the German defense ministry, Germany has shipped its first cargo of Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
After receiving training to operate them, 18 state-of-the-art main battle tanks were sent to Ukraine.
Boris Pistorius, the defence minister, expressed his confidence that the tanks might “make a major contribution” on the front lines of the conflict.
According to reports from Ukraine, Challenger 2 tanks have also arrived.
For months, Ukraine has demanded more advanced vehicles and weaponry to aid in defending against the Russian invasion.
The Ukrainian government is yet to comment on the arrival of the Leopard 2s, but they have confirmed the arrival of the first UK-made Challenger 2 tanks.
Around 2,000 Leopard 2s, widely regarded as being among the best main battle tanks produced by Nato countries, are in use by European countries.
Germany agreed to supply the tanks to Ukraine in January, after being initially reluctant to do so – or even to permit other countries from sending their own.
Under German law, Berlin must approve Leopard 2s being re-exported by any country.
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said the tanks “have made it into the hands of our Ukrainian friends as promised and on time”.
The German army has trained Ukrainian tank crews to use the advanced A6 variant of the Leopard 2 over the past several weeks.
They have been specifically designed to compete with the Russian T-90 main battle tank and is considered to be easier to maintain and more fuel-efficient than most other Western tanks.
On top of the Leopard 2s, Germany has also sent Ukraine two specialist tank-recovery vehicles and 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles.
Meanwhile, Challenger 2 tanks from the UK “are in Ukraine already”, defence ministry spokeswoman Iryna Zolotar told AFP news agency.
Posting a picture of a Challenger 2 alongside other Western-made military vehicles on his Facebook page, Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov described the British vehicle as a work of military art.
The UK Ministry of Defence declined to comment but earlier confirmed Ukrainian tank crews training in Britain had returned home after completing their training with the tanks.
By the beginning of 2024, the Kremlin announced today, it intends to base submarines equipped with “super torpedoes” in the Pacific Ocean.
Four years after Putin unveiled the new class of strategic nuclear weapon, Moscow announced in January that it had created the first batch of Poseidon torpedoes.
Today, Ukraine‘s top security official criticized Russia’s plans to post tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, stating that by doing so, Russia was holding its ally hostage to a nuclear war.
There are few confirmed details about the Poseidon, but it is essentially a cross between a torpedo and a drone that can be launched from a nuclear submarine.
It comes after Ukraine were given armored tanks from European allies (Picture: AP)
At the weekend Moscow said it was making the move in response to the West’s increasing military support for Ukraine.
Mr Putin announced the plan on Saturday, saying it was triggered by a UK decision this past week to provide Ukraine with armor-piercing rounds containing depleted uranium.
Putin said that by deploying its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, Russia was following the lead of the US.
He said: ‘We are doing what they have been doing for decades, stationing them in certain allied countries, preparing the Ulaunch platforms and training their crews,’ he said.
He said the move maximised ‘the level of negative perception and public rejection’ of Russia and Mr Putin in Belarusian society.
The Kremlin, Mr Danilov added, ‘took Belarus as a nuclear hostage’.
Mr Putin argued on Saturday that Belarusian president Alexander Lukashenko had long asked to have nuclear weapons in his country again to counter Nato.
Both Mr Lukashenko’s support of the war and Mr Putin’s plans to station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus have been denounced by the Belarusian opposition.
The US said it would ‘monitor the implications’ of Mr Putin’s announcement.
So far, Washington had not seen ‘any indications Russia is preparing to use a nuclear weapon’, National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson said.
The torpedoes are being developed for deployment on the Belgorod and Khabarovsk nuclear submarines, TASS reported.
Russia Pacific Fleet’s ballistic nuclear missile submarine base is located on the south-eastern coast of the Kamchatka Peninsula, in the Russian Far East.
The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the Kamchatka Peninsula’s eastern and western coastlines.
The source allegedly told TASS that a new division is being formed as part of the Submarine Forces of the Pacific Fleet, which will include not only Belgorod and Khabarovsk but also other submarines.
The new special-purpose submarines will participate in solving the tasks ‘of strategic deterrence’, the source reportedly said.
England maintained their winning streak against Ukraine with a stunning goal from Bukayo Saka after Harry Kane extended his goal-scoring streak.
The remarkable 2-1 victory over Euro 2020 champions Italy on Thursday, according to Gareth Southgate, could only be viewed as a magnificent result if it was followed up by a victory at Wembley.
In their first home game since making it to the World Cup quarterfinals, England did not let their fans down as Kane and Saka scored late in the first half to secure a 2-0 victory over Ukraine.
It was the perfect return from their toughest-looking Euro 2024 double-header, meaning Southgate’s side are already well placed to progress from a group completed by North Macedonia and Malta.
England are expected to get maximum points against those nations in June, when Kane could add a flurry to his national team scoring record that stands at 55 after his first-half opener.
The skipper, who was presented with a commemorative golden boot for his historic strike in Naples, fired in after meeting a fine cross by Saka, who went onto score a superb effort three minutes later.
The 21-year-old’s fantastic 20-yard curler was his eighth international goal and all but ended this Group C clash a contest.
Given England’s struggles after half-time in Italy and an already-depleted squad being further diminished by Phil Foden needing appendix surgery on Sunday morning, Southgate will not mind the largely forgettable second half here.
Ahead of the game both sets of players posed with a Ukrainian flag that read ‘peace’ in a show of solidarity as the country continues to fight invading Russia.
More than 1,000 displaced Ukrainians and their host families were invited to the match as special guests of the Football Association.
The 4,200-strong away contingent were in fine voice from the outset but there was a collective early gasp when Kane rose to his feet claiming for a penalty following a clumsy Oleksandr Svatok challenge.
A year after the initial incident, a Russian admiral has officially acknowledged that Ukraine sunk one of its ships in a missile strike.
In the occupied city of Berdyansk in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine started an attack on a captured Russian harbour exactly one year ago.
The attack damaged the Novocherkassk and Caesar Kunikov in addition to destroying the Russian landing ship Saratov.
Around a dozen sailors were killed in the attack across all three landing ships, along with an unknown number of elite marines.
The Ukrainian MoD shared a video a missile strike that hit Saratov landing ship- but Russia refused to acknowledge it until now (Picture: Ukriaine Ministry of Defence)
After previously refusing to acknowledge the attack or the damage it wrought, a Russian Black Sea admiral today admitted that Ukraine had managed to sink the vessel, although he refused to concede the total number of lost men.
The admission came at a sombre memorial ceremony involving grieving relatives presided over by senior Black Sea Fleet commander Rear Admiral Felix Menkov.
‘A year ago, in combat, we lost the amphibious force ship Saratov,’ said Menkov.
‘[We] lost the crew of the Saratov, Novocherkassk, Caesar Kunikov landing ships,
‘Today is the first mournful anniversary.
‘We gathered to commemorate our comrades, to remember them.’
He fought back emotion as he said: ‘Our children and grandchildren should be raised with such role models of love and service to the Fatherland.’
A Russian admiral finally acknowledged the attack on the anniversary of the Saratov’s sinking (Picture: East2West)
A plaque names a dozen Russian servicemen who died in the strike, but it is unclear if this was the full toll.
It also makes clear that elite marines were among those who died.
At the time of the attack, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Valerii Zaluzhnyi, released a video of the strike on his Telegram which showed missiles hitting the Saratov, which had been set ablaze.
‘The large amphibious ships Orsk, Cesar Kunnikov, Novocherkask were damaged, Saratov was destroyed,’ the Commander wrote.
‘The myth of the invulnerability of the Russian fleet was destroyed by well-targeted strikes of the AFU. This once again proved an irrefutable fact: the enemy will not rest on Ukrainian land: neither on land nor on water.
Nine were killed on the day of the strike, and three perished from wounds later.
The strike on the Saratov came exactly one month into the bloody war unleashed by Vladimir Putin, but until now the regime had refused to acknowledge the loss.
It was three weeks before the Black Sea Fleet’s flagship – the cruiser Moskva – was destroyed by the Ukrainians.
It appears that amateur radio hobbyists have audio recordings of the Russian military attempting to recover a US espionage drone.
After the MQ-9 Reaper drone was shot down last Tuesday during an encounter with two Russian airplanes, they were keeping an eye on the public airwaves, according to the New York Times.
The clips reveal conversations between multiple Russian ships and aircraft over a four-hour period, discussing attempts to recover the drone’s engine casing, nose, wing and gas tank.
‘At this moment, we have brought up three parts of the frame,’ one unit code-named Apelsin (Orange) was heard saying. ‘Now I am proceeding toward the helicopter to search for more.’
There is a series of transmissions about the vessels’ declining fuel reserves and concerns about whether they will have enough to make it back to shore.
They then return to the Port of Sevastopol and one crew member indicates he passed an area called Striletska Bay.
The clips reveal conversations between multiple Russian ships and aircraft over a four-hour period (Picture: US European Command/Zuma/Shutterstock)An MQ-9 Reaper unmanned aerial vehicle shown on November 7, 2020.The MQ-9 Reaper drone was found 60km off the coast of Sevastopol
This provides an insight into the units operating near the crash site, and indicates Russia’s continued use of open, unencrypted radio channels for operational communications in Ukraine.
A source close to the Russian defense ministry claimed Kremlin forces had found the downed drone at a depth of up to 2,953ft in the Black Sea.
While there is no indication sensitive US information was recovered, the intercepts contain special military words which are difficult to understand.
Pentagon officials said any sensitive information was wiped from the drone’s software.
‘Whatever is left of that floating will probably be flight control surfaces, that kind of thing — probably nothing of real intrinsic value to them in terms of re-engineering or anything like that,’ National Security Council spokesman John F. Kirby told CNN.
‘We’re not overly concerned about whatever they might get their hands on,’ he added.
Telegram channels indicate special purpose vessels Fizik (pictured in a file photo) and Professor Vodyanitskiy both sailed to or near the suspected location of the wreckage.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense confirmed on Friday two fighter pilots had been honored with state awards for preventing the US drone from entering Russian airspace.
They claimed there was no physical contact between the aircrafts, and that ‘quick maneuvering’ caused the drone to fall into ‘unguided flight with a loss of altitude’.
But this contradicted US claims that a Russian jet rammed the drone and damaged its propeller.
Moscow did not officially acknowledge a salvage operation, but Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the military would decide whether to attempt a recovery.
‘This is the prerogative of the military. If they deem it necessary to do that in the Black Sea for our interests and for our security, they will deal with that,’ Pescov said at a news briefing in Moscow last week.
The US has since resumed surveillance drone flights over the Black Sea region, officials said.
Russian retaliation would result from British intentions to send depleted uranium (DU) munitions to Ukraine, the Kremlin has warned.
“Another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left,” the defense minister, Sergei Shoigu, told reporters.
Naturally, Russia is able to respond to this.
Shoigu’s response, when asked if this meant that a nuclear war was imminent, was, “It was not by chance that I told you about steps. There are getting less and less.
Now, it was made public that armour-piercing rounds with DU were included in the Challenger 2 battle tanks that are being shipped from Britain to Ukraine.
Defence Minister Baroness Goldie said today: ‘Alongside our granting of a squadron of Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Ukraine, we will be providing ammunition including armour piercing rounds which contain depleted uranium.
‘Such rounds are highly effective in defeating modern tanks and armoured vehicles.’
DU shells were used by US and British troops in Iraq in 1991 and 2003, as well as in the Balkans during the 1990s.
A Challenger II Main Battle Tank at Royal Tank Regiment HQ, Tidworth, Wiltshire (Picture: PA)Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu said: ‘Another step has been taken, and there are fewer and fewer left.’ (Picture: AP)
It is a particular health risk around impact sites, where dust can get into people’s lungs and vital organs.
DU is used in weapons because it can penetrate tanks and armour more easily due to its density and other physical properties.
In response to Russia’s warning, a MoD spokesman said this evening: ‘The British Army has used depleted uranium in its armour piercing shells for decades. It is a standard component and has nothing to do with nuclear weapons or capabilities.
‘Russia knows this, but is deliberately trying to disinform.’
CND General Secretary Kate Hudson said the offer of DU-laden tanks will ‘not help the people of Ukraine.
She added: ‘Like in Iraq, the addition of depleted uranium ammunition into this conflict will only increase the long-term suffering of the civilians caught up in this conflict.
‘DU shells have already been implicated in thousands of unnecessary deaths from cancer and other serious illnesses.
‘CND has repeatedly called for the UK government to place an immediate moratorium on the use of depleted uranium weapons and to fund long-term studies into their health and environmental impacts.
‘Sending them into yet another war zone will not help the people of Ukraine.’
The news comes as the secretary general of Nato has said there were ‘signs’ indicating Russia has asked for lethal aid from China.
Launching his annual report for 2022, Jens Stoltenberg said: ‘We haven’t seen proof that China is delivering lethal weapons to Russia.
‘But we have seen some signs that this has been requested from Russia and it is something that is being considered in Beijing by the Chinese authorities.’
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrived in Russia for his high-profile visit yesterday, and met President Vladimir Putin soon afterwards.
Few details have been released on what the two leaders will discuss, but a 12-point peace plan for the war in Ukraine was published by China less than a month ago.
Mr Stoltenberg, who was speaking at the Nato headquarters in Brussels, said: ‘Our message has been that China should not provide lethal aid to Russia.
‘That would be to support an illegal war, and only prolong the war, and support the illegal invasion of Ukraine by Russia.’
At least three persons have been killed by a drone strike on a residential area in the Kyiv region as a result of Russian forces attacking multiple Ukrainian cities.
In the early hours of Wednesday, two residential buildings in the nearby city of Rzhyshchiv suffered damage to their upper floors.
According to rescue services, one of the victims was 11 years old.
Separately, officials in the Crimea that Russia has annexed said that a drone attack by the Ukrainian military had been repelled.
Residents of the port city of Sevastopol reported hearing explosions.
There was no comment from Ukraine’s military, which said earlier this week it had destroyed missiles destined for the fleet at a rail hub in Dzhankoi in northern Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had launched more than 20 “killer drones”, as well as missiles and shells.
Referring to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s departure from Russia hours earlier, he said that every time “someone tries to hear the word ‘peace’ in Moscow,” another order was given to launch attacks.
On Tuesday President Vladimir Putin said that many provisions of a 12-point Chinese peace plan “can be taken as the basis for settling of the conflict in Ukraine, whenever the West and Kyiv are ready for it”.
The plan makes no specific proposals and does not call explicitly for Russian forces to leave Ukraine’s sovereign territory.
In a separate Russian attack, three people were wounded in the southern city of Odesa, when a three-storey building was hit in the grounds of a monastery, presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak said.
Drones were also fired at the north-western region of Zhytomyr, but no-one was reported hurt. Ukraine’s military said 16 of the 21 drones launched on Wednesday were shot down.
Air raid sirens rang out across Ukraine hours afterwards, amid reports that Russian warplanes carrying long-range missiles had taken to the air.
Russian “Kalibr” cruise missiles that were being transported by train in the town of Dzhankoi, in Russian-occupied Crimea, were destroyed, according to a strike, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense announced late Monday.
Although they did not officially take credit for the attack, Ukrainian authorities claimed it further “demilitarizes Russia and prepares the Crimean peninsula for de-occupation.”
The region’s air defense system was activated, and Sergei Askyonov, the Russian-installed leader of the annexation-affected peninsula, confirmed there had been an attack. According to Askyonov, one individual was hurt and two buildings sustained damage.
Amateur video geolocated by CNN shows a large explosion and resulting fireball. An individual is heard saying off-camera the strike hit the train station. However, the video did not clearly show what had been hit and CNN hasn’t been able to confirm the exact location of the strike.
Two of Russia’s most important military airfields in Crimea are located in Dzhankoi and Gvardeyskoye, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in 2022.
“Dzhankoi is also a key road and rail junction that plays an important role in supplying Russia’s operations in southern Ukraine,” it said.
Crimea also hosts an important port and a major naval base for Russia’s Black Sea fleet in the city of Sevastopol. Some of Russia’s most important warships have been docked there, including surface ships equipped with cruise missiles.
The US has previously accused Russia of using cruise missiles fired from ships in the Black Sea to hit civilian targets in Ukraine.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2021, Ukraine has launched multiple strikes against Russian positions in Crimea and operations that its military said destroyed Russian Kalibr cruise missiles.
Ukrainian officials, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, have repeatedly vowed to liberate the peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014. Zelensky has previously stressed that for Ukrainians, Crimea is “not just some territory” but “a part of our people, our society.”
The strike follows Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Crimea on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of its annexation. The visit, which also included a stop in Russian-occupied Mariupol, came just days after the International Criminal Court accused the Russian president of committing war crimes in Ukraine and issued a warrant for his arrest over an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.
The ICC charges are the first to be formally lodged against officials in Moscow since it began its unprovoked attack on Ukraine last year. The Kremlin has labeled the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable.”
The strike comes as Putin hosts Chinese leader Xi Jinping at the Kremlin in Moscow. During a meeting on Monday, Xi told Putin that China and Russia have “similar goals” and he expressed support for Putin to be reelected. The war in Ukraine was raised in the first hours of their meeting, and is expected to be a key point of discussion throughout Xi’s three-day visit.
On the ninth anniversary of his illegitimate takeover of the Ukrainian peninsula, Putin defies the West and travels to Crimea.
Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia, paid a visit to Mariupol, a Ukrainian city that has been occupied, on his first trip since an arrest warrant was issued.
Russian news agencies said that he was in the city which became a worldwide symbol of defiance after outgunned and outmanned Ukrainian forces held out in a steel mill there for nearly three months.
It was eventually taken over by the Kremlin in May.
Yesterday Putin travelled to Crimea, a short distance south-west of Mariupol, to mark the ninth anniversary of the Black Sea peninsula’s annexation from Ukraine.
The Russian President visited the city today (Picture: ZvezdaNews/e2w)
The visits came days after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for the Russian leader accusing him of war crimes.
Mr Putin arrived in Mariupol by helicopter and then drove himself around the city’s ‘memorial sites’, concert hall and coastline.
They said Mr Putin also met with residents in the city’s Nevskyi district.
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Marat Khusnulin made clear that Russia is in Mariupol to stay.
He said the government hopes to finish the reconstruction of its damaged city centre by the end of the year.
He said: ‘People have started to return. When they saw that reconstruction is underway, people started actively returning.’
When Moscow fully captured the city in May, an estimated 100,000 people remained out of a pre-war population of 450,000. Many were trapped without food, water, heat, or electricity.
Putin made the unannounced visit just days after a warrant for his arrest was issued.
Relentless bombardment left rows upon rows of shattered or hollowed-out buildings.
Mariupol’s plight first came into focus with a Russian air strike on a maternity hospital in March last year, less than two weeks after Kremlin troops moved into Ukraine.
A week later, about 300 people were reported killed in the bombing of a theatre that was serving as the city’s largest bomb shelter.
Evidence obtained by the AP last spring suggested that the real death toll could be closer to 600.
A small group of Ukrainian fighters held out for 83 days in the sprawling Azovstal steelworks in eastern Mariupol before surrendering, their dogged defence tying down Russian forces and coming to symbolise Ukrainian tenacity in the face of Moscow’s aggression.
Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world denounced as illegal, and moved on last September to officially claim four regions in Ukraine’s south and east as Russian territory, following referendums that Kyiv and the West described as a sham.
An important human rights organization has declared Vladimir Putin to be a “wanted man” after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest order for him on charges of war crimes in Ukraine.
The Russian president is the subject of a warrant that seeks to extradite him to The Hague, Netherlands, to stand trial for allegedly smuggling Ukrainian minors into his nation.
Since the beginning of the large-scale invasion, reports by the UN, many human rights organizations, and the US-based Conflict Observatory have described a “vast network” of detention centers and convoys.
The charges laid down by the ICC this afternoon relate to the ‘unlawful deportation’ of children from occupied areas of Ukraine into Russia and states that there are grounds to believe the two suspects bear ‘criminal responsibility’ for the alleged crimes.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) is working to document war crimes and has previously told of ‘unspeakable stories’ regarding alleged executions, torture, rape and looting by Moscow’s troops.
Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director, said: ‘This is a big day for the many victims of crimes committed by Russian forces in Ukraine since 2014. With these arrest warrants, the ICC has made Putin a wanted man and taken its first step to end the impunity that has emboldened perpetrators in Russia’s war against Ukraine for far too long.
‘The warrants send a clear message that giving orders to commit or tolerating serious crimes against civilians may lead to a prison cell in The Hague. The court’s warrants are a wakeup call to others committing abuses or covering them up that their day in court may be coming, regardless of their rank or position.’
In April last year, HRW crisis and conflict director Ida Sawyer spoke of harrowing cases of human rights abuses by the Kremlin’s troops.
Victims and witnesses who spoke to the non-profit organisation told of rape, summary executions, unlawful violence and threats.
Cases of ‘forcible transfers’ of Ukrainian civilians into Russia or other occupied areas have also been documented by the group in what it has described as ‘a potential crime against humanity’.
International Criminal Court issues arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin
The warrant for Mr Putin and another for Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Russia’s commissioner for children’s rights, relate to the alleged trafficking of children across the border into Russia.
ICC president Piotr Hofmanksi said: ‘It is forbidden by international law for occupying powers to transfer civilians from the territory they live in to other territories.
‘Children enjoy special protection under the Geneva Convention.’
Mr Hofmanski added: ‘This is an important moment in the process of justice before the ICC.
‘The judges have reviewed the information and evidence submitted by the prosecutor and contend there are credible allegations against these persons for the alleged crimes.
‘The ICC is doing its hard work as a court of law, the judges issued arrest warrants, the execution depends on international co-operation.’
A Microsoft research analysis suggests that Russian hackers are preparing a fresh round of cyberattacks against Ukraine.
The tech giant’s cyber security research and analysis team revealed a number of findings on Wednesday on the methods used by Russian hackers during the crisis in Ukraine and potential next steps.
“From January 2023, Microsoft has witnessed Russian cyber threat activity shifting to strengthen damaging and intelligence collecting capacity on Ukraine and its partners’ civilian and military assets,” the paper stated.
One group ‘appears to be preparing for a renewed destructive campaign’.
Microsoft found that a particularly sophisticated Russian hacking team, known as Sandworm, was testing ‘additional ransomware-style capabilities that could be used in destructive attacks on organizations outside Ukraine that serve key functions in Ukraine’s supply lines’.
Russian hackers appear to be preparing a renewed wave of cyber attacks against Ukraine, according to a research report by Microsoft (Picture: EPA)
A ransomware attack typically involves hackers penetrating an organization, encrypting their data and extorting them for payment to regain access.
Historically, ransomware has also been used as cover for more malicious cyber activity, including so-called wipers that simply destroy data.
Since January 2022, Microsoft said it had discovered at least nine different wipers and two types of ransomware variants used against more than 100 Ukrainian organizations.
‘In 2023, Russia has stepped up its espionage attacks, targeting organizations in at least 17 European nations, mostly government agencies. Wiper attacks continue in Ukraine.’ said Clint Watts, general manager for Microsoft’s Digital Threat Analysis Center.
These developments have been paired with a growth in more stealthy Russian cyber operations designed to directly compromise organizations in countries allied to Ukraine, according to the report.
Since January 2023, Microsoft has observed Russian cyber threat activity adjusting to boost destructive and intelligence gathering capacity on Ukraine (Picture: AFP)
As of late November 2022, Microsoft and other security firms identified a new form of ransomware, called ‘Sullivan’, deployed against Ukrainian targets, in addition to the ‘Prestige’ ransomware Russia deployed in Ukraine and Poland in October 2022.
‘Our analysis suggests that Russia will continue to conduct espionage attacks against Ukraine and Ukraine’s partners, and destructive attacks within and potentially outside Ukraine as was done with Prestige,’ said Watts.
Moscow has also taken to spreading propaganda aimed at Ukrainian refugees across Europe, trying to convince them that they could be deported and conscripted into the Ukrainian military.
Russian media promoted protests supported by a pro-Russia political party encouraging citizens to demand the government pay for winter energy bills.
Since January 2022, Microsoft had discovered two types of ransomware variants used against more than 100 Ukrainian organizations (Picture: AFP)
Another Russia-aligned campaign called ‘Moldova Leaks’ published alleged leaks from Moldovan politicians, just one of many of hack-and-leak operations aimed at sowing distrust between European citizens and their governments.
The findings come as Russia has been introducing new troops to the battlefield in eastern Ukraine, according to Western security officials.
Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov last month warned that Russia could accelerate its military activities surrounding the February 24 anniversary of its invasion.
The Russian embassy in Washington did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
Judges order the issuance of an arrest warrant for theRussian president in connection with the alleged kidnapping of Ukrainian children; Moscow rejects this decision.
For alleged war crimes in Ukraine, the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, the president of Russia.
In a statement released on Friday, the Hague-based court said the warrant was issued due to Putin’s alleged involvement in the forcible removal and transfer of children from the occupied territories of Ukraine to Russia.
“There are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility for the aforementioned crimes,” added the court, which has no police force of its own to enforce warrants.
The ICC also issued a warrant for the arrest of Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the commissioner for children’s rights in the office of the Russian president on similar allegations.
Situation in #Ukraine: #ICC judges issue arrest warrants against Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova Read more ⤵️ https://t.co/5OMC7Xuuy5
Russia, which denies committing atrocities since it invaded Ukraine in February last year, does not recognise the ICC’s jurisdiction and does not extradite its nationals.
“The decisions of the International Criminal Court have no meaning for our country, including from a legal point of view,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on her Telegram channel after the ICC’s announcement.
“Russia is not a party to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and bears no obligations under it.”
But ICC President Piotr Hofmanski told Al Jazeera it was “completely irrelevant” that Russia had not ratified the Rome Statute.
“According to the ICC statute, which has 123 state parties, two-thirds of the whole international community, the court has jurisdiction over crimes committed in the territory of a state party or a state which has accepted its jurisdiction,” he said. “Ukraine has accepted the ICC twice – in 2014 and then in 2015.”
Hofmanski said 43 states had referred “the situation in Ukraine to the court, which means they have formally triggered our jurisdiction.
“The court has jurisdiction over crimes committed on anyone on the territory of Ukraine from November 2013 onwards regardless of nationality of the alleged perpetrators.”
The warrants came a day after a United Nations-backed inquiry accused Russia of committing wide-ranging war crimes in Ukraine, including the forced deportations of children in areas it controls.
Ukraine’s Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin hailed the ICC’s decision.
“The world received a signal that the Russian regime is criminal and its leadership and henchmen will be held accountable,” he said in a statement on social media. “This is a historic decision for Ukraine and the entire system of international law.”
James Bays, Al Jazeera’s diplomatic editor, described the ICC’s move as “very serious”.
He said there were many who welcomed the announcement but there were others who raised questioned whether this would be a problem for diplomacy going forward.
“Now you have the head of state of Russia, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, who is now a wanted man by the ICC,” he said.
“This is going to be a headache for some of those who are going to have to deal with President Putin – how are other countries going to deal with him?” Bays added. “Will President Putin be able to travel?”
He said: ‘When the war started, the pictures that we started to see of the war in the news and on Telegram channels were depressive and scary.
‘But then Russia started to say that (Ukrainians) were bombing their own cities, which is a complete lie.
Photographers wanted to capture the reality of the destruction (Picture: PA)People can compare before and after photos (Picture: PA)
‘And to fight that propaganda, we decided to fight behind the cameras.’
He said Irpin and Borodyanka are ‘probably the most destroyed’ he filmed.
‘I know those villages – I have travelled through them a lot for business and pleasure – and to see the destruction was terrible. I was devastated,’ he said.
‘I thought after filming in the Kyiv region I was ready for many things, but when I went to Kharkiv – there’s a region called Saltivka, which is on the east border – it was even more terrible because there was nothing else left but schools and apartments.
‘The team are so focused on showing proof of damage caused in their country, they are willing to risk their lives to do so.
‘This is our own equipment, our own cards, our own lives.
The photographers risk their lives capturing the photos (Picture: PA)Cities people can look at include Kyiv, Irpin, Kharkiv, Izyum, Chernihiv and Sumy (Picture: PA)
‘No-one’s going to pay us back if a missile hits the car, destroys the drone or 360 cameras.
‘We were flying drones in one area to see what the damage was and a little girl – around five years old – came to us and said, “Are you going to bomb us today?”
‘(Another time), a person came out of their completely destroyed house and he asked what we were doing and when he found this information out, he brought us plums.
‘Stories like that put scars on my heart.’
The war has had a huge impact on his feelings of safety and security in other places.
‘Every time I hear a noise, I still duck,’ he said.
‘I still look around to see what it is because my mind is still in Ukraine and understands that there’s a war and a missile can go off anywhere.’
He has plans to film in other cities when they are safer and filming permission is granted.
In response to Russia’s escalating invasion of Ukraine, a group of painters painted murals throughout Nairobi, the capital of Kenya.
“The policy of destruction and elimination of Ukrainian identity is one of Russia’s key elements in the war against Ukraine,” said Emine Dzhaparova, Ukraine’s deputy minister for foreign affairs.
“In our temporarily occupied territories, Russian invaders closed Ukrainian schools and imposed their language and history,” the minister added.
Kenyan artists Moha and Eliamin Ink and their Ukrainian counterparts Alina Konyk, Nikita Kravtsov, and Andrii Kovtun created the mural that stands on the wall of Phoenix House at the heart of Nairobi city.
“I am sure that our artistic collaboration is a perfect opportunity to start our diplomatical relationships in a place of culture,” said Nikita Kravtsov, a Ukrainian concept-artist.
The mural uses coffee and wheat grains to symbolise the political, economic, and diplomatic ties between Kenya and Ukraine.
A young woman from Ukraine who was discovered unconscious on a Devon beach died from “many injuries,” an inquest has heard.
Albina Yevko, 14, passed away in the hospital after emergency personnel discovered her on a Dawlish beach after her mother reported her missing.
A Devon county coroner named Alison Longhorn launched an inquest into the teen’s passing.
She claimed Albina was from Ukraine and attended the neighborhood school while residing with her mother Inna in a flat in a beach town.
Miss Longhorn said Albina was reported missing by her mother and an ‘extensive multi-agency search’ was carried out and Albina was found on the beach.
She was pronounced dead at the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital at 7am on March 5th.
Miss Longhorn said further tests are being carried out to establish the exact cause of death but confirmed there are no suspicious circumstances.
Police searching after the teenager disappeared (Picture: SWNS)Albina was found unconscious on the beach (Picture: Devon & Cornwall Police)Emergency services said the teenager died in hospital (Picture: SWNS)
She said a post-mortem had been carried out by a Home Office pathologist who said Albina died of ‘multiple injuries’.
Ms Longhorn said: ‘I’m unable to proceed to a full inquest today as there clearly remains evidence outstanding.
‘That evidence will be collected and collated by my coroner’s officer and will include a final post mortem examination report.
‘A preliminary cause of death has been given as multiple injuries.’
The coroner said she is awaiting a full autopsy report and the laboratory tests before a full inquest can be held at Exeter’s County Hall at a later date.
Devon and Cornwall police had earlier stated that a CCTV trawl, the port mortem and a review of Albina’s phone showed there was no third party involvement in her death which was not suspicious.
Detective Inspector Becky Davies said: ‘Following police enquiries undertaken throughout the Dawlish area, including CCTV trawls, review of Albina’s phone and a forensic post mortem; investigative officers can confirm that there was no third party involvement and that the death of Albina Yevko is not suspicious.
‘Our investigation shows that Albina had settled very well in the UK since moving from Ukraine and enjoyed living by the sea and being part of a new family.
‘She had made good friends, both Ukrainian and English in the UK, enjoyed school and was very much welcomed by the local community.
‘We have informed Albina’s next of kin of our findings and we ask that their privacy is respected at such a difficult time.
‘The police’s role is to continue gathering information surrounding this matter and to submit a file to the coroner who will hold an inquest into this death in due course.
‘We would like to thank everyone who has helped us with our investigation into this matter. Our thoughts are with all who knew Albina at this tragic time.’
Albina had moved to the UK in May last year after the Russian invasion – and was settling into new life and attending the local secondary school.
Paying an earlier tribute alongside the release of a photo of her daughter, Inna said: ‘Myself and my family are devastated to have lost our beautiful Albina.
‘Nothing can ever replace her in our hearts. ‘We ask that our privacy is respected at this incredibly painful time.’
Albina had moved to the UK in May last year after the Russian invasion and friends described her as a ‘normal teenager – calm, kind and smart’.
Ukraine has invited Florida Governor Ron DeSantis to visit, after the Republican dismissed the Russian invasion as a “territorial dispute”.
Mr. DeSantis, who is widely expected to run for president in 2024, made his comments in response to questions posed to potential Republican candidates.
According to the former congressman, the country’s “vital national interests” do not include continued US support for Ukraine.
The remark implied that if elected president, he would likely reduce aid.
It also aligned Mr DeSantis with former President Donald Trump, the leading contender for the Republican nomination, who has opposed US support for Kyiv and criticised the Biden administration’s handling of the war.
Their comments show the divide in the Republican Party between isolationists who are sceptical of providing military aid and the establishment party policy of supporting Kyiv.
In his response to a questionnaire by Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson, Mr DeSantis said: “While the US has many vital national interests… becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them.”
The 44-year-old has not officially announced his intention to challenge Mr Trump for the Republican nomination, but has been taking all the necessary steps suggesting he will do so.
When asked the same question on whether US backing for Kyiv was vital for Washington, Mr Trump said: “No, it is for Europe. But not for the United States.”
Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesman Oleg Nikolenko criticised Mr DeSantis’s comments and tweeted his invitation to the Republican governor on Tuesday.
“We are sure that as a former military officer deployed to a combat zone, Governor Ron DeSantis knows the difference between a ‘dispute’ and war,” Mr Nikolenko said.
“We invite him to visit Ukraine to get a deeper understanding of Russia’s full-scale invasion and the threats it poses to US interests.”
While studying law at Harvard University, Mr DeSantis was commissioned as an officer in the US Navy and was assigned to its legal arm, the Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) Corps.
His service as a JAG officer included working with detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, as well as an assignment as a legal adviser for elite US Navy Seals deployed to Iraq.
Many Republicans, including the party’s senior leadership in the Senate, have long said defending Ukraine is in the best interests of the US.
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham said Mr DeSantis’ comments displayed “a misunderstanding of the situation” on the part of the governor.
“This is not a territorial conflict, it’s a war of aggression. To say it doesn’t matter is to say war crimes don’t matter,” Mr Graham said.
Former Vice-President Mike Pence has also called for the US to increase its support.
But there is a vocal wing of the party – mostly in the House of Representatives – that is hesitant about the continuing aid.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has supported Ukraine, but recently warned that there “can’t be a blank cheque” for the country given the scale of US debt.
Politicians from both parties in Congress have voted in favour of Western support for Ukraine, approving more than $112bn (£92.47bn) in 2022 alone.
The US is the largest contributor to Ukraine in terms of money spent. It pays for drones, tanks, missiles and other munitions systems, as well as training, logistics and intelligence support.
Humanitarian aid has included food assistance, safe drinking water, medical supplies and other necessities for Ukrainians displaced by the conflict. Financial aid keeps Ukraine’s government operating by paying civil servants, healthcare workers and teachers.
Image caption,Largest donors of aid to Ukraine as percent of donor country GDP.
On Thursday morning, Moscow intensified its assault on the entire nation while a lethargic ground conflict dragged on in the east, showering Kyiv, Lviv, and other significant cities across Ukraine with what officials described as an unprecedented assortment of missiles.
Six Kinzhal ballistic missiles, which can avoid Kyiv’s air defenses, were among the 81 missiles launched in the “massive strike” against Ukrainian infrastructure, according to the Ukrainian military.
“The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don’t remember seeing before,” Yurii Ihnat, spokesman for the Air Force Command of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television Thursday.
“So far, we have no capabilities to counter these weapons,” he added, referring to the Kinzhals, plus six X-22 air-launched cruise missiles that were also launched by Russian forces.
“It’s been a difficult night,” President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday in a Facebook message.
“The enemy fired 81 missiles in an attempt to intimidate Ukrainians again, returning to their miserable tactics. The occupiers can only terrorize civilians. That’s all they can do. But it won’t help them. They won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done,” Zelensky said.
He listed 10 regions across Ukraine where aerial attacks took place, including Dnipro, Odesa, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, and said the attacks hit “critical infrastructure and residential buildings.”
Russia used the nuclear-capable Kinzhal missile, which it has described as a hypersonic weapon, on a few occasions in the first weeks of its invasion last year. But the powerful weapon, which Ukraine doesn’t have the capability to shoot down, has rarely been seen over the country’s skies.
At least 16 people were killed and more than 20 injured during the overnight attacks, according to preliminary information from regional authorities.
In Kyiv, an air raid alert lasted for almost 7 hours overnight into Thursday and power outages were implemented as a preventative measure, regionalauthorities said. In the Zolochiv community near Lviv, a fire broke out when the fragments of a Russian missile were shot down, regional authorities said.
The fire destroyed three residential buildings, and three cars. The rubble was being cleared and rescuers were searching for additional victims on Thursday morning. Several infrastructure facilities and other buildings were hit elsewhere in Ukraine.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said Thursday the barrage of missile strikes it launched was retaliation for what the ministry called “terrorist actions” organized by Kyiv in Russia’s Bryansk region last week.
“In response to the terrorist actions in the Bryansk region organized by the Kyiv regime on March 2 this year, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation delivered a massive retaliation strike,” it said in a statement.
“High-precision long-range air, sea and land-based weapons, including the Kinzhal hypersonic missile system, hit key elements of Ukraine’s military infrastructure, military-industrial complex enterprises, as well as energy facilities that serve them,” the ministry said.
Russian security officials claimed a small Ukrainian armed group last week crossed the Russian border into the southern Bryansk region. Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said the agency was carrying out operations following “armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border.” Russian President Vladimir Putin described the incident as a “terrorist attack.” A local official said two civilians were killed.
CNN cannot independently verify the Russian claims, and local media did not carry any images of the supposed incidents, any type of confrontation or an alleged raid reported by Russian authorities.
The use of such a wide and unpredictable array of weaponry seemingly marks a shift in the Kremlin’s strategy.
The Kinzhal, an air-launched variant of the Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) which has also, more frequently, been used in Ukraine, was unveiled by Putin in 2018 as a cornerstone of a modernized Russian arsenal.
Like virtually all ballistic missiles it is hypersonic, which means they travel at least five times the speed of sound, but it is also particularly difficult to detect because it can be launched from MiG-31 fighter jets, giving it a longer range and the ability to attack from multiple directions.
“Russia likely developed the unique missile to more easily target critical European infrastructure … (its) speed, in combination with the missile’s erratic flight trajectory and high maneuverability, could complicate interception,” according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
Russia’s use of the missile on Ukrainian targets last March was its first known use in combat, according to CSIS, and it was subsequently used again in May.
Eight Iranian-made Shahed drones were also used in Thursday’s attacks, authorities said. A senior US defense official said Thursday that Ukraine is becoming a “battle lab” for testing Iranian weapons outside of the Middle East. The official spoke ahead of US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s visit to Israel where Iranian-Russian military cooperation will be on the agenda.
“Everyone should be preparing for what the threat scenarios look like when Iran takes the tactics, techniques and procedures it learned in Ukraine and starts to use those coercive tactics here,” the official said in reference to the Middle East.
The barrage came as most focus in Ukraine was fixed to Bakhmut, the eastern city that Russia’s ground forces have been assaulting for weeks and appear to be on the cusp of capturing.
Ukraine’s troops have sustained a determined defense of the city even as some military experts advocate for a tactical withdrawal.
Zelensky said in an interview with CNN on Tuesday that Kyiv’s ongoing resistance in the city is “tactical,” warning that Russians could advance towards other key cities to the west if they capture Bakhmut.
“We understand that after Bakhmut they could go further. They could go to Kramatorsk, they could go to Sloviansk, it would be open road for the Russians after Bakhmut to other towns in Ukraine, in the Donetsk direction,” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer in an exclusive interview from Kyiv. “That’s why our guys are standing there.”
Correction: This story has been updated to clarify that virtually all ballistic missiles — not missiles in general — are hypersonic.
Following Russia’s nighttime missile bombardment in Ukraine, the largest nuclear power facility in Europe is currently in a condition of blackout.
According to nuclear state operator Energoatom, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power facility, which is controlled by Russian soldiers, lost electricity last night.
Since being seized by Russia months ago, this is the sixth time the station has had plenty of power, forcing it to rely on 18 diesel generators that can keep the station running for 10 days.
Rafael Grossi, the nuclear chief for the UN, has issued a warning on the site’s ongoing power failures.
He said: ‘Each time we are rolling a dice, and if we allow this to continue time after time then one day our luck will run out.’
It comes after Russia fired more than 80 missiles, with Ukraine’s military saying eight drones were involved.
Nuclear plants need constant power to run cooling systems and avoid a meltdown.
‘The countdown has begun,’ Energoatom said.
Ukraine’s energy minister Herman Halushchenko condemned the missile strikes as ‘another barbaric massive attack on the energy infrastructure of Ukraine’.
Three Russian rockets launched against Ukraine from Russia’s Belgorod region are seen in Kharkiv.People shelter inside a subway station during a Russian missile attack in Kyiv (Picture: Reuters)
Smoke seen rising from Kyiv’s Thermoelectric Power Plant following Russian strike
He said facilities in Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions have been targeted.
Four people died in the Lviv region after a missile hit a residential area, governor Maksym Kozytskyi said.
Three buildings were gutted by fire after the strike and rescue workers were combing through rubble looking for more possible victims.
A fifth person was killed and two others hurt in multiple strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region which targeted its energy infrastructure and industrial facilities, governor Serhii Lysak said.
Air raid sirens wailed through the night across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, where explosions happened in two western areas of the city.
Emergency workers extinguish cars on fire in Kyiv Rescuers work at residential buildings hit by Russian missiles in Kyiv.
Smoke rises over Kyiv after overnight Russian missile strikes
Defence systems were activated around the country and it was not clear how many missiles hit targets or were intercepted.
The alarm in Kyiv was lifted just before 8am, with the air raid sirens falling silent after seven hours
The missile barrage hit as Russia pushed its advance in Ukraine’s eastern stronghold of Bakhmut, where a grinding fight between the two sides has gone on for six months and reduced the city to a smouldering wasteland.
The last major Russian offensive took place on February 16.
This morning, Ukraine was the target of a round of Russian airstrikes, according to reports.
The attacks mark the largest day of Russian missile attacks on Ukraine since late January, when dozens of structures were hit across numerous areas, killing 11 people.
Power outages were caused by a mass missile attack that hit an energy facility in the port city of Odesa, according to its governor Maksym Marchenko. Even though there were no casualties reported, residential areas were also impacted.
“About 15” strikes hit Kharkiv city and region, with “critical infrastructure facilities” and a residential building targeted, regional administration chief Oleg Synegubov said.
In western Ukraine, at least five people were killed in Lviv after a rocket hit their home, the region’s governor Maksym Kozytskyi said on Telegram.
One person has died and two others were injured following drone and missile strikes in the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to governor Serhii Lysak.
Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has been left without an electricity supply following a Russian strike and is currently running on diesel generators, says Ukraine’s nuclear energy operator.
“The last line of communication between the occupied Zaporizhzhia NPP and the Ukrainian power system was cut off as a result of rocket attacks,” Energoatom said in a statement.
Russia-installed officials in the Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said the halt in electricity supplies from Ukrainian-held territory was “a provocation”.
The complex has been under Russian occupation since early March last year, although Ukrainian technicians still operate it.
Both Ukraine and Russia accuse each other of repeatedly shelling the plant amid global concerns it could lead to a major radiation incident.
