March 16, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Poland is set to provide Ukraine with four MiG-29 fighter jets in the coming days, Polish President Andrzej Duda said on Thursday, becoming the first NATO country to do so.

Warsaw has taken a lead among NATO allies in supplying Kyiv with heavy weapons, including the Soviet-designed fighters. “When it comes to the MI-29 aircraft, which are still operating in the defense of Polish airspace, a decision has been taken at the highest levels, we can say confidently that we are sending MIGs to Ukraine,” Duda said.

“We have a dozen or so MIGS that we got in the 90s handed down from the German Democratic Republic and they are functional and play a part in the defense of our airspace. They are at the end of their operational life but are still functional,” Duda added.

Speaking at a press conference in Warsaw, along with his new Czech counterpart Petr Pavel, the Polish president expressed their joint backing for Kyiv.

“The Czech Republic and Poland are countries that are in the absolute vanguard when it comes to supporting Ukraine, both at humanitarian and military levels,” President Duda said.

More background: Thursday’s announcement comes after NATO allies agreed earlier this year to send modern Western battle tanks to Ukraine.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced his country would provide 14 Leopard 2 tanks in January, bowing to intensifying international pressure – led by the United States, Poland and a bloc of other European nations, which called on Berlin to step up its military support and commit to sending their sought-after vehicles.

The announcement was matched by the US, with President Joe Biden saying that he would provide 31 M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, reversing the administration’s longstanding resistance to requests from Kyiv for the highly sophisticated but maintenance-heavy vehicles.

Since the decision on the tanks, top Ukrainian officials have escalated their public lobbying campaign for US-made F-16 fighter jets, arguing they need them urgently to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks.

But that push has been met with skepticism by US and allied officials who say the jets would be impractical, both because they require considerable training and because Russia has extensive anti-aircraft systems that could easily shoot them down.

CNN's Natasha Bertrand and Alex Marquardt contributed reporting to this post.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Wednesday, reiterated his stance on the Ukraine war to Russian state-run media RIA, saying that Damascus recognizes the territories claimed by Russia in Ukraine.

"I say that these are Russian territories, and even if the war had not happened, these are historically Russian territories," Assad told RIA.

Some background: Ukraine and Syria cut diplomatic ties last summer. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the severing of ties with Assad’s government after Damascus recognized the independence of the two Russian-backed separatist republics of Donetsk and Luhansk, located in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. 

Syria was the first country, after its close ally Russia, to recognize the independence of the breakaway regions and state its intention to build diplomatic relations with them last month.

In September 2022, Russia also declared the annexation of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions — parts of which are occupied by Russia troops — in defiance of international law after so-called referendums in the regions that were universally dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and Western nations.

Russia began a military operation in Syria to prop up the Assad regime six years before its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has perpetrated a range of war crimes during its war in Ukraine, according to a United Nations commission.

The country has “committed a wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law” in Ukraine, according to a report from the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine released on Thursday.

The report claims that the war crimes carried out by the Russians included “attacks on civilians and energy-related infrastructure, willful killings, unlawful confinement, torture, rape and other sexual violence, as well as unlawful transfers and deportations of children.”

The report also documented a small number of violations perpetrated by the Ukrainian forces, “including likely indiscriminate attacks and two incidents qualifying as war crimes, where Russian prisoners of war were shot, wounded and tortured,” according to a UN statement.

Some more background: This week, the International Criminal Court said it is planning to open two war crimes cases tied to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and issue arrest warrants against “several people,” according to The New York Times and Reuters, citing current and former officials with knowledge of the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.

In February, the US government said it had determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity.

Back in March 2022, the US government declared that members of the Russian armed forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the West of hitting Russia with a "sanctions war," which he blamed for the country's decline in GDP. 

He made the comments at an annual congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs — his first address to the business community since the start of the war in Ukraine

Russia was shifting its economy toward countries that had not introduced sanctions, he added, urging business leaders to help build a new Russian economy and thanking them for their efforts to help the Russian state.

“Russian entrepreneurs always have — in the pre-Revolutionary era, in the last decade — played a big constructive role in Russia, undertaking great responsibilities in developing new territories, social protection, and charity. And (they) have always been rightly proud of this. They have been the pride of our country,” Putin said. 

Russia now has more opportunities than before Western sanctions were introduced, President Vladimir Putin said at the annual congress of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs Thursday.

Despite some "systemic issues with logistics, finances and technologies," huge opportunities are opening up in the country for almost any area of activity, Putin said about the Russian economy's resilience.

He went on to say those who had remained in Russia turned out to be "smarter" compared to the citizens who had left the country. “Those who stayed here and really work turned out to be smarter, more energetic, more efficient than those who left and give advice to our ill-wishers.”

Official figures show the Russian economy contracted 2.1% last year — less than anticipated after nearly a year of tough western sanctions. However, rising expenditures and declining revenues have led to a $34 billion budget deficit, according to the finance ministry.

The fallout from Tuesday's encounter between a Russian fighter jet and a US surveillance drone continues, with new footage showing how the warplane damaged the drone and ultimately forced the US to bring down the drone into the Black Sea.

In Ukraine, fighting in the eastern city of Bakhmut continues as Ukrainian forces show no sign of retreating from the area.

Here are the latest headlines:

US Vice President Kamala Harris Wednesday night rebuffed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ recent comments that US support for Ukraine is not a “vital” national interest.

“If you really understand the issues, you probably would not make statements like that,” she said during her appearance on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

She said that understanding comes “when you’ve had the experience of meeting and understanding the significance of international rules and norms, and the importance of the United States of America standing firm and clear about the significance of sovereignty and territorial integrity, the significance of standing firm against any nation that would try to take by force another nation."

Some background: On Monday, DeSantis, who has not yet announced a presidential bid, said in a statement responding to a questionnaire from Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that “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 explosions at the Security Service building in the Russian city of Rostov were caused by an electrical short-circuit, Vasily Golubev, governor of the Rostov region, said.

It was "determined that the cause of the fire was a short circuit in the electrical wiring inside the building. The spreading fire caused explosions of containers with fuel and lubricants," Golubev said. "The fire spread over an area of 800 square meters (8611 square feet), resulting in the collapse of two walls."

Golubev said that one victim had been hospitalized with moderate injuries.

Earlier, social media video showed a large fire in the southern Russian city, geolocated by CNN to the vicinity of a building used by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).

Footage released by US European Command Thursday morning of the dramatic encounter between a US drone and Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea “absolutely confirms” that there was a physical collision and dumping of fuel, a senior US official has told CNN.

However, the video does not confirm the Russian pilot's intent.

“Don’t know,” the official said on the key question of whether the Russian pilot actually intended to strike the US drone’s propeller.

The official did say that there’s no question that the footage confirms that Russian fighter jets were engaging in “aggressive flying” and “recklessness,” echoing what other US officials have been saying consistently over the last few days.

According to two US officials familiar with the intelligence, senior officials at the Russian Ministry of Defense gave the order for the Russian fighter jets to harass the US drone over the Black Sea this week.

The high-level military officials’ connection to the incident suggests that the fighter jet pilots were not taking rogue action when they interfered with the US drone.

But there is no indication that high-level political leaders in Russia – particularly those in the Kremlin, including President Vladimir Putin — knew about the planned aggression in advance, one of the US officials said.

Some background: US officials and their Russian counterparts have been in an open dispute over what transpired that led to the downing of a US drone over the Black Sea.

CNN's Kylie Atwood and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting.