February 25, 2024 - Russia-Ukraine news

Early voting in the Russian presidential election is underway in the Russian-occupied c region of Ukraine, Russian state news agency TASS reported on Sunday.

TASS said that first people to vote would be residents of settlements near the front line, including military personnel.

The election, which is scheduled to take place next month, will see longtime Russian leader Vladimir Putin run virtually unopposed for a fifth term that will keep him in power until 2030. Anti-war candidate Boris Nadezhdin was barred from standing in the contest earlier this month.

Zaporizhzhia is one of four Ukrainian regions Russia said it would annex in September 2022 in violation of international law following referenda that were universally dismissed as “shams” by Ukraine and Western nations.

Russia has previously held elections in territory it has occupied, part of its efforts to enforce Russian legitimacy in the parts of Ukraine it holds. TASS reported that residents can vote by presenting either Russian or Ukrainian passports.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the West must be "bolder" in supporting Ukraine, providing the country with more long-range weapons, drones and munitions to stave off a resurgent Russian military advance.

Sunak said that his country and its Western democratic allies must not give in to the increasing pessimism over Kyiv's ability to defeat Moscow. He said it is up to Ukraine's partners to confront the "tough" situation on the battlefield, but also to change it.

Sunak also used the same word – "bolder" – in calling for the West to step up its seizure of Russian assets.

On Saturday, G7 leaders said they remained committed to supporting Ukraine for “as long as it takes."

President Alexander Lukashenko, the longtime Belarusian strongman and key ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said he will run for another term in elections set to be held in 2025, Belarusian state news agency BelTA reported on Sunday.

Lukashenko made the announcement while speaking to journalists at a polling station after voting in parliamentary and local council elections.

Lukashenko has been in power since 1994. His regime has been repeatedly accused of human rights abuses and stifling political opposition. During the last election in 2020, the opposition alleged Lukashenko's regime engaged in electoral fraud to keep him in power.

Belarus has been an important partner to Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago, when Minsk allowed Moscow's troops to enter the country through the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) Ukrainian-Belarusian border before launching its opening salvo.

Two years ago, when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I was among the many long-time observers of the Kremlin who got it wrong.

Few could fathom why Vladimir Putin, Russia’s calculating leader, would embark on such a risky military adventure, especially when the mere threat of a Russian invasion was already yielding results.

In June the previous year, as Russian forces massed near Ukraine, US President Joe Biden met Putin at a superpower-style summit, describing the US and Russia as “two great powers” elevating the Russian leader after previous US administrations had sought to downplay Russia’s influence.

In the days before the 2022 invasion, Washington offered a “pragmatic evaluation” of Moscow’s security concerns, signalling openness to compromise.

Pitching Russian forces against one of the region’s biggest standing armies seemed uncharacteristically reckless and, therefore, unlikely.

There were others, though, who rightly saw the invasion as inevitable, better reading the Kremlin’s intentions, and confidently predicting a swift Russian victory at the hands of Moscow’s vastly superior forces.

Two years on, I like to think that those of us who doubted the Kremlin’s resolve were wrong for the right reasons.

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South Korea recorded a record number of Russian nationals seeking asylum in the country in 2023, according to a report released by the Korean Immigration Service.

A total of 5,750 Russian citizens sought asylum in South Korea in 2023, a five-fold increase from the 1,038 who had sought protection the year before and more than the total number recorded between 1994 and 2019.

Russians made up the single largest nationality of the 18,838 total asylum seekers in South Korea in 2023 followed by Kazakhstan (2,094), China (1,282), Malaysia (1,205), India (1,189), Mongolia (836), and Turkey (564).

Asylum applications in 2023 were the highest for at least the past eight years according to data from the Immigration Service, which is part of the Ministry of Justice.

South Korea has notoriously strict immigration laws which include requests for asylum. From 1994 to the end of 2023 103,760 people applied for refugee status, of which only 4,052 people have so far been recognized as refugees, according to the ministry’s report.

The most common reason applicants gave for asylum protection were persecution based on religion, followed by political persecution. Other reasons included discrimination for being a member of a specific social group, race or nationality.

The trend has continued into the beginning of 2024, according to figures released on Thursday.

In January, Russians recorded the highest number of nationals seeking asylum compared to other nationals in South Korea with 376, followed by India (142), Mongolia (142), Kazakhstan (132), China (129), Malaysia (113), Turkey (66), Pakistan, Egypt, Bangladesh, and others.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has marked the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion by saying his country "will succeed."

Foreign leaders have been arriving in Ukraine to show solidarity on the anniversary. As the war enters its third year, the future of the conflict remains uncertain.

Below are the latest developments:

Early voting has begun in some areas of Russia ahead of the upcoming presidential election, according to state news agency TASS.

Approximately 70,000 people will be able to vote early in the district, according to TASS.

The early voting begins just after the second anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine and amid controversy surrounding the death of Vladimir Putin's long-time opponent Alexey Navalny, who had been incarcerated since returning to Russia in 2021.

Voting in the presidential election is scheduled to take place from March 15 to 17. It will be the first three-day presidential election in the history of the Russian Federation, according to TASS.

Oleksandr's prosthetic eye twinkles, damaged from the siege of the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, one of the more savage battles of the invasion’s first three months. The 38-year-old exudes gratitude in each breath, having survived the threat of hanging or firing squad while held as a prisoner of war by Russia for more than four months in 2022.

His control over his emotions has tightened after last summer’s bitter counteroffensive, where he fought in Urozhaine, in the south. And now, he’s talking to CNN in Kherson city during a brief break from the battle across the river – where Ukraine seized a foothold after a madcap amphibious dash by Ukrainian forces last summer, which Russia claimed Tuesday it had ended.

He is fond of punctuating his story with the phrases, “I am no politician” and “it is in our hands” — perhaps a reflection of how the Western aid that kept Ukraine in the fight for the last two years now partially looks in doubt.

"This is a difficult freedom, I don’t argue,” he said, as shelling reverberated around the liberated yet bombarded city. “But I don’t want to lose it.”

“I don’t want to bend over for some senile idiot,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Read about how Oleksandr and Ukraine as a whole have survived during the war.

In the past two years, about 28,000 frontline soldiers have been brought to Mechnikov Hospital in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro, hospital director Serhiy Ryzhenko tells CNN's Christiane Amanpour.

Now, 50 to 100 patients from around the town of Avdiivka in the eastern Donetsk region arrive every day in "very serious" condition, according to Ryzhenko. Last week, Ukraine announced the withdrawal of its forces from Avdiivka, which in recent months became one of the most fiercely contested battles on the eastern front.

There is a 95% survival rate in the hospital's operating rooms — which conduct surgeries nonstop — as years of war in eastern Ukraine has led to improved combat surgery techniques, Ryzhenko added.

A wounded army sergeant, Vasily, recently had surgery that left him without three of his limbs.

He says there are not enough troops or ammunition on the ground, but resolve is still strong.

He says despite his lost limbs, he is eager to get back to the eastern front, to possibly be a trainer for others.