March 14, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said extending the Black Sea grain deal for 60 days was a “goodwill gesture” on the part of Russia, as its conditions have still not been met.

“The deal cannot stand on one leg," Peskov said when asked why the deal had not been extended by 120 days.

Peskov added that Russia made this step “in the hope that, after such a long time, the conditions and obligations that were taken on by the known parties will be fulfilled.”

Russia and the United Nations agreed on a 60-day extension of the Ukraine grain deal after negotiations in Geneva, Russian state news agency RIA reported on Monday, citing Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko.

Grushko added that the condition was that all the promises given to Russia will be fulfilled, including the obligation to lift sanctions, direct and indirect, on the supply of agricultural products to international global markets.

Some context: In July last year, ministers from both Ukraine and Russia signed the agreement following months of negotiations brokered by the UN and Turkey.

Russia pledged to unblock ports on the Black Sea to allow the safe passage of grain and oilseeds – some of Ukraine’s most important exports.

Video and images appearing on social media Tuesday appear to confirm fighting in Bakhmut around the AZOM metallurgical plant, which is a sprawling complex in a northern neighborhood of the city.

Fighters from the Wagner private military company posed for photographs in what appears to be one of the plant's workshops. In a video, one of them said that they were being hit by Ukrainian artillery persistently. 

On Monday, Russian military bloggers claimed that Wagner fighters had begun assaults on underground sections of the AZOM complex.

Wagner units appear to be making limited advances around Bakhmut, according to independent analysis of the battlefield, but remain well short of its encirclement, and may be vulnerable to a Ukrainian counter-attack.

The Ukrainian military's spokesperson in the east, Serhiy Cherevatyi, reported on Monday that there had been about 40 clashes within Bakhmut over the previous 24 hours.

In an update Tuesday, the Ukrainian General Staff said Russian forces were trying to advance in several parts of the Donetsk region, "despite heavy losses."

It also said that Russian units had tried to break through Ukrainian defensive lines further north in the Kupyansk direction. Kupyansk is a town in the Kharkiv region that was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in September but remains only a few miles from the front lines.

German magazine Der Spiegel has identified the boat that was searched by authorities in connection with the explosions that knocked out the Nordstream gas pipeline in September.

The sailing vessel “Andromeda” was searched in January, according to Der Spiegel. The German general prosecutors’ office said last week that it had searched an unnamed boat that month.

Der Spiegel says that the “Andromeda” was the vessel in which an unidentified six-man crew allegedly sailed to the explosion area in the Baltic Sea.

According to the marine websites vesselfinder.com and marinetraffic.com, the "Andromeda" is German-flagged and measures 13 meters (42.6 feet) in length and 4 meters (13.1 feet) wide.

CNN contacted the company that rents out the "Andromeda," but got no comment.

Last Friday, a German government spokesman was asked about the “Andromeda,” but referred any questions to the German general prosecutors’ office.

The investigation into the explosions, which targeted pipelines delivering Russian gas to Europe, has also reached Denmark.

Søren Thiim Andersen, a local official on the island of Christiansø, told CNN that investigators had searched his harbor mooring online booking system.

They also asked him to post an appeal for photos of boats that had visited the island from 16-18 September last year on a local Facebook page.

“We were contacted by Danish police in December about boats coming to the harbour, if we had any information locally here on Christiansø, about which boats that have been here in the harbour,” he said.

“I don’t know if the police found what they were looking for on the island,” he said.

Christiansø is 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of the Danish island of Bornholm, near where the explosions happened.

Some context: Mystery has surrounded who might be responsible for the brazen sabotage last September, which damaged two pipes transporting Russian gas into the European Union and targeted a crucial source of revenue for Moscow. Both pipelines were closed at the time of the attack.

A report by the New York Times cited new intelligence that a "pro-Ukrainian group" may have been behind the attack. Ukraine has denied any involvement.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has said that “becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia” is not a “vital national interest.”

The US presidential hopeful revealed some of his clearest views yet on US involvement in Ukraine in a written statement to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson.

“While the U.S. has many vital national interests – securing our borders, addressing the crisis of readiness within our military, achieving energy security and independence, and checking the economic, cultural, and military power of the Chinese Communist Party – becoming further entangled in a territorial dispute between Ukraine and Russia is not one of them,” DeSantis told Carlson.

The view puts DeSantis more in line with former President Donald Trump’s views on Ukraine and puts him at odds with other Republicans including Mike Pence and Nikki Haley.

Carlson had asked 2024 Republican Party presidential candidates to provide their views on the war in Ukraine.

“Without question, peace should be the objective. The U.S. should not provide assistance that could require the deployment of American troops or enable Ukraine to engage in offensive operations beyond its borders. F-16s and long-range missiles should therefore be off the table," write DeSantis.

"These moves would risk explicitly drawing the United States into the conflict and drawing us closer to a hot war between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. That risk is unacceptable,” he adds.

The Russian government does not recognize the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday, according to state news agency TASS.

"We do not recognize this court, we do not recognize the jurisdiction of this court. This is how we treat this," Peskov said as quoted by TASS.

The ICC 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 (NYT) and Reuters, citing current and former officials with knowledge of the decision who were not authorized to speak publicly.   

According to the NYT, the cases would represent the first international charges to be brought since the start of Russia’s war and come after months of work by special ICC investigation teams.   

The first case the ICC is set to open is about Russia’s alleged abduction of Ukrainian children. The second is on Russia’s “unrelentingly” targeting civilian infrastructure, including water supplies and gas tanks, according to the NYT.

What is the ICC? The ICC is the “court of last resort” and is located in The Hague, Netherlands.

It tries four types of crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity, crimes of aggression and war crimes.

Russia withdrew from the ICC treaty under a directive signed by President Vladimir Putin in 2016.

Currently, 137 states are signatories to the treaty that created the court, but only 123 are considered parties to the treaty.

The United States is a signatory to the treaty, but not a party.

Ukainian, Chinese and US officials all declined to confirm a potential virtual meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and President Xi Jinping in statements Monday and Tuesday, following a report from the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) stating that the two were planning to speak for the first time since Russia’s invasion.

Xi plans to speak with Zelensky following a potential trip to Moscow next week to meet with President Vladimir Putin according to the WSJ report, which cited “people familiar with the matter.”

CNN reached out to President Zelensky’s office Monday about any potential dialogue with Beijing but received no confirmation or comment about the virtual meeting.

In Beijing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin neither confirmed or denied Xi’s plans to call Zelensky, or his visit to Moscow next week during a regular press briefing Tuesday.

On Monday, US National Security adviser Jake Sullivan said that the Biden administration had been “encouraging President Xi to reach out to President Zelensky” but that no official confirmation of the meeting had come from his Ukrainian counterparts.

Meanwhile, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated that Moscow could neither “confirm or deny” President Xi’s possible trip there next week.

“At the moment, I have nothing to say on this topic. As a rule, the announcement of official foreign visits is carried out simultaneously, by mutual agreement of the parties,” Peskov told reporters.

Atleast three civilians were injured early Tuesday following Russian shelling of Kramatorsk in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, a Ukrainian official said.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said in a Telegram post that six multi-story buildings were also damaged.

Kyrylenko said earlier that at least two people were killed and a number of others injured following a series of Russian attacks on cities across Donetsk on Tuesday.

At least two people died and nine others were injured on Tuesday after a series of Russian attacks against cities across Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, according to a Ukrainian official.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk regional military administration, said on Telegram that two people were killed and seven wounded in the city of Kostiantynivka. Homes were also damaged in the city, he said.

One person was wounded in the besieged city of Bakhmut, while the cities of Toretsk, Siversk and Kurakhove also came under fire, Kyrylenko said. 

Kyrylenko added that three rockets had hit the city of Avdiivka overnight, damaging buildings including a residential block.

Imprisoned Russian anti-corruption campaigner Alexey Navalny knows the CNN film about his life has won an Oscar, his daughter said Monday.

“Navalny” won best documentary feature at Sunday’s Academy Awards. The film explores the plot to kill Navalny, an outspoken critic of President Vladimir Putin, who is now serving a nine-year sentence at a maximum-security prison east of Moscow.

Navalnaya said the Oscar win is a realization of her father’s work and that everyone who “has been fighting against the Putin regime is not going unseen.”

“[It shows] we are fighting the fight and it seems like we are winning,” she said.

Directed by Daniel Roher and presented by CNN Films and HBO Max, “Navalny” highlights an investigation by CNN’s Chief International Correspondent Clarissa Ward and journalist group Bellingcat into the former presidential candidate’s poisoning with the nerve agent Novichok in 2020.

Navalny and several Western officials blamed the failed assassination attempt on the Kremlin, which has denied any involvement.

Read more here.