March 15, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a large-scale effort to build up capacities in order to produce more weapons for his war in Ukraine.

Putin said increased production of weapons is “urgently needed,” and he assured that special attention would be paid to the legalities and allotment of funding toward the initiative while speaking to the board of the Prosecutor General’s Office of Russia on Wednesday.

“Primarily, in terms of the timely fulfillment of obligations for the supply of necessary weapons, equipment, ammunition for the needs of the special military operation, for the accurate implementation of all tasks of the state defense order, and the effective use of budgetary resources,” he said, using the euphemism for the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

According to Putin, the government is allocating many resources for defense needs “without detriment to other areas.” But the funds “must be spent rationally, in strict accordance with the law,” he added.

Putin said Russia is on a positive path and “strengthening the sovereignty” of the country. 

“We are with you at the stage of large-scale, positive changes aimed at strengthening the sovereignty of the country, its independence, the future of Russia and creating conditions for its confident development,” Putin said.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said Wednesday that the US will “continue to fly and to operate” in accordance with international law. His comment comes one day after Russian aircraft hit a US drone over the Black Sea and forced it to be brought down into international waters. 

“This hazardous episode is part of a pattern of aggressive and risky and unsafe actions in international airspace,” Austin said. “So make no mistake, the United States will continue to fly and to operate wherever international law allows. And it is incumbent upon Russia to operate as military aircraft in a safe and professional manner.”  

Austin made the comments at the Pentagon before a virtual meeting with the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.

Relations between Russia and the US are at their “lowest point” and in a “deplorable state,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told journalists Wednesday after the US military said a Russian fighter jet forced a US Air Force drone to crash in the Black Sea.

According to Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the incident, but there was no contact at the highest level between Moscow and Washington.

Peskov added that “Russia did not refuse constructive dialogue, and is not refusing it now.” 

He pointed to a Russian Defense Ministry statement published Tuesday claiming that there was no physical contact between the aircraft.

The drone was conducting routine operations in international airspace on Tuesday when it was “intercepted and hit by a Russian aircraft, resulting in a crash and complete loss of the MQ-9,” Air Force Gen. James B. Hecker, commander of US Air Forces Europe and Air Forces Africa, said in a statement. 

The Russian ambassador to the US said Russia does not want “confrontation” with the US, but "as we see it, American aircraft have no business being near the Russian border."  

The incident marks the first time Russian and US military aircraft have come into direct physical contact since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine just over a year ago and is likely to increase tensions between the two nations, with the US calling Russia’s actions “reckless, environmentally unsound and unprofessional.”

CNN’s Oren Liebermann, Jennifer Hansler, Haley Britzky and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting to this post.

The drone that the US military said was forced down over the Black Sea by a Russian fighter jet has not been recovered — and it may never be, according to John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council.

"I'm not sure that we're going to be able to recover it. I mean, where it fell into the Black Sea, very, very deep water. We're still assessing whether there can be any recovery effort mounted. There may not be," Kirby told CNN.

When pressed further, Kirby said, "I certainly can't speak for Russian efforts or what they may or may not be trying to take off the surface of the water. I can just tell you that we're still assessing that situation ourselves." 

One of the Russian jets intentionally flew in front of and dumped fuel on the unmanned drone several times, a statement from US European Command said. The aircraft then hit the propeller of the drone, prompting US forces to bring the MQ-9 drone down in international waters.

Kirby reiterated it is "not uncommon" for Russian jets to try to intercept or harass US drones.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has denied the Russian jet had come into contact with the drone in a statement on Tuesday, saying the fighter jets “scrambled to identify the intruder” after detecting it over the Black Sea, adding that the drone “went into an unguided flight with a loss of altitude.”

Kirby said on Wednesday morning: "First of all, they don't belong in Ukraine. Secondly, they certainly don't belong in Crimea. And we were flying, again, well outside of the airspace that was, that's claimed by Ukraine or any other country. The Black Sea doesn't belong to Russia. ... We're going to continue to operate, again, in complete in accordance with international law."

An S-300 missile hit the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Wednesday morning, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor told Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne.

“At 10:20 a S-300 missile hit a residential area in Kharkiv's Shevchenkivskyi district,” said the spokesperson, Dmytro Chubenko.

He added that there had been no reports of injuries. 

More on Russian strikes: Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that more than 40 missiles had hit Kharkiv since the beginning of the year.

"Only since the beginning of this year – in less than two-and-a-half months – over 40 enemy missiles have already struck Kharkiv," Zelensky said, calling the resulting “ruins, debris, shell holes in the ground” a self-portrait of Russia.

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö will visit Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan later this week to discuss the Nordic country's application to join NATO.

The visit, at the invitation of Erdogan, will take place Thursday and Friday, the Turkish presidency said Wednesday. 

Niinistö will first visit earthquake-affected areas in southeastern Turkey and then head to Istanbul for talks, the Finnish presidency said in a statement.

Some context: Turkey's concern about Sweden and Finland’s potential accession to NATO centers mostly on what the Turkish government claims are security grounds.

Turkey claims that both countries, though particularly Sweden, are harboring militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a designated terror group in Turkey, Sweden, the United States and Europe.

Erdogan says he would like these individuals to be extradited; Sweden has made clear this won’t happen. 

In late February, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said that although Turkey had expressed some concerns about both Sweden and Finland's applications to join NATO, it was predominantly concerned by Sweden's application. 

Stoltenberg has repeatedly called Finland and Sweden's accession a "top priority" for the alliance, calling on Hungary and Turkey to ratify both countries' applications soon.

British and German fighter jets jointly intercepted a Russian aircraft near Estonian airspace on Tuesday, according to the UK Ministry of Defense. 

The ministry said Royal Air Force (RAF) typhoon jets from the 140 Expeditionary Air Wing worked with German typhoon jets to escort a Russian IL78 Midas air-to-air refueling aircraft after it failed to respond to air traffic control in Estonia. 

The Russian plane was flying between St. Petersburg and Kaliningrad, a Russian exclave that sits between Poland and Lithuania along the Baltic Sea.

While such interceptions are a routine NATO mission, it was the RAF’s first joint NATO air policing interception alongside a German air force typhoon.

China, Iran and Russia will begin joint military exercises in the Gulf of Oman on Wednesday, China's Ministry of Defense said in a statement. 

The drills between the three countries' armies and navies will run through Sunday, the statement said.

The statement said the exercises would build on joint maritime drills between the three nations held in 2019 and 2022.

Remember: China has forged a "no limits" partnership with Russia during Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, with deepening diplomatic and economic ties between the two. Western officials have also previously raised concerns that China may be considering providing Russia with lethal military assistance, an accusation denied by Beijing.

Meanwhile, Moscow's growing defense partnership with Tehran has intensified over the past year as Russia has become increasingly desperate for external military support for its war against Ukraine.

Russia might be bogged down in its vicious onslaught on Ukraine, but President Vladimir Putin is winning big elsewhere — in the Republican presidential primary.

The two highest-polling potential GOP nominees — former President Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — are making clear that if they make it to the White House, Ukraine’s lifeline of US weapons and ammunition would be in danger and the war could end on Putin’s terms. Their stands underscore rising antipathy among grassroots conservatives to the war and President Joe Biden’s marshaling of the West to bankroll Kyiv’s resistance to Putin’s unprovoked invasion.

Trump’s warnings that only he can stop World War III and DeSantis’ main argument that saving Ukraine is not a core US national security interest will likely gain even more traction following one of the most alarming moments yet in the war on Tuesday. The apparent downing of a US drone by a Russian fighter jet over the Black Sea was a step closer to the scenario that everyone has dreaded since the war erupted a year ago — a direct clash between US and Russian forces.

Read the full analysis here.