By Kathleen Magramo, Jack Guy, Aditi Sangal, Matt Meyer, Elizabeth Wolfe and Maureen Chowdhury, CNN
From CNN's Josh Pennington
At least nine people have now been confirmed dead as a result of a Russian drone attack on the Kyiv region on Tuesday night, Ukraine's state emergency service said in a statement Thursday.
The service said it has completed rescue and recovery efforts after recovering nine bodies from the destroyed building.
On Tuesday, a wave of Russian attacks with Iran-made Shahed drones hit a residential building in the town of Rzhyshchiv, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southeast of the capital.
From CNN's Helen Regan, Olga Voitovich and Svitlana Vlasova
Kyrylo Chorine was inside an apartment block in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday, just meters from where the blast struck from a Russian missile attack.
Using a torch to point out his apartment, the 20-year-old student told CNN outside the complex that he “heard an explosion and saw a fire.”
Inside, all the windows are blown out. Chorine said his father was standing by a window when the explosion happened and narrowly avoided being killed. Still, Chorine and his parents say they will not be forced out of their home.
“We are mostly angry. We are not afraid. Why would we be? It is our home,” he said. “I will sleep at my bed. My parents will sleep at their beds. It will be a little bit cold because we don’t have windows but we are not going anywhere.”
At least one person was killed and 34 others injured after Russian missiles hit two Zaporizhzhia apartment blocks on Wednesday, in what has been described as a “deliberate strike” to “kill civilians,” according to Ukrainian officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the attack “bestial savagery” on social media app Telegram and later said the wave of Russian strikes Wednesday would be met with a reply from Ukraine.
From CNN's Helen Regan, Olga Voitovich and Svitlana Vlasova
Russia unleashed a wave of deadly attacks on towns and cities across Ukraine on Wednesday as Chinese leader Xi Jinping departed from Moscow following talks with President Vladimir Putin.
Xi left Russia’s capital pledging to deepen ties with Putin but the meetings failed to achieve a breakthrough on Ukraine.
As Xi flew back to Beijing, Russia’s military launched a barrage of strikes with Iran-made Shahed drones on Ukraine’s Kyiv region, killing at least eight people, according to Ukrainian authorities. Andrii Niebytov, the Kyiv region’s police chief, said seven others were injured when a drone struck a dormitory building in the town of Rzhyshchiv.
In the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, at least one person was killed and 34 injured — including two children — after Russian missiles hit apartment blocks, in what has been described as a “deliberate strike” to “kill civilians,” according to senior Ukrainian official and presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak.
Video of the attack shows an explosion blasting through the side of two nine-story residential buildings.
The Ukrainian prosecutor’s office said in a statement at least six missiles hit the city, causing extensive damage.
“One of the missiles hit between two high-rise buildings, partially destroying apartments and balconies, damaging roofs and breaking windows,” the statement said. “The blast wave and debris also damaged other nearby residential buildings, cars and other civilian infrastructure in the city.”
Xi’s trip fails to create path to peace: Wednesday’s wave of attacks in Ukraine came as Putin wrapped up hosting his Chinese counterpart in Moscow following a three-day state visit billed by Beijing as a peace mission, but which failed to achieve any breakthrough on resolving the conflict.
Both leaders called for the cessation of actions that “increase tensions” and “prolong” the war, according to their joint statement released by China’s Foreign Ministry. The statement did not acknowledge that Russia’s invasion and military assault were the cause of ongoing violence and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
Read more here.
From CNN’s Shawn Deng and Radina Gigova
China’s Foreign Minister Qin Gang said Wednesday his country's relationship with Russia could be "even more precious in the face of rampant unilateralism and hegemonism" as he praised leader Xi Jinping’s trip to Moscow.
Qin described the relations between China and Russia as representing “the correct direction of historical development” and having “world significance beyond the scope of the two sides,” according to a statement released after Xi's state visit.
China and Russia will continue to uphold “good-neighborliness and mutual trust,” as Xi’s decision to choose Russia as his first foreign visit in his new presidency was a political decision made after careful consideration, Qin said.
In addition to praising the cooperation and friendship with Russia, Qin reiterated China’s stance on what the statement describes as the "Ukrainian crisis."
“Certain countries deliberately obstruct peace talks for their own geopolitical interests, and even concocted all kinds of rumors and fallacies to attack and discredit China,” Qin said.
He added that China is “neither the maker nor the party” involved in the crisis but “an advocate” that supports a political settlement and promotes peace talks.
The statement did not name the country obstructing peace talks.
Some context: Meetings between Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin this week yielded no breakthrough on resolving the Ukraine conflict. Both leaders called for the cessation of actions that “increase tensions” and “prolong” the war, according to their joint statement released by China’s Foreign Ministry. The statement did not acknowledge that Russia’s invasion and military assault were the cause of ongoing violence and the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.
From CNN's Radina Gigova
The risk of a nuclear conflict is now at its highest level in decades, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Wednesday, according to state-run news agency Tass.
"I would not like to indulge in a discussion whether the probability of a nuclear conflict is high today, but in any case it is higher than anything that we have seen over the past decades, let's put it this way," Ryabkov said on the platform of the Valdai discussion club, according to Tass.
Ryabkov reiterated that Moscow is not departing "from the key provisions, doctrinal and political ones." He said non-nuclear states, especially those not aligned with the United States, should "more loudly to call to order politicians in the Western capitals, including Washington, who have absolutely lost their sense of reality."
Last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin said he was suspending his country's participation in the New START nuclear arms reduction treaty with the US during his much-delayed annual State of the Nation Address to the Federal Assembly.
From CNN’s Vasco Cotovio and Victoria Butenko
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Wednesday it was distressing to see the aftermath of Russian bombardments after he made an unannounced visit to the eastern Donbas region.
“It is distressing to look at the cities of Donbas, to which Russia has brought terrible suffering and ruin,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “The almost constant, hourly air-alert siren in Kramatorsk, the constant threat of shelling, the constant threat to life..."
“Right there, in Donbas, in the Kharkiv region — wherever Russian evil has come, it is obvious that the terrorist state cannot be stopped by anything other than one thing — our victory.”
Zelensky said he felt there was hope in every eastern Ukrainian city that was not under occupation, adding that it was an honor to support those closest to the front.
“I started from the front, from the Bakhmut area. It is an honor for me to support our warriors who are defending the country in the toughest frontline conditions,” he said. “I presented state awards, thanked our soldiers for their bravery, for their resilience, for Ukraine — which we are preserving thanks to such heroes, thanks to each and every one of them who is fighting against Russian evil.”
The Ukrainian president also visited injured soldiers to pay tribute.
“I wished them — and I'm sure on behalf of all of you, all of our people — a speedy recovery,” he said. “I thanked the doctors and nurses. And now I want to thank everyone who supports our soldiers recovering from injuries. Who helps with everything necessary, our doctors, everyone who works for rehabilitation after injuries.”
From CNN’s Vasco Cotovio and Olga Voitovych
Ukraine says the offensive capacity of Russian forces in and around Bakhmut is diminishing, but cautions that it remains one of the areas where the fiercest fighting is ongoing.
“The Russian Federation continues its armed aggression against Ukraine, focusing its main efforts on attempts to completely seize Donetsk and Luhansk regions within the administrative borders,” the Ukrainian military’s General Staff said in an update on Wednesday. “The fiercest fighting is taking place in the southern and northern parts of Bakhmut.”
“In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy continues to conduct offensive actions, but its offensive potential is decreasing,” it added.
According to the Ukrainian military, Russian forces are continuing to expend large numbers of men trying to re-take the city.
“The enemy keeps trying to take the city, losing a significant amount of manpower, weapons and military equipment,” it said on Wednesday. “Our defenders have been repelling numerous enemy attacks around the clock in the areas of Bakhmut, Bohdanivka and Predtechyne.”
The Ukrainian military went on to say Moscow’s armies were on the defensive in some areas in the southern part of Ukraine.
“The enemy is conducting defensive actions in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson directions. Areas near the contact line came under fire,” it said.
From CNN's Jennifer Hansler
Any European country that is a party to the International Criminal Court (ICC) should arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he visits, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday.
“I think that anyone who is a party to the court and has obligations should fulfill their obligations,” Blinken said in response to a question from Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.
Blinken would not say whether the US authorities would turn the Russian leader over to the ICC if he were to come to the United States, noting that the US is not a party to the court.
“I don’t think he has any plans to travel here soon,” Blinken said.
Putin has scarcely left Russia in recent years, and he has not traveled to the US since 2015.
Some more context: Last week, the ICC issued an arrest warrant against Putin for his role in a vast Kremlin-wide effort to forcibly deport Ukrainian children into Russia.
A report released in mid-February from the US State Department-backed Conflict Observatory by the Yale Humanitarian Research Lab found that more than 6,000 children — ranging in age from mere months old to 17 — have been in Russian custody at some point during the course of the war, although the "total number of children is not known and is likely significantly higher than 6,000."
It identified 43 facilities that are a part of the vast network where the children were sent, stretching "from one end of Russia to the other," including Russian-occupied Crimea, the "eastern Pacific Coast — closer to Alaska than it is to Moscow," and Siberia, Yale Humanitarian Research Lab's Nathaniel Raymond said.
"The primary purpose of the camps appears to be political reeducation," he said, noting that at least 32 of the facilities identified in the report "appear to be engaged in systematic re-education efforts that expose children from Ukraine to Russia-centric academic, cultural, patriotic, and in two cases, specifically military education."
