March 24, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

As US President Joe Biden meets with NATO and European allies in Brussels on Thursday, the US Treasury Department officially announced a slew of new sanctions against hundreds of members of the Russian State Duma, dozens of Russian defense companies, and the CEO of Sberbank, which is Russia's largest financial institution. 

US officials previewed the upcoming announcement to reporters earlier this week. 

Today's announcement will sanction 328 members of the 450-seat Russian State Duma, the lower level of the two-tiered Russian Parliament, cut off 48 Russian defense and material companies from Western technology and financing, as well as sanction Herman Gref — the head of Sberbank — who has worked with Russian President Vladimir Putin since the 1990s when both men were employed in the mayor's office of St. Petersburg. 

Long-time Putin associate Gennady Timchenko — plus his companies, family members and yacht — have also been sanctioned, as well as 17 board members of Russian financial institution Sovcombank, according to the White House. 

The Treasury Department sanctioned 12 members of the Duma earlier this month for their calls to recognize the Russian-backed separatist regions in eastern Ukraine, which precipitated Russia's invasion. Today's measures will also sanction the State Duma as an institution, according to the department.

“The Russian State Duma continues to support Putin’s invasion, stifle the free flow of information, and infringe on the basic rights of the citizens of Russia. We call on those closest to Putin to cease and condemn this cold-blooded war,” Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in a written statement. 

Does this name sound familiar? One of the Duma members sanctioned today includes Maria Butina, who studied at American University in the US and pleaded guilty in 2018 to conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government after she tried to infiltrate conservative political groups, including the National Rifle Association. Butina was the first Russian citizen convicted of crimes relating to the 2016 election, although her efforts seemed to be separate from the sweeping election-meddling outlined in former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

After her release in 2019, Butina returned to Russia and got involved in politics, and she is now serving as a member of the Duma. 

Ukraine’s Armed Forces say Russia is transferring weapons and other military equipment to Belarus.  

It says the deployments are part of renewed Russian plans to mount an offensive aimed at encircling the capital of Kyiv. 

Russian forces are also building-up equipment supplies in Crimea, the Ukrainian army added in a statement Thursday afternoon.

In an upbeat assessment of Ukraine's success in withstanding Russia's invading forces thus far, the statement went on:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is once again addressing world leaders by videoconference, this time during the G7 leaders’ meeting.

These are the leaders attending the meeting, according to the White House:

US administration officials are also in attendance:

NATO will reinforce its chemical, biological and nuclear defense systems on fears Russia is planning to use such weapons against the people of Ukraine, Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday. 

The concerns stem from “absolutely false” Russian “rhetoric” that the United States, NATO allies and Ukraine are preparing to use biological weapons, Stoltenberg said.

“We’ve seen before that this way of accusing others is actually a way to try to create a pretext to do the same themselves."

Before he spoke, NATO leaders issued a joint statement vowing to “enhance our preparedness and readiness for chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats,” adding “further decisions” will be taken at the next NATO summit, scheduled for this summer in Madrid. 

“Any use by Russia of a chemical or biological weapon would be unacceptable and result in severe consequences," the statement added.

The civilian death toll in Ukraine has exceeded 1,000 since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said Thursday — warning that "the actual figures are considerably higher."

“Most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple-launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes,” according to the OHCHR.

In a statement, the UN body detailed the 1,035 civilian deaths as “214 men, 160 women, 14 girls, and 28 boys, as well as 48 children and 571 adults whose sex is yet unknown.”

It added that at least 1,650 civilians have been injured since the start of the invasion.

In the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine, the OHCHR has recorded 311 civilian deaths and 857 civilians injured. In other regions, including the city of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Chernihiv, Kharkiv, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions, 724 civilians have been killed and 793 injured.

“OHCHR believes that the actual figures are considerably higher, as the receipt of information from some locations where intense hostilities have been going on has been delayed and many reports are still pending corroboration. This concerns, for example, Mariupol and Volnovakha (Donetsk region), Izium (Kharkiv region), Sievierodonetsk and Rubizhne (Luhansk region), and Trostianets (Sumy region), where there are allegations of numerous civilian casualties,” it said.

Two Ukrainian Air Force pilots trained by the US, who go by the names Moonfish and Juice to protect their identities, told CNN that Russian forces "have control of very little part of Ukrainian sky."

He said that reinforcements from Western countries would be a boon to Ukrainian forces.

Juice said they need more jets and more advanced technology.

"The first problem is ... the number of jet[s]," he said.

"Unfortunately, Russian Air Force gets an advantage in technologies. So using this baby [referring to his plane], I'm not efficient. ... We need something more advanced, something modern" to push Russians further from the front lines, he said.

Watch the interview:

A Russia 24 TV channel anchor interrupted a live interview on Thursday to broadcast pre-taped footage of the country’s National Security Council operational meeting, which included Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu, who hasn’t been seen in over a week. The broadcaster, however, did not say when the meeting took place.  

The anchor quoted Russia’s presidential spokesperson Dmitriy Peskov, suggesting Shoigu was giving a report on the so-called "Ukrainian military operation" remotely. The footage did not show Shoigu speak, but his image appeared on screen among other video call participants reporting to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Shoigu, a close ally of Putin, has not been seen lately despite having a leading role in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Some Russian media reports have speculated that he could have health problems.

The Kremlin spokesman previously dismissed Shoigu’s lack of public presence by saying he “has a lot on his plate at the moment.” Speaking to CNN on Thursday, Peskov also refused to comment on an independent investigation into Defence Ministry sources leaking information about Shoigu’s health problems.  

Shoigu last appeared in a Channel One broadcast on March 18, which the Russian outlet said was from that day. But Russian journalists have speculated that the event being broadcast was from March 11.

US President Joe Biden is meeting with the G7 to discuss new sanctions and other actions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

At the start of the meeting the leaders stood for a family photo, but did not otherwise engage with the press as the talks got underway.

Biden was seen sitting down at a round table and opening his notebooks as the meeting began. He walked in alongside British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Some background: The G7 is shorthand for Group of Seven, an organization of leaders from some of the world's largest economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

Russia was indefinitely suspended from the group — which was at the time known as the G8 — in 2014 after the majority of member countries allied against its annexation of Crimea. It was the first violation of a European country's borders since World War II.

US President Joe Biden in a statement said that the NATO alliance remains “as strong and united as it has ever been” and vowed continued support for Ukraine following Thursday’s NATO summit in Brussels. 

Biden noted that the leaders were able to hear from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky via videoconference and said in the statement that NATO and the United States will “continue to support him and his government with significant, and increasing, amounts of security assistance to fight Russian aggression and uphold their right to self-defense.”