March 6, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

China’s foreign minister on Tuesday equated any possible future military support from Beijing for Russia’s war in Ukraine with US weapons sales to the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Qin said it was “absurd” for “senior US officials” to be interjecting in the issue of Taiwan, which he said is a “matter for the Chinese people.”

“No other country has the right to interfere in it,” he said.

China’s ruling Communist Party sees democratic Taiwan as part of its territory, despite never having controlled it, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping has repeatedly refused to rule out the use of force in “reunifying” it with the Chinese mainland.

Qin reiterated Beijing’s long held stance on Tuesday, refusing to rule out the use of force to bring Taiwan under its control.

“We will continue to work with the greatest sincerity and utmost efforts to pursue peaceful reunification,” he said. “Meanwhile, we reserve the option of taking all necessary measures.”

In terms of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Qin said Tuesday that “China did not create the crisis, it is not a party to the crisis and has not provided weapons to either side.”

“China always makes its own judgment and decides on this position independently based on the merit of the issue,” Qin said.” Between war and peace, we have chosen peace; between sanctions and dialogue, we have chosen dialogue; between fanning the flames and lowering the temperature, we have chosen the latter.”

Some context: Beijing’s efforts to present itself as peacemaker in the Ukraine war have been severely undermined by its refusal to acknowledge the nature of the conflict — it has so far avoided calling it an “invasion” — and its diplomatic and economic support for Moscow.

Good relations between Beijing and Moscow are essential in this unstable world, China’s foreign minister said Tuesday.

“The more unstable the world becomes, the more imperative it is for China and Russia to steadily advance their relations,” Qin Gang said.

The minister was speaking during a news conference outlining China’s foreign policy on the sidelines of the country’s 14th National People’s Congress. 

“China and Russia is based on no alliance and no confrontation and is not targeted at any third party. It is not a threat to any country,” he added.

Later in the news conference, Qin said “the process of peace talks should begin as soon as possible” to resolve the conflict in Ukraine, and that “sanctions and pressure will not solve the problem.”

“The Ukraine crisis has come to a critical juncture,” he said. “Either hostilities stop and peace is restored and the process of political settlement begins, or more fuel is added to the flames and the crisis further expands and spirals out of control.”

Some context: US officials have warned in recent weeks that intelligence suggests China is considering sending lethal aid to Russia, which Beijing has denied.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week cautioned that arming Moscow’s forces would cause China serious problems around the world.

“China can’t have it both ways when it comes to … the Russian aggression in Ukraine. It can’t be putting forward peace proposals on the one hand, while actually feeding the flames of the fire that Russia has started with the other hand,” Blinken said.

This post has been updated with additional comments from Qin on the Ukraine war.

A Moscow court on Monday prolonged the pre-trial detention of jailed Russian opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza who stands accused of spreading “fake” information about the Russian military.

Kara-Murza was charged with high treason, the court’s press service told the Russian state news agency TASS. The hearing was conducted behind closed doors as it contained confidential materials, the news agency said.   

In a short video released by the court, a judge can be heard off-camera informing the defendant, “The court decided to reserve the measure of preventative detention for the accused Kara-Murza, which has been extended until August 27, 2023.”

The next hearing has been scheduled for March 15, TASS reported. Kara-Murza faces up to 20 years in prison. 

His, wife, Evgenia Kara-Murza, said his attorney believes a trial will likely take place within 2 weeks.

“I do not believe that the court will somehow decide that my husband is innocent — although he of course is — because there is no justice system left in Russia, no independent justice system left in Russia. And courts in Russia are a sham,” she told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday.

In addition, some of the symptoms suffered by the activist after he was twice poisoned are coming back due to conditions in prison, particularly after he was placed in solitary confinement, she said.

Some background: Kara-Murza has been incredibly critical of President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s war in Ukraine, and he continues to speak out even as he is detained.

In March 2022, Kara-Murza addressed the Arizona House of Representatives and spoke out against the war. In an April 2022 interview with CNN, he called Putin’s government “a regime of murderers.” He was arrested shortly thereafter for “failing to obey the orders of law enforcement,” according to his wife.

On Friday, the US imposed sanctions on a number of Russian individuals connected to Kara-Murza’s detention.

Ukrainian leaders doubled down Monday on the defense of Bakhmut, saying they won’t concede the eastern city to Russia, despite the grinding and brutal warfare that has raged for months.

Russian forces have made gradual gains — but at a huge cost in terms of casualties, according to a NATO estimate – but President Volodymyr Zelensky said that on the advice of his commanders, he was sending reinforcements to support the city’s defense.

He also pledged to find those responsible for the killing of an unarmed soldier that was caught in a widely circulated video. CNN has not been able to independently verify the identity of the executed prisoner, where he was shot, and who shot him.

Here are the top headlines to know:

The United States and Lithuania on Monday committed their continued support to Kyiv “until Ukraine prevails” and called on other allies to do the same — a seemingly tacit message to leaders that may seek to look for off-ramps as the war continues with no signs of abating.

In a joint statement following their meeting in Washington, DC, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said their countries will keep helping Ukraine “to alleviate the suffering of its people and to defend its sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders.”

The leaders also reiterated calls for Russia to end the war and withdraw all of its troops and equipment, the statement said.

They also “committed to continue imposing strong economic costs on Russia through sanctions and pursuing accountability for those responsible for Russia’s attacks.” 

Officials from Lithuania, a Baltic state that will host this year’s NATO heads of state summit in its capital city of Vilnius, have been some of the most hawkish about the war and the need for Ukraine’s victory. 

A group of Ukrainian pilots are in the United States for evaluations being conducted by the Arizona Air National Guard, according to two United States officials.

The 162nd Fighter Wing, which flies F-16 fighter jets, is based at Tucson International Airport and trains international aircrews on the fourth-generation aircraft, according to the officials. The Wing’s website said it has trained pilots from 25 countries that currently operate the F-16.

One of the officials said 10 more Ukrainian pilots may come to the US for the same evaluation and assessment. 

Some background: The pilots are in the US for a “familiarization event” and “a routine activity” between the US Air Force and the Ukrainian pilots, a US military official said over the weekend. However, the official said “there are no updates to provide regarding F-16’s to Ukraine” and there are no immediate plans to increase the number of Ukrainian pilots in the US. 

“This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities,” the official said in the statement. 

Top Ukrainian officials have been asking for fighter jets from the US, arguing they need them urgently to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks. But that push is being met with skepticism by US and allied officials who say the jets would be impractical, both because they require considerable training and because Russia has extensive anti-aircraft systems that could easily shoot them down.

CNN’s Aaron Pellish and Chloe Liu contributed to this report.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Monday he ordered the reinforcement of positions inside the city of Bakhmut, explaining that there was no part of Ukraine that could be abandoned.

The president said he took the decision after consulting with the military leadership.

“I told the chief of staff to find the appropriate forces to help the guys in Bakhmut. There is no such part of Ukraine that can be abandoned,” Zelensky said. “There is no Ukrainian trench in which the resilience and heroism of our soldiers would not be valuable.”

Zelensky also seemed to address rumors of a Ukrainian withdrawal from the eastern city, referring to those as “disinformation messages,” coming from those who didn’t have access to the confidential decision-making briefings where such a decision would have to be taken.

Zelensky said that Ukraine would defend every inch of its country.

“We are defending and will continue to defend every part of Ukraine,” he said. “When the time comes, we will liberate every city and village in our country. And we will make the occupier answer for every shot against Ukraine, for every vile act against Ukrainians.”

President Volodymyr Zelensky promised Ukraine would find those responsible for killing an unarmed Ukrainian soldier.

His comments Monday were in response to a video showing an unarmed soldier in Ukrainian combat fatigues smoking a cigarette near what appears to be a fighting position. The man is then shown pulling the cigarette from his mouth, blowing out the smoke and can be heard saying “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), before fighters off camera fire several shots at him. 

“Today, a video has been released showing how the occupiers brutally killed a warrior who bravely said to their faces: “Glory to Ukraine!,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “I want us all to respond to his words in unity: “Glory to the hero! Glory to heroes! Glory to Ukraine!”
“We will find the murderers,” he added.

Zelensky added Ukraine would never forget those who had died for their country and thanked those currently on the battlefield.

Some background: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba blamed Russia and said it was additional proof that Moscow’s invasion was “genocidal.” The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets, among several others, said he has shared the video with international partners as “evidence of yet another Russian war crime.”

CNN has not been able to independently verify the identity of the executed POW, where he was shot, and who shot him. CNN has reached out to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense to get further details. 

CNN has also reached out to the Russian Ministry of Defense but has yet to hear back. Russia has consistently denied accusations that it or its soldiers have committed war crimes during what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

The Ukrainian defense of the city of Bakhmut has “achieved its goals” and has been “a great strategic success” for the Ukrainian army, presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said.

Ukraine had two main goals in defending Bakmut: buying time to replenish its forces and inflicting heavy losses on Russian armies, Polodyak said. The decision to make the defense of the key area a priority was a joint strategy devised by the country’s military branches with the approval of the Ukrainian president, he said.

“As for the defense of Bakhmut, it achieved its goals by 1000%. The military implemented the plan to destroy the enemy’s main combat-ready grouping on the one hand and enabled the training and training of tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops to prepare for a counterattack on the other,” Podolyak said.

“Even if the military leadership at some point decides to retreat to more favorable positions, the case of defending Bakhmut will be a great strategic success for the Ukrainian Armed Forces as a foundation for future victory,” he added.

Podolyak cautioned that a decision to withdraw has not been made yet, rather that there has been a consensus among military leaders to continue defending the city.

“This is an advantage of the democratic model, which allows us to choose and make the best decisions. A lot of critical questions are asked by the president himself. Since the final decision, as commander-in-chief, is made by the head of state, the president feels very personally responsible,” he added.

Ukrainian officials have lashed out against Moscow after a video showed one of the country’s soldiers, allegedly in Russian captivity, being executed seemingly by Russian soldiers. 

The video shows an unarmed soldier in Ukrainian combat fatigues smoking a cigarette near what appears to be a fighting position. The man is then shown pulling the cigarette from his mouth, blowing out the smoke and can be heard saying “Slava Ukraini” (Glory to Ukraine), before fighters off camera fire several shots at him. 

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba blamed Russia and said it was additional “proof” that Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine was “genocidal.”

“It is imperative that [Prosecutor] Karim Khan QC launches and immediate [International Criminal Court] investigation into this heinous war crime,” he tweeted on Monday. “Perpetrators must face justice.”

The Ukrainian President’s Chief of Staff Andriy Yermak also said the incident was a “war crime.”

“Those [war crimes] are an element of a [methodical] policy of terror, which is whitewashed by Kremlin propaganda with its myths about “Nazis,” There will be punishment for every such war crime,” Yermak tweeted on Monday. “No one will dodge justice. We’ll find them all.”

The Ukrainian Parliament Commissioner for Human Rights Dmytro Lubinets said he has shared the video with international partners as “evidence of yet another Russian war crime.”

“The execution of a captured Ukrainian soldier is a violation of the Geneva Conventions. It is a manifestation of rascality and ignobility,” Lubinets wrote on Telegram.

CNN has not been able to independently verify who the executed POW is, where he was shot and who shot him.

A 14-year-old Ukrainian refugee girl has died after being found unconscious on a beach in South Devon, England, the Devon and Cornwall Police said in a statement Monday. 

The girl’s death is being treated as “unexplained” and police are asking anyone who may have CCTV or doorbell footage to share it with police to assist in the investigation. 

“We were called on the evening of Saturday 4 March with reports of a 14-year-old girl missing from the Dawlish area,” said detective inspector Becky Davies of Devon and Cornwall Police. 

“Localized searches took place with support from the police helicopter and coastguard and an unconscious person was found on Dawlish Beach,” Davies said. “She was subsequently airlifted to the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital where she later sadly died. Formal identification has taken place and next of kin have been informed.”

Davies said the deceased girl was a Ukrainian national who was living in the Dawlish area. “Contact has been made with the Ukrainian Embassy and The Home Office are also aware of this incident,” he said. 

Police confirmed to CNN that the girl and her mother are Ukrainian refugees. Police had not released the name of the girl at the time of this writing. 

“This death is currently being treated as unexplained and enquiries continue as to the circumstances surrounding this death. Our thoughts are with the family and friends of the teenage girl at this tragic time,” Davies added. 

Officers remain in the Dawlish area and are undertaking house-to-house enquiries and attempting to secure any CCTV or doorbell footage that could be available, police said. 

Police said no additional information about the case is being released at the moment.

There are more than 160,000 Ukrainian refugees in the UK, according to the latest UN data.

NATO intelligence estimates that for every Ukrainian soldier killed defending Bakhmut, Russian forces have lost at least five, a military official with the North Atlantic alliance told CNN on Monday.

The official cautioned the five to one ratio was an informed estimate based on intelligence.

The official spoke to CNN on the condition they remain anonymous because they are not allowed to discuss this intelligence. Despite the favorable ratio, they also said Ukraine was suffering significant losses defending the city. 

Ukrainian officials have repeatedly claimed they were inflicting heavy losses on Russia as Moscow tried to take Bakhmut.

“Our defenders inflicted significant losses on the enemy, destroyed a large number of vehicles, forced Wagner’s best assault units to fight and reduced the enemy’s offensive potential,” Colonel-General Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Ukraine’s land forces said after a visit to Bakhmut on Sunday.

The Institute for the Study of War also said Russia’s efforts to capture Bakhmut had significantly deteriorated its capacity for additional offensives.

“The Russian military will likely struggle to maintain any subsequent offensive operations for some months, giving Ukraine a chance to seize the initiative;” it said on Monday.

The Ukrainian military said they had destroyed a surveillance tower in the Russian border region of Bryansk, using a drone. 

“The reconnaissance forces of the KRAKEN special forces destroyed an autonomous Grenader surveillance tower in Bryansk region using a kamikaze drone,” the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence’s Kraken Unit said in a Telegram post on Monday.

The rare acknowledgment by Ukrainian forces comes after an incursion by Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine into the same Russian region last week.

Russian security officials claimed that a small Ukrainian armed group had crossed the Russian border into the southern Bryansk region, allegations dismissed by Kyiv as a “classic deliberate provocation” by the Kremlin.

The Security Service of Russia (FSB) said in a statement via state media agency RIA Novosti on Thursday that the agency was carrying out operations following an “armed Ukrainian nationalists who violated the state border” in the district. President Vladimir Putin later described the incident as a terrorist attack, and a local official said two civilians were killed.

At the time, CNN could not independently verify the Russian claims, and local media had not carried any images of the supposed incidents, any type of confrontation or an alleged raid reported by Russian authorities.

CNN’s Anna Chernova, Olga Voitovych, Nathan Hodge and Rob Picheta contributed to this post.

One of Ukraine’s top military chiefs, Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the country’s land forces, visited troops in Bakhmut on Sunday, the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense said on Monday.

“March 5, Colonel General Oleksandr Syrsky, Commander of the Land Forces, once again visited the units defending Bakhmut and the outskirts of the city,” the briefing read. “According to him, the fighting for Bakhmut has reached the highest level of intensity.”

“The enemy has sent additional Wagner forces into the battle. Our soldiers are bravely defending their positions in the north of Bakhmut, trying to prevent the city from being surrounded,” Syrskyi said, according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense.

Syrskyi wouldn’t elaborate on a potential withdrawal but said Ukrainian forces had inflicted serious losses on Russia over the past several months.

“All this time, the enemy’s attempts to capture the city have been defeated by the resilience of our soldiers,” he said. “Our defenders inflicted significant losses on the enemy, destroyed a large number of vehicles, forced Wagner’s best assault units to fight and reduced the enemy’s offensive potential.”

Syrskyi organized and lead the defense of Kyiv, successfully driving back Russian forces that had nearly encircled the Ukrainian capital at the beginning of Russia’s invasion.

He has paid regular visits to frontline units in the Donbas and elsewhere, including Bakhmut. His previous visit to the city was at the end of last week.

Wagner fighters were seen planting the Russian mercenary group’s flag on a T-34 tank monument in the eastern part of the city of Bakhmut.

The footage, geolocated by CNN, shows four fighters running toward the monument. They took down a Ukrainian flag that was mounted on the tank’s barrel and planted the Wagner group’s flag on top of the tank.

The fighters are then seen holding their guns up into the air and setting the Ukrainian flag on fire.

Some more context: The T-34 was a tank used by Soviet forces during the Second World War and the monument is dedicated to the forces that liberated the city from Nazi Germany.

It is located 500 meters (more than 546 yards) away from the Bakhmutova river, suggesting Ukrainian forces may have withdrawn from the eastern part of Bakhmut, consolidating their positions west of the river.

The German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall, who produces the Leopard battle tank among other heavy arms, is hoping to open a tank factory in Ukraine, CEO Armin Papperger has told a German newspaper.

Papperger, as quoted by the “Rheinische Post” daily over the weekend, said negotiations to build such a plant are ongoing and a decision could come within two months. 

A possible plant would cost about 200 million euros, or about $214 million, and about 400 tanks could be built annually, Papperger told “Rheinische Post.” 

Air defense systems could be in place to protect such a facility, he said.

Papperger added that a new version of the fully digitized battle tank “Panther” could be built in Ukraine.

Some background: Rheinmetall is the biggest arms manufacturer in Germany with about 25,000 employees. 

In January, the arms manufacturer said it had 139 Leopards in stock, but of those, only 29 Leopard 2s would be combat-ready for delivery in the spring of this year. Those 29 have already been theoretically pledged to other countries as part of a tank swap.

The rest of the stock needed to be prepared over a longer period of time, according to the company.

A Rheinmetall spokesperson told CNN that of the rest of the stock — 88 Leopard 1 tanks — a few could be deliverable in about nine months, and the rest in a year.

Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky has said that the country’s forces will continue to defend Bakhmut amid continued Russian efforts to take the eastern city.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has played down the strategic significance of Bakhmut, saying that the city has “more of a symbolic value.”

Here are the latest headlines:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and senior military commanders have vowed to continue to defend the eastern city of Bakhmut, according to a statement from the president’s office.

“They spoke in favor of continuing the defense operation and further strengthening our positions in Bakhmut,” reads the statement.

The meeting “considered the situation in Bakhmut in detail,” it adds.

The meeting was also attended by other senior figures in the government, including the Head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak, Chief of Defense Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal and the Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Oleksii Danilov.

Some context: Russia is reportedly making progress in its attempts to take Bakhmut, with intense fighting reported on Monday morning.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin has played down the significance of the city, saying that it wouldn’t constitute “an operational or strategic setback” for the Ukrainian military should Bakhmut fall to Russian forces.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has discussed bilateral cooperation, including “joint infrastructure projects,” with Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, according to a readout from the Kremlin published Monday.

Putin and Raisi held telephone talks and both the Iranian and Russian sides “gave a positive assessment of the level and dynamics of development of Russian-Iranian relations,” it said.

“Issues of bilateral cooperation in various fields, including the implementation of joint infrastructure projects, were discussed,” added the Kremlin.

Some context: Russia and Iran have deepened their relationship since the war in Ukraine began last year.

Tehran has provided hundreds of attack drones that Russia has used to strike Ukrainian cities, targeting energy infrastructure in particular.

On February 26, William Burns, director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, said that the alliance between Russia and Iran is “moving at a pretty fast clip,” with evidence that Moscow has offered to help Iran’s missile program in exchange for military aid.

Russian forces continue to attack the eastern city of Bakhmut on Monday, according to a Ukrainian soldier from the State Border Guard Service.

“Unfortunately, the city has been under fire since early morning. Mostly with mortars and artillery,” the soldier said in a video released by the service on Monday.

The unnamed soldier said that Russian forces “are trying to push our flanks. But the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, together with its colleagues, is standing firm in its positions.”

“We are doing everything possible to prevent the enemy from entering the city,” he added.

Social media video uploaded Monday purports to show muddy tracks near Bakhmut where vehicles have been damaged and destroyed.

CNN is unable to geolocate the video. However, it is consistent with the accounts of Ukrainian soldiers, who have said that they have had to resort to using tracks to get in an out of Bakhmut as the Russian forces are able to strike the main roads into the city.

The video is also consistent with current conditions in the area, where frozen ground has turned to mud as temperatures have risen.

Ukrainian tennis player Marta Kostyuk refused to shake hands with her Russian opponent Varvara Gracheva after claiming victory in the final of the ATX Open in Austin, Texas, on Sunday. 

Kostyuk defeated Gracheva 6-3 7-5, collapsing to the court after converting match point. Tennis players usually shake hands at the end of matches, but Kostyuk refused to do so with Gracheva.

Kostyuk, who is from Kyiv, said at January’s Australian Open that she would not shake hands with Russian or Belarusian opponents.

She refused to shake hands with Victoria Azarenka, of Belarus, at the US Open in September.

The 20-year-old dedicated her maiden Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) singles title to her native country during the trophy presentation.

“Being in the position that I am in right now, it’s extremely special to win this title,” Kostyuk said. “And I want to dedicate this title to Ukraine and to all the people that are fighting and dying right now.”

Kostyuk did not acknowledge the beaten finalist in her acceptance speech.

The tournament win, the first for a Ukrainian woman since Elina Svitolina in 2021, elevated Kostyuk to No. 40 in the WTA rankings.

Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas is set to form a new coalition government after securing an election win on Sunday.  

Kallas’s Reform Party secured 37 of the 101 seats in parliament, reported state broadcaster ERR. 

Kallas was first elected as prime minister in 2021 and has expressed a pro-European stance, as well as strong support for Ukraine.

Kallas now has to put together a 51-seat majority to form a coalition, working with one or more of the five other parties that secured seats in the next parliament.

The second-strongest party, far-right nationalist EKRE, came in at 17 seats, according to ERR.

According to the Estonian Electoral Commission, the election saw the highest turnout since Estonia regained independence in 1991, with 615,009 voters participating.

Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the alleged border attack in the Bryansk region of Russia “in detail” during a meeting of the country’s security council on Friday, the Kremlin has said.

The council discussed ways of ensuring the security of strategic facilities guarded by special services during the weekly meeting, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on a conference call Monday.

On Thursday, Russian security officials claimed that a small Ukrainian armed group had crossed the Russian border into the southern Bryansk region. The allegations were dismissed by Kyiv as a “classic deliberate provocation” by the Kremlin.

“The situation connected with the terrorist act in Bryansk was discussed in detail,” Peskov said, adding that Moscow would “take measures” to prevent similar incidents in the future.

Peskov reiterated that the Kremlin classifies the Bryansk raid as “nothing else but a terrorist attack.”

Should Russian forces take the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, it wouldn’t constitute “an operational or strategic setback” for the Ukrainian military, according to US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin.

“I certainly don’t want to discount the tremendous work that the Ukrainian soldiers and leaders have put into defending Bakhmut, but I think its more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value,” said Austin during a visit to Amman, Jordan.

“So the fall of Bakhmut won’t necessarily mean that the Russians have changed the tide of this fight. I think it will continue to be contested,” he added.

“What I do see is the Russians continuing to pour in a lot of ill-trained and ill-equipped troops,” said Austin. “And those troops are very quickly meeting their demise.”

Some context: Intense fighting is raging around Bakhmut and analysts say that Russian forces are making gradual gains as they seek to encircle Ukrainian units.

On Sunday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said that geolocated video footage suggests that “Wagner Group forces continued to make advances in northeastern Bakhmut and advanced near the Stupky railway station,” which is north of the city.

“Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare,” added the ISW.

Intense fighting is raging around the city of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, where analysts assess that Russian forces are making gradual gains as they seek to encircle Ukrainian units.

In its Monday operational note, the Ukrainian military said Russia “continues its attempts to assault the city of Bakhmut” and surrounding settlements. It lists about six nearby settlements that came under fire.

On Sunday, the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that geolocated video footage suggests that “Wagner Group forces continued to make advances in northeastern Bakhmut and advanced near the Stupky railway station,” which is north of the city.

The ISW said “Ukrainian forces are unlikely to withdraw from Bakhmut all at once and may pursue a gradual fighting withdrawal to exhaust Russian forces through continued urban warfare.”

However, as yet, Russian forces do not appear to have crossed the Bakhmutka River — which runs along the eastern outskirts of the city — into central Bakhmut.

On Monday, two Bakhmut officials outside the city, including the deputy mayor, told CNN that military engineers have erected a temporary metal bridge to replace one that was destroyed late last week on the northern supply route into Bakhmut from Chasiv Yar. 

The deputy mayor said the main southern route into Bakhmut from Ivanivske is harder to use because another bridge has been destroyed.

An embedded Russian war correspondent, Evgeny Poddubny, claimed that some Ukrainian forces have begun retreating from Bakhmut. 

Officials in the Donetsk region say Russian artillery and missile fire continues to inflict damage on many settlements. 

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk region military administration, said one person was killed and three wounded in Bakhmut.

A Russian missile strike on the nearby city of Kramatorsk destroyed a school, but preliminary information suggests there were no casualties, he added.

In the hotly contested area around Vuhledar, one person was wounded when the town came under Russian fire. The settlements of Avdiivka and Kurakhove also sustained damage.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu inspected infrastructure projects on a visit to the occupied southeastern Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, Moscow’s Defense Ministry said on its official Telegram channel Monday.

Shoigu also toured a medical center, a new residential district constructed by the military, and was briefed on the construction of a pipeline that will “supply water to many settlements in the region,” the post said.

The ministry did not confirm when Shoigu’s visit took place, or if he was still in the city. 

On Saturday, the ministry released a video of Shoigu meeting with Russian troops serving in occupied Ukraine. It was unclear where the video was shot, and CNN was not able to geolocate it. 

The ministry said Shoigu “inspected the forward command post of one of the formations of the Vostok [Eastern] forces in the South Donetsk direction.”

Fall of the city: Mariupol, located on the Sea of Azov in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, was captured by Russian forces last year after months of intense bombardment and thousands of reported deaths.

It was the scene of some of the most intense fighting since Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine; it was there that Russia carried out deadly strikes on a maternity ward and the bombing of a theater where hundreds of civilians had sought refuge.

Mariupol also became a symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the weeks leading up to its fall, with the city’s last defenders holding out inside a steel plant alongside as many as 1,000 civilians taking shelter as stocks of food and water dwindled.

For the first time in eight months, the Russians are on the cusp of taking a Ukrainian city, albeit a small one already abandoned by more than 90% of its prewar population.

Ukrainian defenses in and around the eastern city of Bakhmut are being squeezed by a combination of intense artillery, mortar fire, and airstrikes and a substantial commitment of ground forces, both Russian regulars and fighters of the Wagner private military company.

If and when Bakhmut falls, it may be tempting to ask whether Russian forces are improving, learning from the catalog of mistakes they have made so far in this conflict and finally exploiting their superiority in numbers and firepower.

The answer: probably not.

Mick Ryan, a former Australian general and author of the WarInTheFuture newsletter, says “the Ukrainian Armed Forces might decide that they have achieved all they can by remaining in their defensive locations around Bakhmut, and that force preservation for the battles that follow is more important.”

But a Ukrainian withdrawal does not equal disaster if carried out in an orderly way. “It should be treated as a routine tactic rather than a harbinger of disaster,” Ryan says.

The Ukrainians have used Bakhmut to inflict massive losses on the attacking force: by some estimates at a ratio of 7:1. There comes a moment when it is smarter to withdraw than suffer growing losses and the damaging blow to morale of seeing the surrender of hundreds and maybe thousands of surrounded Ukrainian soldiers.

For the Ukrainians judging that moment is critical.

But for the Russians, taking Bakhmut would not alter the fundamental shortcomings in their campaign.

Read the full analysis here.

At least one person was wounded early Monday as Russian air defenses shot down three missiles over the southern region of Belgorod, near the Ukraine border, the region’s governor said on Telegram. 

“Our air defense system went to work in Novy Oskol. Three missiles were shot down. The extent of the damage is being clarified,” Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said. 
“There is one casualty — a man who sustained shrapnel wounds to his arm. An ambulance is already at the scene. Several facades and power lines in several villages in Novooskolsky District sustained damage. Rescue teams and emergency services are at the scene.”

Authorities in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, have reported multiple attacks since Russia began the full-scale invasion of its neighbor last year.

Last week, the wreckage of three unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were found in Belgorod, one of which crashed into the window of an apartment complex, according to the city’s mayor. No injuries were reported, he said.

CNN is unable to independently confirm the claims for each alleged attack, and Ukraine did not immediately comment on the incident. Ukraine has previously declined to comment on attacks inside Russia.

A week after Russia invaded, the family of 15-year-old Arina Yatsiuk decided to flee their home near the Ukrainian capital by car. Less than 10 miles down the road, they encountered a group of Russian troops.

The soldiers started shooting, then dragged Arina and her 9-year-old sister Valeria out of the back seat. Arina was wounded and put into one car; Valeria was ushered into another.

Valeria was taken to a nearby village, where locals found her standing by the road. Denys and Anna, the girls’ parents, were discovered shot dead in their car.

But March 3, 2022, was the last time anyone saw Arina. She’s one of 345 Ukrainian children who have disappeared since Russia launched its full-scale war on Ukraine last February, according to official Ukrainian statistics.

The Ukrainian government says many of the missing children have been forcibly taken to Russia. The Russian government doesn’t deny taking Ukrainian children — in fact, it says it’s “saving” them.

Arina’s aunt, Oksana Yatsiuk, told CNN the family has been searching for the girl with deep brown eyes and braces ever since she disappeared. Arina is good at drawing and loves make-up and traveling, her aunt said.

The family said they believe the girl, who is now 16, is still alive and “held captive” in Russia.

“I sent official letters to all of the medical facilities, to the Ministry of Health in Russia, Belarus and Ukraine and the official answer I received is that she has not been registered anywhere,” Yatsiuk told CNN in a phone interview.

Read more here.

A year after Russia invaded Ukraine, Xi Jinping’s backing of Vladimir Putin has opened the door for the United States and partners in the Pacific to shore up sometimes frayed relationships to the detriment of Beijing.

In the past few months alone, Japan has pledged to double defense spending and acquire long-range weapons from the US; South Korea has acknowledged that stability in the Taiwan Strait is essential to its security; the Philippines has announced new US base access rights and is talking about joint patrols of the South China Sea with Australia, Japan and the United States.

Those might be the biggest initiatives, but they are far from the only events that have left China increasingly isolated in its own backyard as it refuses to condemn the invasion of a sovereign country by its partner in Moscow while keeping military pressure on the self-ruled island of Taiwan.

Analysts say all these things would have likely happened without the war in Ukraine, but the war, and China’s backing of Russia, has helped grease the skids to get these projects done.

Take the situation of Japan, a country limited in its post-World War II constitution to “self-defense” forces. Now it’s going to buy long-range Tomahawk cruise missiles from the US, weapons that could strike well inside China.

“I myself have a strong sense of urgency that Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida told a major defense conference in Singapore last summer.

In December, Kishida followed that up with a plan to double Tokyo’s defense spending while acquiring weapons with ranges well outside Japanese territory.

“The Japanese people have certainly taken notice of the situation in Ukraine, and it has made them feel more vulnerable as a nation,” said John Bradford, senior fellow at the S. Rajaratman School of International Studies in Singapore.

The nation that Japan feels particularly vulnerable to is China.

The People’s Liberation Army has been growing and modernizing its forces for years. On Sunday, Beijing announced its military budget for 2023, which will increase 7.2%. It marked the first time in the past decade that the military’s budget growth rate has increased for three consecutive years.

Read the full analysis here.

The city council in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has declared Monday a day of mourning after 13 people were killed when a rocket hit a high-rise residential building earlier this week, the council’s secretary Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

“This is a great grief for the whole Zaporizhzhia. That is why tomorrow is declared a day of mourning in our city. Together, let us honor the cherished memory of everyone whose life was cut short forever on that tragic night in March,” Kurtiev said on Telegram Sunday.

Rescuers from the State Emergency Service searched for survivors for four days after the strike hit Thursday. Crews found men, women and a small child dead.

Nine people, including one pregnant woman, were rescued from the rubble early Thursday, the State Emergency Service reported. Five others remain missing, Kurtiev said.

“Let’s also thank the rescuers of the State Emergency Service who have been clearing the rubble for almost four days, day and night, without a break. They are our heroes. We bow to them,” he said.

Kurtiev added that a city council meeting will be held Monday with the surviving residents of the affected building.

Ukraine is planning to use more than $460 million worth of assets seized from Russian banks to rebuild the country and compensate Ukrainians, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a conference in Lviv Saturday.

In a Facebook post about the conference, Shmyhal said Ukraine is developing procedures for using the confiscated assets to help Ukrainian citizens and their communities recover in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

The government is working with allies to develop a system based on an international treaty, which will help decide how to issue reparations to Ukrainians.

The system will include an international register of losses from the war, a commission to consider applications for compensation and a fund from which compensation will be paid.

Aid from abroad: The prime minister also said Saturday that Ukraine is using billions of dollars worth of assistance from the United States and European Union to rapidly restore the country’s battered energy infrastructure and other ailing sectors.

Kyiv expects additional aid to come from Norway and Japan.

Gen. Lord Richard Dannatt, formerly a top military leader in the United Kingdom, said Sunday that it makes “complete sense” for Ukraine’s troops to “withdraw to a more defensible line,” in the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut. 

Dannatt is the UK’s former chief of the General Staff — the professional head of the British Army. Speaking on Britain’s Sky News, he argued that Bakhmut is strategically “not very significant” to Ukraine.

Despite that, the besieged city has already served effectively as “the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken, and therefore it makes complete sense for the Ukrainians now to withdraw to a more defensible line and continue the battle there,” Dannatt said.

What fighters on the frontline are saying: A local Ukrainian commander on Sunday dismissed the growing speculation of a possible withdrawal from the city, saying there have been no “tactical changes” on their side.

“On the contrary, some new reserves are coming in as reinforcement to hold the defense,” said Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in Ukraine’s National Guard. “The entire combat area is under chaotic shelling but there is connection with the city, there are routes that are not cut off.”

More from Dannatt on the shape of the war: The general said it will be key for Ukraine to hold off Russia’s current offensives, which he believes will intensify. Then, in the late spring or early summer, Ukraine “can mount a really strong counteroffensive utilizing the modern equipment that we are now giving them,” he said.

“I think that I am not alone in believing that a few decisive blows struck at certain points along that very extended front on the Russian army could well have the effect of breaking the morale of the Russian soldier or breaking the back of the Russian army,” Dannatt said.  

Asked about the West supplying equipment to Ukraine, the general said: “To be frank, I don’t think we have done enough. We need to do as much as we possibly can to ensure that this war is concluded this year.”  

Evacuations from the frontline city of Bakhmut have slowed to a trickle, the city’s deputy mayor has told CNN.

Speaking over the phone from a neighboring town, Oleksandr Marchenko said five to 10 people were being evacuated each day, down from the up to 600 who were leaving the city when evacuations were at their peak.

“The enemy blows everything to the ground, strikes at multi-story buildings, and the residential sector. There are air raids, artillery shelling, mortar shelling. The enemy is striking the city with everything they can,” the deputy mayor said. “There is no way we can get there.”  

Approximately 4,000 to 4,500 people are still in Bakhmut, but Marchenko said it was difficult to persuade those there to leave.

Most, he said, “fear having nowhere to go and nothing to go with.”

He said four medical workers remain in the city and there are heating points available for residents.

Russia has been pressing hard to capture Bakhmut for months and appears to be closing in on the city. One soldier inside the city told CNN Sunday that the situation remains “difficult,” as the Russian assault continues to cause “a lot of destruction” and losses for the Ukrainian side.

The US is working with Ukrainian pilots in the United States to determine how long it would take to train them to fly F-16 fighter jets, three sources briefed on the matter told CNN.

Two Ukrainian pilots are currently at a military base in the US having their skills tested in flight simulators to see how much time they would need to learn to fly various US military aircraft, including F-16s.

A US military official told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the Middle East that the Ukrainian pilots were in Tucson, Arizona, for “a familiarization event” that he described as a “routine activity as part of our military-to-military dialogue with Ukraine.”

“The familiarization event is essentially a discussion between the Air Force personnel and an observation of how the US Air Force operates,” the official said.
“This event allows us to better help Ukrainian pilots become more effective pilots and better advise them on how to develop their own capabilities. The pilots will not be flying any platforms during this event but they will be using a simulator during portions of their visit.”

The official added that “there are no updates to provide regarding F-16s to Ukraine” and there are no immediate plans to increase the number of Ukrainian pilots in the US.

While there is no indication at this time that flight training is underway, the step suggests the US has not completely closed the door on providing F-16s.

Read more here.

When Sweden and Finland declared their intention to join NATO last May, it was seen by many as a poke in the eye for Russia and evidence of a shift in European thinking. Historically, both countries had committed to non-alignment with NATO as a way of avoiding provoking Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine changed that. 

Both Finland and Sweden — along with the vast majority of NATO allies — would like to see the countries formally join the alliance at a NATO summit on July 11. However, a significant hurdle stands in the way of this becoming a reality: Turkey has yet to give the plan its formal and official blessing. 

Turkey is not the only nation blocking the move: Hungary has also failed to ratify the Nordics’ accession which further muddies the waters. However, right now getting Turkey on side is considered the priority. 

Unfortunately for the pro-NATO gang, Western officials are increasingly pessimistic that Turkey will budge.

Officially, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan objects to Sweden and Finland’s membership on what he 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. 

NATO diplomats are split on whether they think Turkey will budge before the July summit. Central to both schools of thought is this year’s Turkish election, perceived as the biggest political threat Erdogan has faced in years. 

“The image he has created of a strongman who gets results for the Turkish people has been shattered,” explains Gonul Tol of the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program. “There is a lot of anti-West and anti-Kurd sentiment in Turkey at the moment. This is a good topic for him to bang his drum and a dramatic U-turn would only make him look weaker.”

Russian money: Tol believes there are other reasons that Erdogan doesn’t want to upset Russia’s President Vladimir Putin. 

“Russia has been a lifeline economically for Turkey after other nations imposed sanctions for their activities in Syria, their cooperation militarily with Russia and other hostile activity,” Tol explains. “Without Russian money, Erdogan would not have been able to raise wages or provide financial support to students. He is now promising mass rebuilding, post-earthquake. So Russia is still an attractive partner for Erdogan.” 

Read the full analysis here.