February 6, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

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

Ukraine’s main Greek Catholic church UGCC said Monday that it’s moving to a new calendar starting this year to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 instead of Jan. 7, as is traditional in Orthodox congregations.

UGCC — which says it represents just under 10% of Ukrainian population said the decision was made “taking into account the numerous requests of the faithful and having held preliminary consultations with the clergy and monastics of our church.”

Ukraine’s Culture Minister Oleksandr Tkachenko welcomed the move of UGCC, saying, “this decision meets the requirements of time and public opinion.”

The Ukrainian government launched a poll in December asking citizens about their opinion on whether the date for Christmas should be moved to Dec. 25. The minister shared the result of the poll, which showed nearly 59% of more than 1.5 million people favored the move.

“And it became obvious to everyone what exactly is the demand of society in this matter,” the minister went on to say, adding that “it’s also important that the transition is not forced.”

More background: Many Orthodox Christians, including those living in Russia and Ukraine, celebrate Christmas on Jan. 7. 

Ukraine and Russia are both majority Orthodox countries and in recent years a large part of the Orthodox community in Ukraine has moved away from Moscow, a step accelerated by the conflict Russia stoked in eastern Ukraine beginning in 2014.

In November, a branch of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine announced that it would allow its churches to celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25, rather than Jan. 7. 

“I would very much like our experience of the calendar reform to serve our Orthodox brothers,” the head of UGCC Sviatoslav Shevchuk said, urging the Orthodox Church of Ukraine to switch to the new calendar.

The leader of far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) celebrated his party’s 10th founding anniversary on Monday by criticizing the country’s government’s support for Ukraine.  

AfD leader Tino Chrupalla said Germany’s high inflation is due to Berlin’s refusal to move ahead with the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. He blamed the country’s multi-party coalition, headed by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.  

By declining trade with Russia and China, Germany was making itself “unilaterally dependent on the West, with expensive and dirty fracking gas coming from overseas instead of cheap gas from Nord Stream,” Chrupalla said.  

Several Western countries have seen a rise in inflation due to several factors, most notably Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as well as the aftershocks of the Covid-19 pandemic.  

Elenor Pospiech, the regional chairwoman of Germany’s ruling SPD party, pushed back, saying, the AfD is playing into Putin’s hands by fomenting uncertainty among the population.

“They are using fake news, labeling themselves as the anti-war party. Their actions are disruptive fire. This makes democratic work difficult,“ Pospiech said.  

Some context: Ten years after its founding, the AfD has evolved from a rallying point for those dissatisfied with Germany’s euro bailout policy into a party with anti-constitutional content, according to the German domestic intelligence services (BfV).  

In one of the largest counterterrorism operations in the history of the Federal Republic, three former and one current AfD members were arrested, including ex-lawmaker and judge Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, when plans for a coup were uncovered in December 2022.  

Ukraine expects Russia to mobilize up to half a million additional soldiers in the coming months, according to a senior intelligence official.

Vadym Skibitskyi, deputy head of Ukrainian Defense Intelligence, asserted in an interview that “Russia is going to mobilize 300,000 to 500,000 people in order to carry out offensive operations in the south and east of Ukraine in spring and summer of 2023.”

“Those 500,000 are in addition to the 300,000 mobilized in October 2022,” Skibitskyi said. “This proves that Putin’s Kremlin has no intention of ending this war. The Russian offensive may happen in Donetsk and Luhansk regions and possibly in Zaporizhzhia region. Russian troops will go on the defensive in Kherson region and in Crimea. This new mobilization wave will last up to two months.” 

Russian officials have consistently denied that another mobilization is planned. But at a conference in December of Russia’s military chiefs, Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu proposed beefing up the armed forces to 1.5 million combat personnel from the current 1.15 million over a period of three years.

This was required “to guarantee the solving of problems related to Russia’s military security”, Shoigu said.

Skibytskyi also said that at the beginning of 2022, Defense Intelligence was aware that a “full-scale invasion was to begin in early February or a bit later….In January we saw troops from Russia’s Eastern Military District begin arriving in Belarus,” as well as preparations in Crimea.

At the time Ukraine publicly played down the prospect of a Russian invasion.

In the interview with “Ukrainian Technologies and Strategies,” Skibytskyi said that “the first days into the war were unfavorable for us, the enemy had advanced right up to Mariupol. But it is the resilience of Mariupol that ruined the Russian plans in the south of the country.”

He said that the defense of Mariupol had bogged down 10,000 to 12,000 enemy troops that had been earmarked for a push northwards to encircle Ukrainian forces defending the Donbas region. “Mariupol had played its part 100 percent,” Skibytskyi said.

He also claimed that the Russians were now “having considerable troubles with missiles. They used to produce not more than 200 missiles per year depending on a type. Now they can only produce four Iskander missiles per month. As for the Kh-101 missiles, it can be something like 20-30 depending on the stocks of imported components.”

The Iskander is a powerful and relatively accurate cruise missile. 

Western analysts have also said they estimate that Russia is running low on inventories of some missiles.

Skibytskyi also provided a Ukrainian analysis of Russia’s offensive drone program. “As of today. they have used about 660 Shahed drones. The contract provides for 1,750 units. Delivery and preparation also takes some time. According to our data, they are about to have another batch for delivery.”

United Nations head António Guterres on Monday struck a somber tone as he warned leaders convened in New York at the organization’s General Assembly that the world is knowingly marching into a “wider war.” 

“The Russian invasion of Ukraine is inflicting untold suffering on the Ukrainian people with profound global implications. The prospects for peace keep diminishing,” he said. “The chances of further escalation and bloodshed keep growing. I fear the world is not sleepwalking into a wider war. I fear it’s doing so with its eyes wide open.”

A drone exploded early Monday in the Russian city of Kaluga, Vladislav Shapsha, the governor of the region, said in a post on his official Telegram channel.

“Tonight, residents on the outskirts of Kaluga heard a pop [popping sound]. It was established that at 5 a.m. in a forest near the city, a drone exploded in the air at a height of 50 meters,” Shapsha said.

The governor didn’t provide any additional details about the drone or its suspected origin. 

The city of Kaluga is about 200 kilometers (or about 124 miles) southwest from Moscow.

“There was no damage to civilian and social facilities. There were no casualties. Representatives of law enforcement agencies are working on the ground,” he said. 

The landscape around the Ukrainian eastern city of Bakhmut provides natural defenses that make it an “unwinnable fortress,” the commander of Ukraine’s land forces said on Monday.

“This particular terrain has topographic features. The city is surrounded by dominating heights and hills which itself is an entanglement for the enemy,” Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of the Land Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said via Telegram.

The military’s “obstacle system along with natural landscape have turned this area into unwinnable fortress where thousands of enemies died,” Syrskyi said. “We are using all options, engineer capacities as well as natural ones in order to destroy the best enemy units. The battle is ongoing.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday “no one will surrender Bakhmut – we will fight as long as we can.”

Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the leader of Russia’s Wagner private military company, said on Sunday that the battle in Bakhmut is ongoing with no signs of Ukraine’s armed forces retreating: “AFU fight to the last,” he said on Telegram, referring to the Armed Forces of Ukraine.

More on Bakhmut: CNN reported in January that the US and Western officials were urging Ukraine to shift its focus from the brutal, months-long fight in the eastern city of Bakhmut and prioritize instead a potential offensive in the south, using a different style of fighting that takes advantage of the billions of dollars in new military hardware recently committed by Western allies.

CNN’s Katharina Krebs and Uliana Pavlova contributed to this post.

A European Union official has underlined that “there is an open invitation to President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Brussels,” but would not comment on whether he will be present at a meeting of European leaders in the Belgian capital this week.

Zelensky was asked whether he would travel to Brussels to address EU leaders during a news conference last Friday in Kyiv with Charles Michel, President of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

“There is significant risk and Charles knows about this. We’ve discussed about this many times,” said Zelensky.

Last December, Zelensky traveled to the US to meet with US President Joe Biden and addressed the US Congress.

The Ukrainian president could now travel to address EU leaders at an extraordinary two-day summit scheduled for February 9-10.

Ukraine has officially applied to join the EU and Ukraine was granted EU candidate status in June 2022.

In an interview published January 30, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told Politico that Ukraine has an “ambitious plan” to join the European Union within the next two years. 

Around 300,000 people in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa remain without power after a “technological accident” an electricity substation on Saturday, according to the region’s military administration.

“The repair works at one of the substations are ongoing, the situation remains complicated,” it said Monday.

Nearly 500,000 people were cut off following a “serious accident” on Saturday said Maksym Marchenko, head of Odesa region military administration. 

“All services and facilities are involved. The damages are complex and very severe, so it is too early to give any qualitative forecasts on the completion of repairs,” said Marchenko.

Russia has its own programs to produce drones, the Kremlin said Monday, after the Wall Street Journal reported details of an alleged joint project with Iran.

According to officials quoted by the Journal, Moscow and Tehran have agreed to build a factory in Russia that could make at least 6,000 Iranian-designed drones for use in the war in Ukraine. The two countries are aiming to build a faster drone that could pose new challenges for Ukrainian air defenses, according to the Journal.

CNN is not able to independently verify those claims. 

“Russia has a number of its own programs to create unmanned aerial vehicles for a variety of purposes,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during a regular call with reporters.

“These programs are being implemented, and a list of instructions was recently adopted by the President [Putin] for the development of the field of unmanned aerial vehicles,” he added, referring to a decree published in late December outlining Russia’s strategy for the development of a drone program.

In the decree, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the government to establish a commission to oversee the development of drones, the necessary infrastructure and the training of required personnel.

More on drones: Russia’s use of drones has played a significant role in the conflict since the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Iranian government has acknowledged that it had sent a limited number of drones to Russia in the months before the start of its invasion of Ukraine.

Last November, the UK-based investigative organization Conflict Armament Research examined several drones that had been downed in Ukraine and found that 82% of their components were manufactured by companies based in the US. 

The uncertainty over Oleksii Reznikov’s tenure as Ukrainian Defense Minister comes against the backdrop of corruption investigations involving the ministry.

In total, Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau is evaluating procurement contracts totaling more than 13 billion Ukrainian hryvnia ($347 million).

The current uproar over Defense Ministry procurement began last month when Ukrainian media outlet “zn.ua” reported that the Defense Ministry was buying food at two to three times the retail price.

The Anti-Corruption Bureau said it was aware of “possible abuses,” but Reznikov said that there was “no factual component to the claims.”

Whoever leaked the information to the media was trying “to undermine confidence in the Ministry of Defense at a highly sensitive time,” he added. 

On January 24, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister Viacheslav Shapovalov resigned amid allegations linked to food procurement, but other accusations have also surfaced.

The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) said last week that it had charged the Ministry of Defense’s former head for procurement with embezzlement over the purchase of thousands of substandard protective vests. 

And last week Ukraine’s national police accused the heads of two companies working with the Defense Ministry of misappropriating nearly 120 million Ukrainian hryvnia ($3.23 million) from food contracts signed with the government. 

For his part, Reznikov has spoken extensively about problems with the procurement process at the ministry and revealed that he had requested an audit soon after he took up his post in November 2021.

“The audit showed that the procurement and control systems need changes,” he said. Since then, the ministry has stepped up efforts to improve transparency, added Reznikov.

Ukraine’s Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov is not expected to be replaced this week, according to the leader of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s parliamentary faction.

David Arakhamia appears to be tempering remarks he made on Sunday, when he announced that Reznikov would be moved to the Ministry of Strategic Industries, and that the current head of defense intelligence, Major General Kyrylo Budanov, would head up the Ministry of Defense.

“No personnel changes in the defense are expected this week,” Arakhamia said in a Telegram post Monday.

On Sunday, Reznikov told Ukrainian news outlet Fakty ICTV that the idea that he was being moved between ministries was “news to me,” but that he served at the pleasure of the president.

Rumors about Reznikov’s position have amplified in recent weeks, as probes into procurement decisions at the defense ministry continue.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov was asked to comment on rumors that he could be replaced.

“No official stays in office forever. Not a single one. So one should be ready at any time for this stage to end,” Reznikov told reporters in Kyiv on Sunday.

“The decision whether I will be or won’t be the Minister of Defense is made by one person - the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky,” Reznikov said.

“Therefore, I will make certain decisions only upon the decision of the President of Ukraine. And then, again, I will do what the President of Ukraine offers me, I will do everything for our victory.” he added.

The formal process to replace Ukraine’s defense minister requires that Zelensky first ask parliament to remove the minister. Ukrainian lawmakers then hold a vote on the proposal. Afterwards Zelensky will then propose a new defense minister which the lawmakers also need to vote to approve. This could happen in the coming days.

On Wednesday last week, officials from the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) said they had charged the Ministry of Defense’s former head for procurement with embezzlement over the purchase of thousands of substandard protective vests.

The official spent the equivalent of $2.7 million on almost 3,000 “bulletproof vests” for the Ukrainian armed forces which were later found to be unable to “properly protect Ukrainian soldiers.”

The SBU said that the official was charged with “misappropriation, embezzlement or seizure of property through abuse of office,” obstruction of the armed forces, and “committing a criminal offense by a group of persons.”

The SBU said that the individual faced five to eight years in prison and had recalled the sub-standard body armor.

“In addition, the SBU is conducting investigative actions against other officials in the security and defense sector who may be involved in illegal activities that harm state security. This is a set of measures aimed at strengthening the defense capabilities of our state,” the SBU said at the time.

The charges come after Zelensky fired a slew of senior Ukrainian officials since late January amid a growing corruption scandal linked to the procurement of war-time supplies, in the biggest shakeup of his government since Russia’s invasion began.

CNN’s Yulia Kesaieva, Mick Krever and Jack Guy contributed reporting.

Russian forces allegedly seized and burned Ukrainian books in public and school libraries in the Luhansk region, the Ukrainian National Resistance Centre said.  

Luhansk was one of four regions annexed last autumn by Russia, in a process that is illegal under international law. The region is run by Russian-backed separatists who have claimed it as the “Luhansk People’s Republic.”

In a statement posted on its website Sunday, the National Resistance Center, which is run by Ukraine’s Special Forces, said books have been “seized from the collections of public and school libraries” in the eastern Ukrainian region. 

The Education Ministry of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic sent a 365-item list to the heads of city and district administrations and educational organizations. They were advised to remove the listed books from their libraries, the statement added.  

Ukrainian officials have spoken out about the pressure placed on educators in occupied areas to adapt school programs to align with pro-Russian rhetoric. 

Nina, a 48-year-old school principal, recounted to CNN last May how Russian forces arrived at her school in northeastern Ukraine and forced her to hand over all history textbooks and quizzed her on the school’s curriculum. She did not give her last name.

CNN’s Lauren Said-Moorhouse and Oleksandra Ochman contributed to this report.

Ukrainian troops will begin training with German-made Leopard tanks from Monday, according to Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov.

Speaking at a news conference in Kyiv, Reznikov also warned of an upcoming Russian offensive to coincide with the first anniversary of Moscow’s invasion.

“We expect an offensive. It’s February, and Russians love symbolism. We expect this pressure from them, and we are ready,” he said.

On Thursday, US officials said the US was expected to announce a new Ukraine security package worth approximately $2.2 billion that will include longer-range missiles in a first for the country.

But these will not reach the distance Ukraine is asking for out of fear longer-ranging weapons — like the sought after ATACMS missile —  will be used to hit targets in Russia.

“I want to emphasize that we promise our partners not to use long-range systems to hit targets on Russian territory, only on the Ukrainian territory which Russians occupied,” Reznikov said.

Gone are the acres of jubilant crowds that filled Freedom Square with blue and yellow Ukrainian flags that swayed like heads of wheat when the Russians were driven out. Now the crack-crunch of Russian artillery eating into the city echoes around the plaza.

The harvest of victory in the fall has been a bitter winter.

In the previous 48 hours, Kherson had endured more than 130 strikes by rockets, artillery, mortars and even direct tank fire across the Dnieper River from Russian forces. Four people were killed in the same period, another dozen or more wounded.

Several warehouses were also set ablaze. One of them stored fireworks — bizarre goods to store amid shelling. But also a symbol of hope, in the face of bloody experience, that there may be something more to celebrate, sometime.

The regional capital was captured last March in the early stages of Russia’s invasion. Many of its 290,000 citizens left then. More appear to have fled since it was liberated in November. Ukraine’s administration implored them to leave since then to escape the Russian shelling.

Young mothers, pensioners and a handful of drunks scuttle and stagger as fast as they can across Freedom Square to catch buses. Time above ground, just a few hundreds meters from the river, is time spent in mortal danger — especially here.

Read the full analysis here.

Colorado State University has apologized to Utah State’s Ukrainian junior guard after spectators chanted “Russia” toward him at a men’s basketball game in Fort Collins, Colorado, on Saturday night.

“We became aware that a small group of individuals in our student section chanted ‘Russia’ at a student-athlete from Utah State, who is from the Ukraine. On behalf of Colorado State, we apologize to the student-athlete and Utah State,” the school wrote in a series of tweets early Sunday.

The chant could be heard when Max Shulga, who is from Kyiv, went to the free throw line late in the game.

Read more here.