May 2, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our coverage of the war in Ukraine has moved here.

Photo of Brittney Griner at a Russian police station, shown on Russian state TV, in early March.

The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC) is lending its support to efforts to get basketball player Brittney Griner released from custody in Russia, according to USA Today.

“If we felt like there was something we could do to be helpful, we would, in a heartbeat,” she said.

Hirshland said USOPC has had talks with the International Olympic Committee regarding Griner. Hirshland said she hasn’t spoken with IOC president Thomas Bach, but added that “the IOC has an acute focus on her and her health and safety as well.”

When reached by CNN, a USOPC spokesman verified USA Today’s reporting but declined to comment further.

Some context: Griner, who plays for Russian powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg during the WNBA offseason, was arrested by Russian authorities in February at a Moscow airport and accused of smuggling significant amounts of a narcotic substance – an offense punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment

Civilians and Ukrainian forces sheltering at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol are facing “nonstop” bombardment, with basic supplies running low as Ukrainian officials race to evacuate those inside, according to a captain in the plant.

“The strikes (are) going on nonstop, it’s been tank artillery, volley artillery, and every three to five minutes there were air bombardments,” said Svyatoslav Palamar, deputy commander of the Ukrainian Azov Regiment. “There are still civilians sheltering in the plant, and yet the enemy continues this bombing.”

About 100 civilians were evacuated from the plant Sunday, but a further planned evacuation for Monday did not take place. Meanwhile, the mood inside is grim, with the regiment reporting low supplies of water and food.

“If (worst) comes to worst and we run out of food, we’ll be catching birds, and we’ll be doing everything just to stand firm,” he said.

Last site of defense: Russia has claimed that its soldiers have reached the outskirts of the plant and are carrying out a “step by step clearing mission,” which Palamar denied.

“As of now, the entire plant territory is under our control and our defense is along the perimeter of the Azov steel plant, we are holding the defense,” he said.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said he has no plans to visit Ukraine, after Germany’s president offered to go last month but was reportedly told that he was “not wanted” by Kyiv.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said on April 12 while on a visit to Warsaw that he had planned to visit Ukraine, but that the trip was “not wanted” by Kyiv.

The German President, long an advocate of Western rapprochement with Russia, has expressed regret for his earlier stance. Steinmeier, a Social Democrat who served as Foreign Minister under Chancellor Angela Merkel before becoming president, has said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine meant he and others had to reckon honestly with what they had got wrong.

Meanwhile, German opposition leader Friedrich Merz said he would visit Kyiv this week.

Also in the Monday interview, Scholz said the financial and military assistance from Germany and other countries was why the Ukrainian army could now “hold out for so long against such an overpowering opponent.”

The alliance will defend every centimeter of NATO territory if attacked, said Scholz.

“Many citizens in this country are severely worried about an escalation of the war spreading beyond Ukraine and they are justifiably worried over this,“ Scholz said, reiterating: “There will be no direct participation of Germany and NATO in this war.”

The Chancellor also vowed there would be no lifting of sanctions against Russia unless a peace deal was reached between Ukraine and Russia.

“Without consensus with Ukraine, we will not lift sanctions. (Putin) must come to an agreement with Ukraine, and he will not be able to do that with a dictatorial peace and his conditions,“ Scholz said. “Our target must be that Russia may not succeed with their intentions.“

“Russia may not win and Ukraine may not lose.“

Firefighters spray water on a building after a missile strike in Odesa on May 2.

A Russian missile strike on a dormitory in Odesa killed a 14-year-old boy and wounded a 17-year-old girl, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly address on Monday.

Zelensky said 220 Ukrainian children have been killed since the start of the Russian invasion.

At least 1,570 educational institutions have been destroyed or damaged by shelling, Zelensky added.

Zelensky’s claims have not been independently verified by CNN.

The Mariupol mayor’s office told the US that Russia has around four so-called “filtration camps” in and around Mariupol reportedly used for processing Ukrainian civilians before they are sent to Russia, according to the US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

A CNN investigation in April revealed that Russian forces and allied separatist soldiers were taking Mariupol residents to a so-called “filtration center” set up in Bezimenne, where they were registered before being sent on to Russia, many against their will. Ukrainian government and local Mariupol officials say that tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens have been forcibly deported to the Donetsk People’s Republic and Russia since the war began. 

Carpenter said he expected there would be additional such camps in the south and east of Ukraine, and said the OSCE will continue to look at the issue despite limited access from the ongoing war. 

Last week, Carpenter said in remarks to the OSCE that the world also “should expect Russia to intensify its ongoing forced transfers of local populations from areas of Ukraine’s south and east to Russia or Russia-controlled parts of the Donbas via so-called ‘filtration camps.’”

Carpenter said that “what these reports describe brings back horrific memories of a bygone era.”

“Invading a neighboring country, removing its legitimately elected government, herding its population into ‘filtration’ camps, and holding sham referenda in a transparent attempt to cover its aggression with a false veneer of legitimacy is a wholly barbaric enterprise,” he said, calling on the world to “act with a greater sense of urgency.”

Russia has “forgotten all the lessons of World War II,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a nightly address on Monday, following comments from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov Sunday alleging that Adolf Hitler had “Jewish blood” and that “the most ardent anti-Semites are usually Jews.”

“Such an anti-Semitic thrust by their minister means Russia has forgotten all the lessons of World War II. Or maybe they never studied those lessons,” Zelensky said.

Lavrov’s remarks also prompted a furious response from Israel, with Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid calling them “unforgivable and outrageous,” adding that “Jews did not murder themselves in the Holocaust.”

“Of course, there is a big scandal in Israel today as regards [to] these words. However, no one hears objections or excuses from Moscow. There is silence,” Zelensky said.

“How could this be said on the eve of the anniversary of the victory over Nazism? These words mean that Russia’s top diplomat is blaming the Jewish people for Nazi crimes. No words,” Zelensky said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin could move to formally declaring war on Ukraine as soon as May 9, which would allow for the full mobilization of Russia’s reserve forces as they attempt to conquer eastern and southern Ukraine, US and Western officials believe.

May 9, known as Russia’s “Victory Day,” commemorates the Russians’ defeat of the Nazis in 1945. Western officials have long believed that Putin would leverage the symbolic significance and propaganda value of that day to announce either a military achievement in Ukraine, a major escalation of hostilities — or both. 

Officials have begun to hone in on one scenario, which is that Putin formally declares war on Ukraine on May 9. To date, Russian officials have insisted that the conflict was only a “special military operation” with the central goal of “denazification.” 

Wallace added that he “would not be surprised, and I don’t have any information about this, that he is probably going to declare on this May Day that ‘we are now at war with the world’s Nazis and we need to mass mobilize the Russian people.’”

More context: A formal declaration of war on May 9 could galvanize Russian citizens and surge popular opinion for the invasion. It would also, under Russian law, allow Putin to mobilize reserve forces and draft conscripts, which officials say Russia desperately needs amid a growing manpower shortage. Western and Ukrainian officials have estimated that at least 10,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the war since Russia invaded just over two months ago. 

Other options for May 9 include annexing the breakaway territories of Luhansk and Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, making a major push for Odesa in the south, or declaring full control over the southern port city of Mariupol. 

The US has “highly credible” intelligence reports that Russia will try to annex Luhansk and Donetsk “some time in mid-May,” the US Ambassador to OSCE Michael Carpenter said on Monday. There are also indications that Russia could be planning to declare and annex a “people’s republic” in the southeastern city of Kherson.

US State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Monday that there is “good reason to believe that the Russians will do everything they can to use” May 9 for propaganda purposes.

Price added that he had “seen the speculation that Russia may formally declare war” on May 9, and said, “that would be a great irony if Moscow used the occasion of ‘Victory Day’ to declare war, which in itself would allow them to surge conscripts in a way they’re not able to do now, in a way that would be tantamount to revealing to the world that their war effort is failing, that they are floundering in their military campaign and military objectives.”

“I’m quite confident that we’ll be hearing more from Moscow in the lead up to May 9,” Price added. “I’m quite confident that you will be hearing more from the United States, from our partners, including our NATO partners, in the lead up to May 9 as well.”

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to tell the Ukrainian parliament, the Verkhovna Rada, that Ukraine is living through its “finest hour.” 

Johnson will address the parliament via video link on Tuesday, according to a Downing Street news release.  

In his speech, the prime minister will draw a parallel between the Ukrainian parliament and the British parliament which during World War II “continued to meet throughout the conflict.” 

He will also tell Ukrainian lawmakers how Britain is “proud to be among Ukraine’s friends.” 

“Your children and grandchildren will say that Ukrainians taught the world that the brute force of an aggressor counts for nothing against the moral force of a people determined to be free,” Johnson will say. 

The prime minister will also lay out Tuesday a new package of $375 million (300 million pounds) in support for Ukraine, according to Downing Street. 

The package will include electronic warfare equipment, a counter battery radar system, GPS jamming equipment and thousands of night vision devices, according to the news release. 

Johnson’s address is set to coincide with the reopening of the British embassy in Kyiv which closed in late February just before the war started. 

A large smoke plume rises over Mariupol, Ukraine, in the vicinity of Azovstal steel plant on Monday, May 2.

Ukrainian fighters hope to evacuate the 100 adults and 20 children still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant, located near the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol. 

In an interview with Reuters Monday, Deputy Commander of the Azov regiment Sviataslav Palamar described the mixed feelings he experienced when civilians were safely evacuated from the steel works on Sunday after weeks of being trapped there. 

Palamar said he felt “joy through tears” seeing the civilians leave the steelworks, stressing that during the time they were trapped “thousands of people have died.”

The Ukrainian authorities had plans to rescue people trapped under the rubble on Monday but were unable to do to so due to non-stop artillery fire from Russian soldiers, Palamar said. 

Here are more of the latest headlines from the Russia-Ukraine war:

There will be a civilian evacuation on Tuesday in Mariupol, according to the city council’s Telegram channel. 

The agreement, according to the Mariupol City Council, was officially agreed upon with assistance from the United Nations and the Red Cross.

Although it will evacuate Mariupol citizens, the convoy will actually be leaving from a roundabout near Berdiansk, a Russian-occupied city to the west of Mariupol, at 7 a.m. local time.

Members of the Ukrainian National Guard assist a civilian as they try to help them leave the Azovstal steel plant on Sunday.

On Sunday, more than 100 civilians were evacuated from the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, Ukraine, which has been under heavy Russian bombardment. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced Sunday evening that for the first time, the vital corridor to evacuate civilians from the plant had started working, paving the way for them to pass through.

This was short-lived, however, as Russian shelling once again intensified and put a halt to further rescue efforts, commander of the 12th brigade of the National Guard Denis Schlegar said.

These images were taken on Sunday during the partial evacuation. They were only transmitted on Monday.

People walk over debris at the Azovstal steel plant during the evacuation.

Ukrainian National Guardsmen assist a civilian over a pile of debris as they try to help them leave the Azovstal steel plant.

The United States welcomes reports that “some civilians have been able to evacuate Mariupol” and encourages “continued efforts” to allow civilians to depart the southern port city and other cities under siege, State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Monday.

Price noted the US is in communication with the international organizations involved in evacuation efforts “because we know that humanitarian corridors are absolutely critical to evacuating citizens and providing urgently needed humanitarian aid.”

There is only “a few hundred thousand dollars left” out of the $3 billion in presidential drawdown authority (PDA) funding the Biden administration has been using to supply Ukraine with military assistance, a Senate aide told CNN. 

“The PDA is very close to exhausted,” the aide said.

The $3 billion in PDA funding was included in the $13.6 billion Ukraine aid supplemental that was passed along with the massive omnibus spending bill on March 15.

The PDA funding is one of the primary ways the US is helping supply Ukraine with military assistance during the ongoing war countering Russia’s invasion of the country. It is “authorization from the President to pull from our own stocks,” Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said during a briefing Monday.

There have been eight packages of military assistance authorized by the Biden administration through PDA funding. The last one was signed by Biden on April 21. As of April 28, the Biden administration had $250 million left in PDA funding, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said at the White House press briefing last week.

Last week, the Biden administration asked Congress to pass another $33 billion in funding to provide additional military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine. This proposal would put $5 billion back into PDA funding, the Senate aide said.

As CNN’s Manu Raju reported earlier, congressional sources involved in discussions over the Ukraine funding bill do not expect that the package will come together this week. The sources said there are still many issues to sort through on the package, and it will likely take at least a couple of weeks to get the bill language sorted out.

CNN’s MJ Lee contributed reporting to this post.

Smoke rises above the Azovstal steel plant in the city of Mariupol on April 29, 2022, following heaving Russian bombardment.

Ukrainian fighters hope to evacuate the 100 adults and 20 children still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant, located near the southern city of Mariupol. 

In an interview with Reuters Monday, Deputy Commander of the Azov regiment Sviataslav Palamar described the mixed feelings he experienced when civilians were safely evacuated from the steel works on Sunday after weeks of being trapped there. 

Palamar said he felt “joy through tears” seeing the civilians leave the steelworks, stressing that during the time they were trapped “thousands of people have died.”

The Ukrainian authorities had plans to rescue people trapped under the rubble on Monday but were unable to do to so due to non-stop artillery fire from Russian soldiers, Palamar said. 

He said the work “would have been 90% easier if we would have been given special equipment” and would have “saved lives of servicemen.”

Palamar also highlighted the plight of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky who he said is shouldering the “great responsibility” of the Azovstal evacuations as the “commander-in-chief.”

White House press secretary Jen Psaki speaks during the daily briefing at the White House, Monday.

There are currently no plans for US President Joe Biden to travel to Ukraine, despite travel to the region from Secretary of State Tony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in the last several weeks, the White House told CNN Monday.

Ahead of Russia’s “Victory Day,” a prominent holiday that marks Nazi surrender in World War II, Psaki hinted the US would have more to convey to “mark our support for the Ukrainians and the Europeans in some capacity” in the coming days. She declined to offer specifics. Officials tell CNN Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to be able to celebrate a victory – of some kind – in his war on that day.

“Well, we know that President Putin has emphasized the significance of this day, for him and for the Russian military, but I don’t have anything to preview or predict at this point in time from here about what they are may or may not do,” Psaki told CNN, later adding, “Well, we will certainly mark our support for the Ukrainians and the Europeans in some capacity, but I don’t have anything more specific at this point in time.”

According to the White House, Biden spoke with members of this weekend’s congressional delegation to Ukraine, led by Speaker Pelosi, but plans to hold “a more extensive briefing from them when they return.”

Pressed on comments from Rep. Adam Schiff, a Democrat from California, that Ukraine requested additional aid, Psaki told CNN the administration is “going to continue to consult with and rely on the advice of the Department of Defense on what weapons systems and equipment the Ukrainians need to continue to succeed in the war.” She did not offer specifics on what requests the delegation relayed.

A large smoke plume in the vicinity of Azovstal steel plant — the last Ukrainian stronghold in Mariupol — is seen rising over the city in new video.

CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the video, which was first posted on Telegram by a pro-Russian channel on Monday evening. 

The video shows the large, black smoke plume near the northern side of the sprawling steel plant complex. It’s unclear from the video whether the smoke is emanating from the plant itself, or whether it’s from an area just nearby.

However, a deputy commander with the Azov battalion at the plant, confirmed to CNN that the smoke in the video was coming from the plant, which was hit by a military strike. The soldier would not say what part of the plant was hit, noting that they did not want the Russians to correct their aim. 

CNN has previously reported that a commander among the Ukrainian soldiers at the besieged Azovstal steel plant says the complex has been under “constant fire” since early Monday.

The video also shows a number of cars on a roadway in northwestern Mariupol, in addition to bombed out public buses and military vehicles. Apartment complexes on the side of the road also have sustained damage during the siege of the city.

Images geolocated by CNN show that an important road bridge linking the town of Sloviansk in the Donetsk region with settlements further east has been heavily damaged. It appears that at least one artillery round landed close to or on the bridge, which spans the Syverskiy Donets river.

A few days ago, the railway bridge just to the north was disabled by what appears to have been an explosive charge.

Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian forces have commented.

The bridges are an important link between Sloviansk and the town of Lyman further east, which has been under heavy attack by Russian artillery for several days. 

The US has “highly credible” intelligence reports that Russia will try to annex the separatist-occupied regions of Donetsk and Luhansk “some time in mid-May,” and that there are plans to create a similarly so-called “people’s republic” in Kherson to be annexed as well, the US Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said.

Carpenter added that Russia is reportedly abducting local officials in towns they hold in eastern and southern Ukraine to replace with “groups that are loyal to Moscow,” and are also disappearing “school directors, journalists, local activists, municipal officials.”

“More recently, there have been reports as well that Russian forces have cut off internet and some cellular phone access in these regions in order to disable the flow of reliable information,” said Carpenter, adding that in these towns, Russia “may try to hold sham referenda to try to add a veneer of democratic or electoral legitimacy.” 

The Azov Regiment, whose soldiers continue to resist Russian forces at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, says five Russian soldiers were killed late Monday during an attempted assault on the plant.