March 24, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

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The conflict in Ukraine has created a “dire” human rights situation, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights. The agency has catalogued thousands of cases of civilian casualties along with cases of torture, rape and arbitrary detention in the Ukraine conflict over six months — August to January.

The UN also said it has documented dozens of cases of summary executions of prisoners of war (POWs) carried out by both Russian and Ukrainian forces since February 2022, but admits it is far harder to get information from Russia, or territories under Russian control than it is from Ukrainian authorities.

The agency announced Friday that it has also documented hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions by both Ukrainian and Russian forces since the beginning of the invasion, according to the Head of the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

If you’re just catching up, here’s what you should know:

Children awaiting reunification: Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova said on Friday that 56 Ukrainian children who are now in Crimea and Krasnodar Krai are awaiting reunification with their families. The announcement comes a week after the the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. 

Bakhmut developments: Russian forces are depleted in Bakhmut and a Ukrainian counteroffensive could soon be launched, one of Kyiv’s top generals has said, raising the prospect of an unlikely turnaround in the besieged city. The commander in chief of Ukraine’s military emphasized the difficulty of the battle for Bakhmut during a call Friday with the head of the British Armed Forces.

Russian attacks: Ukraine repelled 38 Russian attacks over the past 24 hours, the country’s military said in a situation update on Friday evening. Russia is focusing its efforts in the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Maryinka and Shakhtarsk areas, the military’s general staff said, adding that’s where Ukrainian forces repelled more than three dozen attacks.

US and Canada alliance: Ukraine can rely on the United States and Canada as partners, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an address to parliament in Ottawa alongside US President Joe Biden on Friday. Trudeau called Biden a ‘’true friend to Canada,” saying the alliance “matters more than ever in this consequential moment.”

US President Joe Biden speaks during a joint news conference with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa on March 24.

President Joe Biden said Friday he’s not alarmed following the high-profile meetings earlier this week between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Instead, Biden said “we’re the ones expanding the alliances.”   

The president noted that while US officials have recently warned of signs that China could be considering increasing its military support for Russia, “they haven’t yet.”  

“Doesn’t mean they won’t, but they haven’t yet,” Biden said. “And if anything’s happened, the West has coalesced significantly more.” 

Biden went on to cite increased cooperation across alliances, including through the G7, the Quad Alliance, ASEAN and AUKUS. He added he has now met with 80% of the world’s leaders.

A bipartisan group of senators want the Biden administration to continue to support international investigations into alleged Russian war crimes, they wrote in a letter to US President Joe Biden.

The lawmakers said they “welcome the significant assistance” the administration has provided to document potential crimes during Russia’s war in Ukraine, the letter read.

However, the letter said they acknowledge the role of the International Criminal Court in investigating such incidents and urged the Biden administration to support the ICC and to share evidence with prosecutors.

Having international investigations move forward are important so that “Putin and others around him know in no uncertain terms that accountability and justice for their crimes are forthcoming,” the senators wrote in the letter.

Read the full text of the letter here.

For context:

Last week, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian official Maria Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

The day before the announcement of the warrant, the United Nations found in a report that Russia has “committed a wide range of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law” in Ukraine.

The report claims that the war crimes perpetrated by the Russians included “attacks on civilians and energy-related infrastructure, wilful killings, unlawful confinement, torture, rape and other sexual violence, as well as unlawful transfers and deportations of children.”

A Ukrainian soldier fires during a battle with Russian troops at the frontline near Bakhmut on March 24.

The commander in chief of Ukraine’s military emphasized the difficulty of the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut during a call Friday with the head of the British Armed Forces.

Ukrainian Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi shared a Telegram post outlining his conversation with Britain’s Chief of the Defence Staff Adm. Sir Tony Radakin.

Zaluzhnyi thanked Radakin, the United Kingdom and other allies for their support.

“Thanks to the help of our partners, we are holding on and will definitely win,” he said.

The battle for Bakhmut: The besieged city of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region has been a focal point of the frontline fighting between Russia and Ukraine for months.

One of Kyiv’s top generals this week said that Russian forces are depleted in Bakhmut, and a Ukrainian counteroffensive could soon be launched. It raised the prospect of an unlikely turnaround for Ukraine.

While experts say that capturing Bakhmut is unlikely to dramatically alter the overall picture of the war in eastern Ukraine — where little territory has changed hands in 2023 — it would hand Russia a symbolic victory and mark the first Ukrainian city it has captured in eight months.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses parliament in Ottawa on March 24.

Ukraine can rely on the United States and Canada as partners, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in an address to parliament in Ottawa alongside US President Joe Biden on Friday. 

Trudeau said like the US, Canada has provided “significant military support” to Ukraine, such as artillery, ammunition, armor and tanks. He said the Canadian armed forces have been training Ukrainian military members since 2015.

The prime minister pointed to sanctions and other economic measures put in place by the US, Canada and other allies “to continue to deplete the Kremlin’s war chest.”

Trudeau called Biden a ‘’true friend to Canada,” saying that the alliance “matters more than ever in this consequential moment.”

US President Joe Biden delivers a speech in Ottawa on March 24.

Biden calls out Putin: Addressing parliament after Trudeau, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin has failed to meet his goals with the Ukraine invasion.

“Guess what? His lust for land and power has failed thus far,” the US leader said of Putin. “The Ukrainian people’s love of their country is going to prevail.”

Biden echoed Trudeau’s remarks about the US and Canada standing in support of Ukraine.

“Let’s once more affirm that we’re going keep that torch of liberty burning brightly and support the Ukrainian people,” Biden said.

The president also said Moscow has failed to shake the resolve of the NATO alliance.

“Putin was certain he would have been able to break NATO by now,” Biden told the assembled lawmakers.

But, he said, the US and Canada will “keep our alliance strong and united, and we’ll defend every inch of NATO territory. An attack against one is an attack against all.”

The United Nations has documented hundreds of cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions by both Ukrainian and Russian forces since the beginning of the invasion, according to the Head of the UN Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

The UN has documented more than 600 cases of enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions carried out by Russian forces, and 91 by Ukrainian forces, since the war began on February 24 of last year up until the end of January 2023.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights issued Friday its latest report, which cataloged cases of civilian casualties, torture, rape, enforced disappearances and arbitrary detention.

Ukraine repelled 38 Russian attacks over the past 24 hours, the country’s military said in a situation update on Friday evening. 

Russia is focusing its efforts in the Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka, Maryinka and Shakhtarsk areas, the military’s general staff said, adding that’s where Ukrainian forces repelled more than three dozen attacks.

The general staff said Moscow’s armies were still putting pressure on the eastern city of Bakhmut, but it remained under Ukrainian control. 

“In the Bakhmut direction, the enemy continues to assault the city of Bakhmut, which is held by our defenders, as well as in the areas of Orikhovo-Vasylivka, Bohdanivka, Ivanivske and Stupochky in the Donetsk region,” it said. 

Ukrainian soldiers ride atop a tank on the front line in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, Ukraine on Wednesday, March 22.

Russian forces are depleted in Bakhmut and a Ukrainian counteroffensive could soon be launched, one of Kyiv’s top generals has said, raising the prospect of an unlikely turnaround in the besieged city.

Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said on his Telegram channel Thursday that “[Russians] are losing significant forces [in Bakhmut] and are running out of energy.”

His comments come days after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise trip to the front lines of the Donetsk region, and will raise hopes in the West that Kyiv’s contentious decision to keep troops in Bakhmut will pay dividends.

A counteroffensive has seemed an unlikely prospect for several weeks, as forces from Russia’s Wagner mercenary group bombarded Bakhmut and edged closer toward seizing control of the city.

But that effort has come at a considerable cost to manpower and resources, and now appears to have slowed.

Russian troops have launched more than 200 strikes on the area in the past 24 hours alone but are losing hundreds of men each day in their efforts, the spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevatyi, said later on Thursday. CNN is unable to verify those figures.

Cherevatyi said another area that was seeing intense fire was to the northeast of Bakhmut, on the front line running north from the town of Kreminna.

He added that Russian forces in the area are “making several dozen attacks every day. There were 32 firefights over the last day,” in and around Bakhmut. There were also air strikes launched by both fixed-wing planes and attack helicopters, he said, but added that “artillery is a much bigger factor of influence on military operations there than aviation.”

Read more here.

Belarus' President Alexander Lukashenko speaks at the Independence Palace, Minsk, Belarus, on February 16.

In its latest financial and diplomatic sanctions, the US is going after companies and individuals involved in the crackdown against Belarus’ pro-democracy movement and the existing regime’s involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Biden administration on Friday sanctioned Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko’s personal “luxury airliner.”

Lukansheko’s regime “relies on state-owned enterprises and key officials to generate substantial revenue that enables oppressive acts against the Belarusian people,” Treasury Under Secretary Brian Nelson, a top US sanctions official, said in a statement

The US remains “committed to imposing costs” on Lukashenko’s regime for its suppression of democracy and support for Putin’s war, the statement added.

Here are other individuals and entities facing sanctions:

More on the Belarus-Russia relationship: Lukashenko is a close ally to Russian President Vladimir Putin who permitted Russian troops to use Belarus to stage their initial invasion into Ukraine last year. The US and its allies have since then targeted Minsk with a set of sweeping sanctions. Additionally, the European Union does not recognize the results of the 2020 Belarus election and the US has called it a “fraudulent.” The widespread fraud sparked mass pro-democracy protests which led to a brutal crackdown from the government. 

Maria Lvova-Belova, Russian children's rights commissioner, attends a meeting with Russian President at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence, outside Moscow, Russia, on February 16.

Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights Maria Lvova-Belova said on Friday that 56 Ukrainian children who are now in Crimea and Krasnodar Krai are awaiting reunification with their families.

“Currently 56 children remain in the health resorts of the Krasnodar Krai and Crimea. They are safe and in touch with their families. There is an action plan for each child so that they are reunited with family,” said Lvova-Belova in a statement on her Telegram channel.

Remember: Last Friday, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia. The ICC said that Lvova-Belova was “allegedly responsible for the war crime of unlawful deportation.”

Lvova-Belova dismissed the ICC’s arrest warrant against her, saying it was “great” that the international community appreciated her work for children, according to Russian state news agency TASS.

According to Lvova-Belova, to date 33 Ukrainian children have returned to their parents in Kharkiv, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. The children were brought home by their parents or a trusted representative.

“It was not possible to immediately ensure a safe return trip for everyone, since the front line has changed significantly, [and] parents and children found themselves on different sides,” she added.

Lvova-Belova said that since October last year, the Russian authorities have been “consistently assisting in the reunification of children who arrived on vacation” from areas of conflict; and from this group, more than 2,000 children have already returned to their families.

CNN’s Rob Picheta and Lauren Said-Moorhouse contributed to this post.

A Russian Tupolev Tu-160 strategic long-range heavy supersonic bomber aircraft is pictured upon landing at Maiquetia International Airport, Venezuela, on December 10, 2018.

The Kazan Aircraft Building Plant claims it is increasing the production of modernized version of Tu-160M strategic bombers, according to the statement published on Friday by the Russia’s state industrial corporation Rostec.

More background: Russia relies heavily on imports of Western components for its military industry, and has struggled to produce advance long range missiles as well as other equipment to continue its war in Ukraine because of sanctions. Moscow has relied heavily on older equipment and even brought back previously decommissioned armored vehicles and tanks, with analysis suggesting it has happened in part because of Western sanctions. 

Last week, Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced a large-scale effort to build up capacities to produce more weapons for its so-called ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine. Putin said increased production of an “additional volume” of weapons is “urgently needed” and assured that special attention would be paid to the legalities and allotment of funding towards the initiative. 

The United Nations says it has documented dozens of cases of summary executions of prisoners of war (POWs) carried out by both Russian and Ukrainian forces since February 2022, but admits it is far harder to get information from Russia, or territories under Russian control than it is from Ukrainian authorities.

In a new report, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says it has documented the summary execution of 15 Ukrainian POWs by Russian forces, in addition to the use of Ukrainian POWs as human shields, the death of two wounded POWs due to lack of medical care, as well as torture. 

Among the cases documented in the report is that of an officer of the Ukrainian National Guard tortured and then executed after refusing to hand over a password for entry to a radio station in Mariupol in April 2022. In another case, in September, a wounded Ukrainian serviceman was shot three times in the chest and once in the head after being captured by fighters from the Wagner mercenary group in a village south of Bakhmut. 

The report also highlights the lack of cooperation UN investigators have received from Russian and Russian-occupying authorities, saying it has been unable to gain any access to POWs interned by the Russian Federation, despite repeated such requests. It mentions one occasion only, in August, when a UN team was allowed to meet, but not interview, 13 Ukrainian POWs held in Russian-occupied Luhansk.

On the other side, the report says it has documented – through open-source information, in situ visits and witness interviews – the summary execution of at least 25 Russian POWs being held by Ukrainian forces. 

In one incident in March 2022 in the Luhansk region, the UN report suggests some members of Russian-affiliated armed groups were killed by Ukrainian servicemen after refusing to pronounce their intent to surrender. The UN report says the Russian fighters, some possibly injured or dead, were lying on the ground in the wake of an artillery attack.

In contrast to the lack of cooperation from Russian authorities, the report says UN teams have been given “full and confidential access” to Russian POWs held in official places of internment by Ukraine, “which OHCHR acknowledges with great appreciation.”

A war crime prosecutor inspects a basement of an office building, where prosecutor's office says 30 people were held for two months during the Russian occupation, in Kherson, Ukraine, on December 20.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has catalogued thousands of cases of civilian casualties along with cases of torture, rape and arbitrary detention in the Ukraine conflict over six months — August to January.

OHCHR reported the following numbers it has recorded since August:

Among those subsequently released, OCHCR had been able to interview 89 people, the vast majority of whom reported torture and ill-treatment while in detention. It said this was aimed at forcing them “to confess to providing assistance to Ukrainian armed forces, to compel them to cooperate with the occupying authorities or to intimidate those with pro-Ukrainian views.”

The abuse included beatings with batons and rifle butts, threats to shoot their hands and legs, mutilate or execute them; sleep deprivation and exposure to freezing temperatures, sometimes after pouring water on them, according to the victims. Some were threatened with being raped.

The OHCHR highlighted the case of a woman subjected to repeated rape while being held by members of the Russian armed forces and the Security Service of Russia (FSB). According to her testimony, she and her husband had been blindfolded and taken to the men’s base. “A man who introduced himself as the commander told her: ‘Tell me how you love Ukraine now. We’ll beat Ukraine out of you’,” the report said.

Russian missile attacks killed three in the eastern Ukrainian city of Kostantynivka overnight, and shelling killed another two people in the northern Sumy region, officials said.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials have claimed that Wagner mercenaries are deporting residents of occupied areas of the city of Bakhmut to Russia. CNN cannot independently verify this claim.

Here are the latest headlines:

Ukraine says it has received the bodies of 83 of its fallen soldiers from the Russian side. Separately it has handed over an undisclosed number of seriously wounded Russian soldiers.

Ukraine had handed over to Russia “all the seriously wounded occupants, whose conditions made it possible to transport them and who were captured since the beginning of the large-scale invasion,” said the Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Friday it is “critically important” to identify an object that was discovered next to the Nord Stream pipelines explosion site. 

“It is critically important to determine what kind of object it is, whether it is related to this terrorist act — apparently it is — and to continue this investigation,” Peskov said during a daily call with reporters. “The investigation must be transparent and inclusive.”

Earlier, the Danish Energy Agency invited the operator of Nord Stream, Nord Stream 2 AG, to take part in an operation to retrieve an object found near the gas pipeline. Peskov said that the Kremlin viewed it as positive news.

Some background: The incident, in which underwater explosions occurred before the pipelines burst in several places last September, remains a major point of contention between Russia and the West.

Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks during a press conference at the BRICS Summit on July 27, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa.

No decision has been taken yet on whether Russian President Vladimir Putin will attend the BRICS summit in South Africa in August, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

“No decision has been made on this yet,” Peskov told CNN.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa are collectively known as the fast-growing BRICS economies.

Earlier this month, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin on war crimes charges. The warrant relates to an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

South Africa is a party to the convention that requires the arrest of anyone for whom a warrant has been issued by the court.

The Russian Embassy in Tallinn, Estonia, on March 27, 2018.

Estonia has ordered the expulsion of a diplomat working for the Russian Embassy for “undermining Estonia’s security,” the Estonian foreign ministry announced in a statement on Friday. 

“The diplomat in question has been engaged in directly and actively undermining Estonia’s security and constitutional order, spreading propaganda that justifies Russia’s military action and causing divisions in Estonian society,” the statement from the ministry read.

The person in question was declared persona non grata after their activities were found to have violated the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. They were ordered to leave Estonia by March 29, the ministry said. 

Wagner mercenaries have begun deporting residents of the Bakhmut suburbs they control, the Ukrainian National Resistance Center (NRC) – an official body – said on Thursday.

“Militants forcefully take local residents to captured areas of Luhansk region, where they are filtered. After that, they are deported to Perm (Russia) and other remote regions of the Russian Federation,” the center said.

CNN cannot independently verify this claim.

“Locals are deported under the intention of evacuation. After that, they are assimilated in remote areas of the empire, because they are now dependent on the occupiers,” the NRC said.

Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for the Eastern Grouping of the Armed Forces, addressed these claims on Ukrainian television Friday.

“This is one of the regular crimes of the Russian Federation. There is nothing to be surprised at, because the entire military structure of the Russian Federation is a criminal … All of this will be recorded, documented and handed over to the relevant national and international jurisdictions,” he said.