May 23, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of the war in Ukraine has moved here.

Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks at the Quad Summit in Tokyo on Tuesday.

In his opening remarks at the Quad Summit, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida highlighted the war in Ukraine as a major focus of the meeting.

“A grave incident which has fundamentally shaken the rule of law-based international order we value has happened since we met last September,” Kishida said.

US President Joe Biden also condemned Russia’s invasion in his opening remarks, pledging US support for Ukraine.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi —  who has so far resisted condemning the Russian invasion or imposing sanctions on Moscow —  did not mention the war in Ukraine during his opening comments. Instead, Modi emphasized the importance of “mutual cooperation.”

US President Joe Biden attends the Quad Summit in Tokyo, Japan on May 24.

President Joe Biden made opening remarks to the Quad Summit on Tuesday in Tokyo, addressing the importance of the alliance amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Biden warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “trying to extinguish a culture,” pointing to Russia’s targeting of Ukrainian schools, churches and museums.

The US, he said, will continue its work with partners to “lead a global response.”

Russia’s invasion, Biden later added, “only heightens the importance” of the Quad’s goals and shared values.

The comments come as the White House has said Biden intends to speak during the summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi – who has resisted US pressure to punish Russia – about how to strengthen US-India ties, a suggestion he hopes to wean Delhi off its reliance on Russian-made arms.

Biden reiterated his belief that the world is at a “transformative moment” and a question of whether democracies can prevail over autocracies.

He commended Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida’s “extraordinary leadership” as he thanked his host.

Biden also welcomed and congratulated Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – who was sworn into office this week – into the group of world leaders, joking that it was “okay” if he fell asleep during the summit.

Follow CNN’s live coverage of the Quad Summit here.

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska announced Monday that she is launching a national psychological support program, given the crisis of mental health and shock in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian government will “quickly” develop the mental health support program in partnership with World Health Organization, according to her statement.

“Russia’s war has shown horrors we could not have imagined,” Zelenska said. “WHO is committed to protecting the most crucial human rights — to life and health. Now they are both violated in Ukraine.”

She added that the country plans to set an example to strengthen global support for the psychological well-being of war survivors. 

Kostan Nechyporenko contributed to this post.

Kevin, a former US soldier, said he and his team were trapped for days inside a "house of hell."

Kevin, a stocky American in his early 30s, climbs over the charred rubble of a former sauna and shines the light from his iPhone through the dust.

Kevin is part of a group of elite foreign special forces veterans, primarily American and British, who have enlisted to help the Ukrainian cause.

He says that back in March, the group spent four days in the health spa — they called it “the house from hell” — often just 50 meters from Russian troops. It was, he says, the furthest-forward Ukrainian-held position in Irpin, a suburb on the outskirts of Kyiv, as Russian forces tried to push on through to seize the capital.

The once-affluent suburb is now synonymous with alleged Russian war crimes — a pilgrimage site for visiting dignitaries who’ve beaten a path to its shell-scarred streets. Kevin says he and his men were among the first to witness attacks on Ukrainian civilians here.

Despite a former career as a top-level US counter-terrorism operative, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kevin says it is here in Ukraine that he has faced the most intense fighting of his life.

He says he and his new comrades-in-arms have implemented many of the guerrilla tactics that were used against the American military in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. They are the insurgents now.

“Everything is much more decentralized,” he explains. “Small group tactics is definitely a huge advantage here.”

We are not using Kevin’s full name because of the nature of his work in Ukraine.

“Being on this side now, and hearing their conversations on their radio — and them knowing, okay, they’re out there somewhere, we don’t know where or who it is — there’s definitely an advantage to that,” he says.

“Real combat experience”: Like many military veterans, Kevin says he had felt adrift since originally leaving the battlefield several years ago. He had a full-time job in the US, but quit when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put out a call for experienced foreign fighters at the beginning of the war. He arrived in western Ukraine, was driven to Kyiv, and was on the frontlines of the battle for the capital within a matter of hours.

He joined Ukraine’s International Legion, launched by the government in the first days of the war. The government pays him and his colleagues a modest salary of between $2,000 and $3,000 a month, though Kevin says they have spent far more than that buying equipment. The International Legion even got its own website, instructing would-be foreign recruits on everything from how to contact the Ukrainian embassy to what to pack.

In those first weeks, the government struggled to weed out the pretenders and war tourists who were out of their depth. By March 6, they had received more than 20,000 applications, according to the foreign minister.

The number of foreign fighters now in Ukraine is a state secret, but a spokesperson for the International Legion told CNN that the “symbiosis” means Ukraine’s “chances of winning are greatly increased.”

“The best of the best join the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” Colonel Anton Myronovych told CNN. “These are foreigners with real combat experience, these are foreign citizens who know what war is, know how to handle weapons, know how to destroy the enemy.”

For the first time in his life, Kevin was defending against invasion by a better-equipped enemy. He, not the enemy, was the one who had to worry about airstrikes. There was no master plan, no air support — and there would be no evacuation in case of disaster.

“It was like a movie,” he says. “It was insanity from the start. We started taking indirect fire driving in — small arms fire driving in. And I was in a pickup truck, just driving down the street.”

“There’s tanks, and above us there’s helicopters. And you can hear the Russian jets flying by. And out in the open fields the Russians were dropping troops off in helicopters. And so you’re like: ‘Woah, wow!’ It’s a lot.”

Read more here.

A satellite image from Maxar technologies shows grain being loaded into the hull of the Russia-flagged ship Matros Pozynich in Crimea.

Russia’s theft of Ukrainian grain appears to be ramping up as it continues its war on the country, according to new satellite photos of the Crimean port of Sevastopol. 

Two Russia-flagged bulk carrier ships are shown docking and loading up with what is believed to be stolen Ukrainian grain in the images. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has accused Russia of “gradually stealing” Ukrainian food products and trying to sell them.

The new images from Maxar Technologies, dated May 19 and 21, show the ships — the Matros Pozynich and the Matros Koshka — docked next to what appear to be grain silos with grain pouring off of a belt into an open hold. Both ships have now left the port, according to the ship tracking site MarineTraffic.com, with the Matros Pozynich sailing through the Aegean Sea claiming to be on its way to Beirut and the Matros Koshka still in the Black Sea.

It’s difficult to know for certain whether the ship is being loaded with stolen Ukrainian grain, but Russia-annexed Crimea produces little grain itself, unlike the agriculturally rich Ukrainian regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia immediately to the north. Ukrainian officials and industry sources have told CNN that Russian forces in occupied areas have emptied several silos and trucked the grain south. 

Earlier this month, the Matros Pozynich carried out a similar mission: loading up with grain and setting sail out of the Black Sea and into the Mediterranean. It was initially bound for Egypt with its cargo, but it was turned away from Alexandria after a warning from Ukrainian officials, according to the country’s government. It was also barred entry to Beirut, eventually docking in Latakia, in Syria, where Russia has for years been propping up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. 

At the same time, Russia has been blocking Ukraine from exporting goods from its ports, fueling fears of a global food crisis.

Keep reading here.

Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said Monday that Russian missiles had struck railway infrastructure in the region, causing serious damage.

Russian forces have targeted Ukraine’s railway infrastructure in an apparent bid to interrupt the supply of Ukrainian forces.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk regional military administration in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, reported “heavy fighting” in the direction of Lyman, where Russians have pressed an offensive in recent days. 

Kyrylenko said several other towns — Avdiivka, Sviatohorsk, Bakhmut and Soledar — have been under heavy shelling or rocket and bomb attacks. The regional military governor has reported heavy Russian shelling all along the region’s front lines in recent days, with Russian forces attempting breakthroughs in several locations. 

A 20-year veteran of Russia’s diplomatic service announced his resignation Monday in protest of his country’s war on Ukraine, multiple media outlets reported.  

In a rare public protest by a Russian official, Boris Bondarev, a diplomat posted to Russia’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva, posted a statement on a LinkedIn account condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and criticizing the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for complicity in what he described as an an “aggressive war” — language that is proscribed in Russia under wartime censorship laws. 

The respected Russian business newspaper Kommersant reached out to Bondarev, who confirmed the authenticity of the post. The New York Times confirmed the receipt of a resignation sent by email to diplomats in Geneva.

Here are more of the latest headlines from Russia’s war in Ukraine:

The United Nation flag waves in the wind on the top of an UN building in Geneva, Switzerland, Monday, June 14, 2021. A veteran Russian diplomat to the UN Office at Geneva says he handed in his resignation before sending out a scathing letter to foreign colleagues inveighing against the “aggressive war unleashed” by Russian President Vladimir Putin in Ukraine. Boris Bondarev, 41, confirmed his resignation in a letter delivered Monday morning at the Russian diplomatic mission after a diplomatic official passed on his English-language statement to The Associated Press.

A 20-year veteran of Russia’s diplomatic service announced his resignation Monday in protest of his country’s war on Ukraine, multiple media outlets reported.  

In a rare public protest by a Russian official, Boris Bondarev, a diplomat posted to Russia’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva, posted a statement on a LinkedIn account condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and criticizing the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for complicity in what he described as an an “aggressive war” — language that is proscribed in Russia under wartime censorship laws. 

The respected Russian business newspaper Kommersant reached out to Bondarev, who confirmed the authenticity of the post. The New York Times confirmed the receipt of a resignation sent by email to diplomats in Geneva.

The Russian mission to the UN in Geneva declined to comment on the matter to CNN, and Bondarev did not respond to messages sent to the LinkedIn account. 

It also singled out the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for harsh criticism. 

“I regret to admit that over all these twenty years the level of lies and unprofessionalism in the work of the Foreign Ministry has been increasing all the time. However, in most recent years, this has become simply catastrophic. Instead of unbiased information, impartial analysis and sober forecasting, there are propaganda clichés in the spirit of Soviet newspapers of the 1930s,” the post read.

“Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is not about diplomacy. It is all about warmongering, lies and hatred. It serves interests of few, the very few people thus contributing to further isolation and degradation of my country. Russia no longer has allies, and there is no one to blame but its reckless and ill-conceived policy,” the post continued.

The LinkedIn profile describes Bondarev as a veteran of Russian diplomatic service, with expertise in arms control and nonproliferation. The picture on the profile now has the hashtag #opentowork. 

The US State Department said Monday that Bondarev’s resignation shows that “despite the Kremlin’s propaganda, there are Russians who profoundly disagree with what President Putin is doing in Ukraine and share our concern about the danger he is creating for the entire global community.”

A State Department spokesperson said it was encouraging that “many are willing to stand up to” Putin and noted that “it takes immense bravery to stand up to an oppressor, and it requires courage to speak truth to power, especially given the Russian government’s long and terrible track record of attempting to silence legitimate and peaceful protests and dissent.” 

“Plummeting morale is clearly not limited to Russia’s military forces fighting in Ukraine,” they said. 

“Boris Bondarev’s statement underscores that people around the world, including in Russia and even within the Russian government, are recognizing the brutality of the Kremlin’s assault on the Ukrainian people,” the spokesperson said. “They are doing so despite the Kremlin’s best efforts to manufacture and perpetuate disinformation.”

People displaced by Russian shelling depart a metro station where many have been living underground for months in Kharkiv, on Sunday, May 22.

Ihor Terekhov, the mayor of the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv, said the city’s subway system would resume operations Tuesday, after months of serving as a shelter for citizens looking to escape Russian bombardment. 

During the height of the Russian bombardment of Kharkiv — Ukraine’s second-largest city — many residents of Kharkiv took refuge in the city’s metro system. Terekhov said many of those who remained underground had been relocated in dormitories, in areas further away from shelling. 

“If necessary, people can use the subway as a bomb shelter, especially subway underpasses,” Terekhov said. 

The subway in Kharkiv became a shelter in the opening hours of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24. Residents occupied benches, steps, and station floors, as well as subway cars.

Planning efforts to bring US troops back into Ukraine in any capacity — like to protect the recently reopened US embassy in Kyiv — are “underway at a relatively low level,” Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said during a press conference at the Pentagon on Monday after the conclusion of the second Ukraine Contact Group meeting.

Those plans “have not made it to the [Defense] Secretary or myself for that matter for refinement of courses of action and what’s needed,” Milley added. 

“We’re a ways away from anything like that, we’re still developing courses of action and none of that’s been presented yet to the Secretary,” he added.

Cars pass by destroyed Russian tanks in a recent battle against Ukrainians in the village of Dmytrivka, close to Kyiv, Ukraine, Monday, May 23.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “overall strategy” regarding Ukraine is “unknown.”

Asked by CNN’s Oren Liebermann if Putin is switching his long game to weaponizing things like food, energy, and immigration, Austin said the world has seen the Russian leader “use a number of different levers from the very beginning.”

Austin noted that at the outset of the war, Putin “envisioned using overwhelming force and speed and power to very rapidly” take Kyiv and replace the government, but that failed and their forces were pushed back.

German Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs Robert Habeck addresses a panel session during the 51st annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on May 23.

Germany’s vice chancellor and economy minister told CNN a recession is not inevitable.

Speaking to CNN’s Julia Chatterley at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Robert Habeck insisted that “nothing is inevitable, we are human beings and can change the course of history.”

He also spoke to CNN about the war in Ukraine and Europe’s efforts to lessen dependence on Russian energy. Asked whether the European Union could reach an agreement on the next round of sanctions, including an oil embargo, he said he was confident a deal could be reached and could be done within days.

Habeck also discussed Germany’s dependence on Russian gas, saying German industry would collapse without Russian energy. Asked whether Germany would pay for Russian gas in rubles, Habeck said that German companies would pay for gas in euros, if Russia then decided to exchange those euros into rubles, it was a “face saving” measure for Putin.

He insisted that any such moves were approved by the EU Commission and did not break sanctions.

More background: Russian President Vladimir Putin said in March that “unfriendly” nations would have to pay rubles, rather than the euros or dollars stated in contracts. Buyers could make euro or dollar payments into an account at Russia’s Gazprombank, which would then convert the funds into rubles and transfer them to a second account from which the payment to Russia would be made.

Gas supplies to Poland and Bulgaria were cut off, after they refused to pay in rubles. Other big European gas companies have told CNN they are working on ways to pay for Russian gas, while not breaking EU sanctions.

There are currently about 102,000 US troops based in the European area of operations, which is a 30% increase from the number of US troops stationed in the European area of operations before the war in Ukraine began, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a news conference at the Pentagon after the conclusion of the second Ukraine Contact Group meeting on Monday. 

The US has increased its troop presence on the ground, at sea and by air since the war in Ukraine began, Milley added. 

“At sea, we have over 15,000 sailors in the Med and the Baltics, on 24 surface combatants and force subs, up from six surface combatants back in the fall,” Milley said. “In the air, we have currently 12 fighter squadrons and two Combat Aviation brigades, and on the ground we have two corps, two divisions, and six Brigade Combat Teams, along with a variety of enablers.”

CNN reported last week that the US is expected to keep 100,000 troops stationed in Europe for the foreseeable future.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin gives opening remarks accompanied by Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a virtual meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group at the Pentagon in Washington, DC, on Monday, May 23.

Denmark has agreed to provide Ukraine with a Harpoon launcher and missiles to “help Ukraine defend its coast,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the conclusion of the second Ukraine Contact Group meeting hosted by Austin on Monday. The second contact group meeting was held virtually. 

The Czech Republic also agreed to send “substantial support” to Ukraine including “a recent donation of attack helicopters, tanks and rocket systems,” Austin said at a press conference at the conclusion of the meeting.

Overall, 20 countries “announced new security assistance packages,” after the meeting, Austin said, including “donating critically needed artillery ammunition, coastal defense systems and tanks and other armored vehicles.”

“Others came forward with new commitments for training Ukraine’s forces and sustaining its military systems,” Austin added.

A total of 47 countries participated in the contact group’s second meeting, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said.

Secretary Austin will host the third meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group in person in Brussels on June 15, Austin said at the conclusion of the second virtual meeting of the contact group Monday. 

“I will convene the Contact Group for our third meeting next month and will gather in person this time, on June 15, in the margins of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels,” Austin said. “Of course, it won’t be a NATO event, but we want to keep up the, up, keep up the tempo of these meetings and I wanted to use my travel to Europe to ensure that we’re building on our momentum.”

Banknotes worth 200 hryvnia each are seen in this photo illustration.

Ukrainian refugees in Germany will be able to exchange banknotes of their currency — the Ukrainian hryvnia — into euros from Tuesday without exchange rates, as agreed by the German finance ministry, German Federal Bank, the German banking industry and the National Bank of Ukraine.

“Refugees can exchange a total amount of up to 10,000 hryvnia into euros at participating German banks and savings banks,“ the German finance ministry said Monday in a press release.

Germany will cover for exchange losses, it noted.

At least one person has been killed in a Russian missile attack on Malyn, in the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s Air Command Center said Russian forces fired “naval-based cruise missiles” from the southeastern direction at infrastructure facilities in Zhytomyr on Sunday.

Bunechko’s comments were reported in a Telegram post by Ukraine’s Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

The center added that its air defense units had destroyed four Russian cruise missiles.

Three missiles were destroyed by aircraft, and one by an anti-aircraft missile unit of the Ukrainian air force, they added.

See moment missiles flew over Zhytomyr during a CNN interview:

A Starbucks coffee shop alongside a mural of Georgy Zhukov, a Soviet general and Marshal of the Soviet Union, in Moscow, Russia, on March 27.

Coffee giant Starbucks says it has exited Russia and will no longer have a brand presence there, according to a press release on Monday. 

The coffee company says it has been operating in Russia for 15 years and has now closed its 130 licensed cafes in the country. Starbucks joins other companies like McDonald’s and Exxon Mobil in taking its business completely out of Russia. 

Starbucks says it will “support” its nearly 2,000 workers in Russia, including pay for six months and assistance for partners to transition to new opportunities outside of Starbucks. 

This comes after Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in March that it had suspended all business activity in Russia, including shipment of all Starbucks products. 

The United States Embassy to Ukraine stands closed on April 25, in Kyiv, Ukraine.

The Biden Administration is in the early stages of potentially sending special operations forces (SOF) into Ukraine for the very limited mission of helping guard the US Embassy in Kyiv, according to several US officials. The idea of using SOF is in very preliminary stages and has not yet been presented to President Joe Biden for a decision, the sources said.

The embassy was re-opened last week after being closed for about three months.

For now, the embassy and its limited number of personnel are protected by State Department diplomatic security officials. The discussion centers around whether an increase in security is needed if the number of personnel increase, and whether SOF is best equipped to fulfill those requirements. 

US Marines typically guard US embassies around the world but in Kyiv, for now, there is a general agreement that the typical Marine Corps embassy guard personnel may not be suited to the uncertain security picture in Ukraine without additional forces, officials say.

The US doesn’t believe Russia would overtly attack the Embassy. But the concern is that Russia air defenses or missiles could inadvertently target the compound and the situation could dramatically escalate the officials say. US officials say Russia has a thorough understanding on an official basis that the US uses military personnel to guard its embassies around the world and any presence should not be viewed as escalatory. Still an introduction of US forces into Ukraine could raise concerns that it could lead to a perception of US escalation since President Biden has been adamant that US ground troops will not fight in Ukraine. 

The concern is if special operations forces go into Ukraine then the US must be able to provide a rapid means of getting them and embassy personnel out of Ukraine in a crisis. Currently the only options are vehicle or rail transport to the border.

For now, there is no appetite at the Pentagon to provide air support such as helicopters or fixed wing transport. If that was done, it could rapidly escalate the US military footprint because of the need to then provide potential rescue and reconnaissance forces if a US pilot was to go down.

The WSJ first reported that special operations forces are being considered for embassy security.