September 12, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Follow the latest news on Russia’s war in Ukraine here and read more about today’s developments in the posts below.

The White House cannot say for certain that recent Ukrainian advances represent a major turning point in the war, but a top adviser called the reports “impressive.”

National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told CNN on Monday he didn’t know if “we can say that definitively today” the rapid advance was a major turning point.

Earlier on Monday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces have recaptured 6,000 square kilometers (around 2,300 square miles) in the east and south of the country since the start of September.

While Kirby wouldn’t estimate just how much territory the Ukrainians have retaken, he said the operations “had an effect on the Russians, have forced them to push back, certainly have forced them to give up territory and to move away in retreat from where the Ukrainians have been advancing.”

He noted, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, that even since the early days of the war, Russian soldiers “did not have the unit cohesion, they didn’t have the good leadership, they didn’t have the morale, they were running away from the fight, even in the first couple of weeks in and around Kyiv.”

Asked how significant the blowback could be on Vladimir Putin, Kirby said the Russian president is “having more and more difficulty hiding the size and scale and scope of his failures inside Ukraine from the Russian people.”

Ukrainian forces continue their counteroffensive and President Volodymyr Zelensky says they have re-captured 6,000 square kilometers (around 2,300 square miles) since the beginning of the month.

Meantime, the situation at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remains tense. The head of the UN atomic energy watchdog says he is still “gravely concerned” as long as there is shelling around the plant. He said both countries are interested in establishing some kind of protection zone around the plant, which is currently being held by Russian troops.

Here’s what else to know today:

Ukrainians have presented Russian forces with “multiple dilemmas along the forward line of troops,” a senior US military official said Monday, including where to apply their limited resources after Ukrainians moved swiftly over the weekend to re-capture territory.

The change in battlefield dynamics is “indicative of the reports” of Russian forces having “low morale, logistics issues, inability to sustain operations,” the US military official said. Ukraine’s military advanced on two fronts: a slower, more deliberate push in Kherson in southern Ukraine and a rapid advance through depleted Russian forces near Kharkiv in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine’s advances have forced Russia to decide where it wants to move its forces and how to use them, the official said, a decision which is always challenging in the middle of a war. “It’s a very hard problem to solve,” the official said, and it’s made even more difficult by the sustainment, logistics, and command and control issues that the Russians have experienced since the start of the invasion.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces have recaptured 6,000 square kilometers of land in the east and south of the country since the beginning of the month as he appealed for greater international pressure to isolate Russia.

According to analysts, that would amount to nearly 10% of the territory lost to the Russian offensive since it began in February.

In his daily video message, Zelensky also asked: “Why can [Russia] wage war so cruelly and cynically? There is only one reason — insufficient pressure on Russia. The response to the terror of this state is insufficient.”

One answer, he said, was to “increase aid to Ukraine, and above all speed up the provision of air defense systems.”

Some European countries have enacted bans on tourist visas for Russians; most have not.

Zelensky said Russia was to blame for “energy terror. Residents of many countries around the world are suffering due to the painful increase in prices for energy resources — for electricity, for heat. Russia does it deliberately. It deliberately destabilizes the gas market in Europe.”

He added:

The president described the attacks on Ukrainian electricity supplies as “a sign of the desperation of those who invented this war. This is how they react to the defeat of Russian forces in the Kharkiv region.”

A couple wheels suitcases as they walk in front of a destroyed building in Izyum, Kharkiv Oblast on September 11.

Russian forces have “largely ceded their gains to the Ukrainians” in the vicinity of Kharkiv in the northeast, according to a senior US military official, with “many” of the Russian forces moving back over the border. 

The official also said the US believes Ukrainian forces “have very likely taken control of Kupiansk and Izium in addition to smaller villages.”

The official also said that reports of abandoned Russian equipment in the wake of their retreat “could be indicative of Russia’s disorganized command and control.”

In the Kherson region in the south, the official said the US sees “deliberate and calibrated operations by the Ukrainians to include some moderate forward movement.”

The official also said the US continues to see shelling around the Zaporizhzhia plant, which had its last reactor shut down, according to the country’s nuclear agency Energoatom.

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant on September 11.

The president of Ukraine’s state nuclear company — Energoatom — told CNN that the power units at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant remain in a cooling state while work continues to restore power lines from the plant.

Speaking to CNN via Skype, Petro Kotin, said all seven lines connecting to the plant were damaged, and it had switched to what he called the “island mode” — where the plant supplied electricity solely for itself.

“We tried to prolong the operation of one of our power units for as long as possible, even in the conditions when it was operating in island mode. It worked for us for three days,” he told CNN.

Kotin said just one of the six power units remained working, and was supplying the needs of the plant — the electricity necessary for the pumps that cool the nuclear material. The reactors “are full of nuclear material, fuel and also there are six pools that are located near the reactors at each power unit. They need to be constantly cooled,” he said.

“The hazard is that if there is no power supply, the pumps will stop and there will be no cooling, and in about one and a half to two hours you will have a meltdown of this fuel that is in the reactor,” he added.

Kotin reiterated that when there is no external power supply, the diesel generators could kick in. “As of today the diesel generators can work there for ten days.”

Kotin said representatives of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), remained at the plant. “They have meetings with the plant management twice a day, so they have all the current information on the plant’s operation,” he said.

As for the IAEA proposal for a safety zone around the plant, Kotin said: “We don’t fully understand what this safety zone means exactly.”

He repeated the Ukrainian government’s line that the plant should be returned to Ukrainian control and the power plant itself and zone around it should be demilitarized.

CNN was given exclusive access to the town of Kupiansk in the Kharkiv region, just a day after pictures emerged showing soldiers hoisting the Ukrainian flag on the roof of the town’s municipal building.

Far from being a town under full Ukrainian control, CNN found one still being bitterly fought for.

At the edge of the town, Vasyl – who declined to give his last name for security reasons – tells us that for days “they (the Russians) were shelling and shelling” in the ongoing fight in Kharkiv.

On Sunday afternoon, the dull thud of outcoming artillery fire was punctuated by the more infrequent boom of incoming fire. Russian forces were still fighting for Kupiansk, a town that is crucial to their supply lines, connecting their military base across the northern border in Russia’s Belgorod to Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and the frontlines of the Donbas.

Ukraine’s top military commander General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi claimed Sunday that the country’s military had retaken more than 3,000 square kilometers (around 1,158 square miles) of territory since the beginning of the month, much of that believed to be in the Kharkiv region.

But on the ground, the fate of Kupiansk appears far from certain, indicating that maintaining Ukrainian control over newly liberated territory in the area could prove difficult.

Further west, some villages have seen calm entirely restored such as in the Kharkiv region’s Zaliznychne, liberated last week, as the eastern counteroffensive picked up speed. There, the fight appears to have been far less painful.

Read more about what CNN saw in eastern Ukraine over the last few days here.

The Ukrainian Prosecutor’s office in Kharkiv says it has begun an investigation into reports that civilians were murdered by Russian occupying forces in a village in Kharkiv region.

In a statement on Facebook, the prosecutor said local residents in Zaliznychne had reported that Russian forces had killed several of their fellow villagers.

“On September 11, law enforcement officers discovered four corpses. All of them have traces of torture,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.

“According to the preliminary version of the investigation, the victims were killed by the Russian military,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.

Two Russian maritime patrol aircraft were “detected, tracked and positively identified,” by North American Aerospace Defense Command “operating within the Alaskan and Canadian Air Defense Identification Zones (ADIZ),” on Sept. 11, NORAD said in a statement Monday.

NORAD is part of the US military that oversees the US military presence in North America.

The two airplanes “remained in international airspace and did not enter American nor Canadian sovereign airspace,” the release said.

The ADIZ is international airspace adjacent to Alaska that extends in places more than 100 miles (more than 160 kilometers) from US territory. The US military initiates identification procedures for aircraft in the ADIZ in the interest of national security. 

NORAD said the recent Russian activity was “not seen as a threat” or seen as a “provocative,” move the release added.

NORAD detected Russian military aircraft flying into the Alaskan Air Defense Identification Zone three times in the same week last month, CNN previously reported. The three incidents occurred sometime between Aug. 8 and Aug. 10, NORAD said at the time.

In a further sign of the ongoing Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east, geolocated images and video show that Ukrainian units have crossed the Siverskiy Donets river to take control of the town of Svyatohirsk in Donetsk region. 

One geolocated image shows the damaged administrative building in the town with the Ukrainian flag hung above the entrance. Other images show Ukrainian soldiers on the streets of the town. The Ukrainians had held on to the south bank of the river in this area during the Russian offensive. 

Why this matters: The capture of Svyatohirsk will further complicate any attempt by the remaining Russian-backed forces in the area to withdraw.

Some militia units of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic continue to hold out in the town of Lyman, but any retreat to the east would be difficult if Ukrainian advances continue.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, left, and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid speak at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, on Monday.

Germany supplied “very efficient weapons that are making the difference right now in the current battle” in eastern Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said during a joint news conference with Israel’s Prime Minister Yair Lapid on Monday in Berlin. 

Germany has committed to deliver the Iris-T air defense system to Ukraine and the country had decided to order more of these systems, he said.

More context: Despite Kyiv’s increasingly urgent demands for modern battle tanks, the German defense minister Christine Lambrecht continues to refuse the delivery of Marder or Leopard tanks to Ukraine. 

“No country has delivered Western-built infantry fighting vehicles or battle tanks so far,” Lambrecht explained during a panel discussion on Germany’s national security strategy at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).

Germany had delivered weapon systems like the Howitzer-2000 that required training, the minister said but added it was a matter of urgency to deliver “Soviet-designed tanks which can be used for immediate combat in Ukraine.” 

Germany will not act unilaterally, but the German Chancellor underlined ongoing support for Ukraine “for as long as that is necessary.”

A man leaves a voting booth during the Moscow municipal deputies elections at a polling station in Moscow on September 9.

Deputies from 18 municipal districts in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Kolpino have called for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s resignation, according to a petition with a list of signatures posted on Twitter on Monday.

The petition follows Russia’s first regional and municipal elections since the start of the war, which brought a sweeping victory for pro-Kremlin candidates.

“The petition’s text is concise and does not “discredit” anyone. If you are mundep [municipal deputy] and want to join, you are welcome,” Thorstrom said in a Twitter post.

The council of one Moscow district (Lomonosovsky) also demanded Putin’s resignation, saying: “Your views and your model of government are hopelessly outdated and hinder the development of Russia and its human potential.”

Last week, the deputies of the Smolninskoye municipality of St. Petersburg called on the State Duma of the Russian Federation to bring charges of treason against Vladimir Putin. Several of them now face charges for discrediting the Russian army, according to a Twitter post from one of the local officials, Nikita Yuferev.

People carrying their belongings walk in front of a destroyed building in Izyum, Kharkiv Region, on September 11.

Ukrainian officials have begun addressing the daunting demands of reconstruction in recently liberated areas, with winter just a couple of months away.

After recapturing the city of Izium over the weekend, Ukrainian forces are taking steps to stabilize the situation there, according to Maksym Strelnikov, a member of the city council.

He also talked about the privations suffered by civilians during the occupation.

“As of now, we know at least 1,000 civilians [in Izium] have died due to hostilities. But we think even more people were affected due to lack of medical care, as the Russian occupiers have destroyed all the health care institutions in March. The occupiers have looted all the pharmacies, so there was no access to medication. This is the most urgent issue for now, along with hospitalization of Izium residents, who require urgent medical care,” he added.

Strelnikov said there were about 10,000 civilians left in the city, after a recent evacuation of women and children.

“Most Izium residents are waiting to come back home, but as of now the situation with critical infrastructure is a serious challenge … We hope that we will be able to do everything possible to be prepared for winter,” he noted.

Some background: Although Izium is under Ukrainian control, the war is not far away. There is fighting about 40 kilometers (about 25 miles) to the east around Lyman. The official Telegram channel of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic reported Monday that the town “is under full control of the troops of the People’s Militia of the DNR, LNR and the RF. It is relatively calm.”

It said that Ukrainian forces “do not give up attempts to attack nearby territories,” but such attempts “have been repelled. The enemy retreated with loses. ”

As Kyiv’s offensive continues in the northeastern region of Kharkiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a stark warning to Moscow on Sunday, declaring that “history will put everything in its place.”

Catch up on the latest on Ukraine’s counteroffensive and other big headlines:

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi addresses a news conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on Monday.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Grossi on Monday confirmed the cold shutdown of reactor number 6, the final reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) that had been operational. 

“At the moment, the plant is in cold shut down and we have been able to stabilize it,” Grossi said at a news conference in Vienna. 

Grossi explained that Unit 6 went into “island mode,” providing low level power input to the plant but that that was not sustainable. 

Concerns about the plant: Grossi opened the news conference by saying that his two primary concerns are that the shelling continues, and that there is obviously ongoing concern of any direct impact on the reactors and associated facilities, in particular the spent fuel areas which could have serious consequences.

The other primary concern is the lack of external power into the plant, that is essential to continue operations. 

When pressed by reporters about whether Ukraine would keep all the reactors in cold shutdown for safety reasons, Grossi said that independent of the reactors being in cold-shutdown, with the external power interrupted, the plant could still face a nuclear accident.  

He said repeatedly that it was up to Ukraine whether or not to keep the reactors in that mode, saying that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky considered the plant’s operations “very important” as part of their national electrical grid.

Ukrainian authorities claimed that around 500 square kilometers (almost 200 square miles) of territory has been recaptured in the southern Kherson region in the past two weeks.

Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian military in the south, said the settlements of Vysokopillia, Novovoznesenske, Bilohirka, Myroliubivka and Sukhyi Stavok were “completely liberated from the occupiers and are under the Ukrainian flag.”

Speaking at a briefing on Monday, Humeniuk said “the area has been cleared” of Russian mines, adding that “additional measures still are being taken there.”

“Shelling of these territories continues, but the population is under Ukrainian jurisdiction,” she added.

Ukrainian forces have the ambitious goal of taking back most of the Russian-occupied region of Kherson by the end of the year, senior US officials and Ukrainian officials told CNN last Wednesday.

CNN cannot independently verify Humeniuk’s claims.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director-General Rafael Grossi addresses a news conference during an IAEA Board of Governors meeting in Vienna on Monday.

Ukraine and Russia are both interested in a proposal by the UN’s atomic watchdog to establish a protection zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Monday.

Speaking at a news conference in Vienna, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said he had held talks with both countries since he first made the call for the zone in an interview with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour last week.

Grossi said Ukraine was a “natural partner” in the talks since Zaporizhzhia is a Ukrainian plant, but added Russia is also “an indispensable part of the discussions since they are in control of the facility.” 

He added that both Ukraine and Russia were engaging and asking questions about the proposed zone, which is designed to prevent activities like shelling that have caused damage to the plant, and to protect the security of the facility and the people there.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on economic issues via a video link at the Kremlin in Moscow on Monday.

Western “economic blitzkrieg” tactics failed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said speaking at a meeting on economic issues Monday.

“Russia is confidently coping with external pressure, and in fact, one might say, with financial and technological aggression from some countries,” Putin said during the televised meeting in an apparent reference to the sanctions introduced by the West after Russia’s aggression in Ukraine.

“The economic blitzkrieg tactics, the sudden attack they were counting on, did not work - this is already obvious to everyone, and to them too,” he added.

A sharp recession in the Russian economy was avoided, thanks to the “effective protective measures” that were promptly implemented by the Russian government, he noted.

“There is every reason to expect that by the end of the year inflation will be about 12%,” he added saying that the economy is starting to grow and companies are returning to business as usual.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov attends the 2022 Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok, Russia on September 6.

The Kremlin on Monday insisted that Russia would achieve all the goals of the “special military operation” in Ukraine, despite its damaging setback in Kharkiv over the weekend.

“The special military operation continues and will continue until the initial goals are achieved,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with journalists.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is aware of the situation on the frontline, he added.

After the success of Ukraine’s counteroffensive on Saturday, the Russian Defense Ministry sought to present its retreat as a strategic regrouping.

“The decision was made to regroup Russian troops in the areas of Balakleya and Izium and redirect their efforts in the Donetsk direction,” it said.

Peskov said Putin is aware of the said “regrouping” of Russian troops.

“Of course, all the actions of the army during the special military operation are reported to the supreme commander-in-chief [President Vladimir Putin],” Peskov told journalists. “The President is in constant round-the-clock communication with the minister of defense and with all military leaders.”