May 11, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

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

Zelensky speaks during an interview that aired on BBC, saying "We need a bit more time," referring to a long-awaited counter-offensive.

Ukrainian forces have begun “shaping” operations in advance of a highly-anticipated counteroffensive against Russian forces, a senior US military official and senior Western official tell CNN.

Shaping involves striking targets such as weapons depots, command centers and armor and artillery systems to prepare the battlefield for advancing forces. It’s a standard tactic made prior to major combined operations.

When Ukraine launched a counteroffensive late last summer in the southern and northeastern parts of the country, it was similarly preceded by air attacks to shape the battlefield. These shaping operations could continue for many days before the bulk of any planned Ukrainian offensive, according to the senior US military official.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said his country still needs “a bit more time” before it launches the counteroffensive, in order to allow some more of the promised Western military aid to arrive in the country.

Among the supplies Ukraine is still waiting for are armored vehicles — including tanks —which Zelensky said were “arriving in batches.”

Shaping operations can also be designed to confuse the enemy. 

Last summer, Kharkiv had very little in the way of softening up; it was a lightning ground offensive. Most of the shaping came in Kherson, through long-range attacks on bridges, ammo stores and command centers. Most of these were carried out by HIMARS. There were some, but not many, air strikes.

CNN’s Tim Lister contributed reporting.

In an unusual late-night post on its Telegram channel, the Russian Ministry of Defense has pushed back on claims that Ukrainian forces broke through parts of the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

At least two Russian military bloggers have reported a deteriorating situation for Russian forces around the city, where a battle of attrition has been grinding on for months.

The defense ministry said Russian assault units are making progress in the western part of Bakhmut with air and artillery support. It said troops are battling to repel Ukrainian troops “in the direction of Maloilyinovka” — apparently a reference to a village in the Bakhmut area.

“The enemy suffers significant losses in manpower and hardware,” the defense officials claimed.

What Ukraine says: A report from the Ukrainian military’s General Staff Thursday described a “dynamic” situation in Bakhmut, claiming Kyiv’s forces are heaping pressure on Russian fighters and probing weak spots in their lines.

A Ukrainian military officer said Ukraine is on the offensive in Bakhmut this week after months of defense. Kyiv has reported “effective counterattacks” around the eastern city despite constant Russian bombardment.

A fire fighter works to put out a fire at a house destroyed by a Russian attack on Malokaterynivka, in the Zaporizhzhia Region of Ukraine, on Thursday, May 11th

Russia’s military shelled several towns and villages in the Zaporizhzhia region, injuring civilians and damaging property, according to the Ukrainian official leading the regional military administration there.

Meanwhile, the Russians have claimed they are eliminating deployment points of the Ukrainian military. Indirect fire in the region has intensified ahead of what observers expect to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Here are other key headlines to know:

International aid. The UK has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, the British defense ministry confirmed Thursday. And Japan’s finance minister announced Thursday that Japan will provide $1 billion to help Ukraine’s neighbors in taking refugees from the war-stricken country.

The battle for Bakhmut. The Ukrainian military says Russia launched nearly 50 airstrikes over the last day as intense fighting puts pressure on forward Russian positions west of the city of Bakhmut. The military’s General Staff said Thursday that Russia also carried out six missile attacks. In an unusual late-night post on its Telegram channel, the Russian Ministry of Defense has pushed back on claims that Ukrainian forces broke through parts of the front line around the eastern city of Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, the head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has again complained that areas captured by his fighters around the eastern city of Bakhmut at the expense of heavy casualties are now being lost to the Ukrainians. And this week, the Ukrainian commander of a battalion involved in the country’s attack on Russian positions near Bakhmut told CNN the first Russians to abandon the area were Wagner fighters, contradicting claims made by Prigozhin that regular Russian troops initially fled the battleground in eastern Ukraine.

Assassination attempt. The Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said an assassination attempt was made on a Russian-appointed court chairman there. The Zaporizhzhia judge is the latest target in a string of assassination attempts in Russian-occupied Melitopol in the last few weeks. 

Potential prisoner swap. US President Joe Biden’s administration is scouring the globe for offers that could entice Russia to release detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, according to three sources familiar with the matter. The US considers both men wrongfully detained. It does not currently have any high-level Russian spies in its custody, current and former US officials say, driving the need to turn to allies for help.

Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan.

US President Joe Biden’s administration is scouring the globe for offers that could entice Russia to release detained Americans Evan Gershkovich and Paul Whelan, according to three sources familiar with the matter.

The US considers both men wrongfully detained. It does not currently have any high-level Russian spies in its custody, current and former US officials say, driving the need to turn to allies for help.

The Biden administration is casting a wide net, approaching allied countries who have Russian spies in custody to gauge whether they would be willing to make a trade as part of a larger prisoner swap package.

But US officials have also been surveying allies without Russians in their custody, officials said, for ideas on what might entice Moscow to release US prisoners.

The White House is also exploring narrow sanctions relief, senior administration officials said.

The goal is to bring home Whelan and Gershkovich as part of the same deal, US officials have said privately, with two US officials telling CNN the administration wants to see what creative offers could gin up Russian interest.

US officials’ outreach extends to some countries that have recently arrested alleged Russian spies, including Brazil, Norway and Germany, as well as a former Soviet bloc country, to discuss the possibility of including them in any potential prisoner swaps.

Germany has a former colonel from Russia’s domestic spy agency named Vadim Krasikov in its custody. He is widely seen as being atop Russia’s list of prisoners it wants back.

While some of these efforts predate Gershkovich’s detention, they have continued to intensify since The Wall Street Journal reporter was arrested in March, with White House officials directly engaged on the matter, officials said.

In context with the war in Ukraine: Gershkovich’s arrest marked the first time an American journalist has been detained on accusations by Moscow of spying since the Cold War. It has been viewed by news organizations as another sign of the Kremlin’s crackdown on foreign media outlets since it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.

Russia’s detentions of Griner, Whelan and Gershkovich have raised fears they could be used as pawns in the geopolitics surrounding the war.

Read more here.

The Ukrainian military says Russia launched nearly 50 airstrikes over the last day as intense fighting puts pressure on forward Russian positions west of the city of Bakhmut.

The military’s General Staff said Thursday that Russia also carried out six missile attacks.

Russian forces continue to advance around Bakhmut and have carried out a number of airstrikes in the area, Kyiv’s military said. But Ukrainian forces have exploited gaps in Russian flanks south and west of the city to recapture some territory, according to the General Staff.

One officer deployed in the area said Ukraine was in an “active offensive phase” around Bakhmut, after months of mainly defensive action.

Russian writers weigh in: Some Russian military bloggers have painted a gloomy picture of Russia’s prospects around Bakhmut.

One of them, Sasha Simonov, said units of Russia’s 4th Army Brigade had withdrawn from an area west of the city. This is consistent with Ukrainian reports of advances there earlier this week.

Ukrainian fighters have also attempted a breakthrough near Bohdanivka, which is northwest of Bakhmut, Simonov said.

Elsewhere: Russia’s efforts to advance in eastern Ukraine are focused on four parts of the front line in the Donetsk region, Ukraine’s military said. Russia has failed in recent efforts to break through to the town of Lyman in Donetsk, it added.

In the northeastern Kharkiv region, it appears there has been less fighting around Kupyansk, which Russia frequently targeted with shelling and ground attacks earlier this year, the General Staff said.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group military company, in Moscow, in April 2023.

In recent days, the boss of the Russian private military company Wagner seems to have gone into social media meltdown, flooding his Telegram channel and other accounts with ever-more outrageous and provocative statements.

Among other things, Prigozhin revealed an apparently humiliating battlefield setback for Russia, saying a Russian brigade had “fled” around the eastern city of Bakhmut, threatening his troops with encirclement by Ukrainian forces.

Earlier in the week, Prigozhin marred Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations with public and profanity-laced criticisms of the country’s top military brass.

And then there was a more cryptic comment that raised eyebrows on social media. Continuing a longstanding public complaint that Russia’s uniformed military was starving his troops of shells, Prigozhin suggested that the higher-ups were dithering while Wagner fighters died.

A political operator: The Wagner boss has seen his political star rise in Russia in recent months as his fighters seemed to be the only ones capable of delivering tangible battlefield progress in the grinding war of attrition in eastern Ukraine. And he has used his social media clout to lobby for what he wants, including those sought-after ammunition supplies.

But amid those successes — particularly in the meat grinder of Bakhmut — Prigozhin has revived and amplified a feud with Russia’s military leadership. A canny political entrepreneur, Prigozhin has cast himself as a competent, ruthless patriot — in contrast with Russia’s inept military establishment.

It may seem surprising in a country where criticizing the military can potentially cost a person a spell in prison that Prigozhin gets away with strident criticism of Putin’s generals. But Putin presides over what is often described as a court system, where infighting and competition among elites is in fact encouraged to produce results, as long as the “vertical of power” remains loyal to and answers to the head of state.

A step too far? But Prigozhin’s online tantrums seem to be crossing the line to open disloyalty, some observers say.

In a recent Twitter thread, the Washington-based think tank Institute for the Study of War said, “If the Kremlin does not respond to Prigozhin’s escalating attacks on Putin it may further erode the norm in Putin’s system in which individual actors can jockey for position and influence (and drop in and out of Putin’s favor) but cannot directly criticize Putin.”

Speculation then centers on whether Prigozhin is politically expendable, whether his outbursts are a sort of clever deception operation — or, more troublingly for Putin, whether the system of loyalty that keeps the Kremlin running smoothly is starting to break down.

Read more here.

A dog walks on the debris of a destroyed building after an air bombing in the town of Orikhiv, in the Zaporizhzhia region, on May 7.

The Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region said an assassination attempt was made on a Russian-appointed court chairman there.

“As a result of the assassination attempt, the judge was not injured, but two guards were injured, they are in a medical facility, they are provided with all the necessary assistance,” the governor, Yevgeny Balitsky, said on his Telegram channel. 

The Zaporizhzhia judge is the latest target in a string of assassination attempts in Russian-occupied Melitopol in the last few weeks. 

Last week, the deputy head of Melitopol’s regional police department was hospitalized after an improvised explosive device went off outside a gate of a residential building. 

On April 27, another police chief in Melitopol, Oleksandr Mishchenko, was killed when an improvised device exploded at the entrance to an apartment building. 

Ukrainian soldiers fire a cannon near Bakhmut, an eastern city where fierce battles against Russian forces have been taking place, in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, Wednesday, May 3.

The head of the Wagner private military company, Yevgeny Prigozhin, has again complained that areas captured by his fighters around the eastern city of Bakhmut at the expense of heavy casualties are now being lost to the Ukrainians.

His perspective is in stark contrast to the views of one Ukrainian battalion commander in the area, who told CNN that it was Russian regular forces that were putting up the stiffest resistance, while Wagner units had been the first to run.

According to one well-known Russian military blogger in the area, the task of defending the flanks around Bakhmut was passed to regular Russian forces, while Wagner has consolidated its presence in the city itself.

One Ukrainian commander in the Bakhmut area said Thursday that Ukrainian units had struck at the Russians’ flanks and the enemy had retreated. However, Taras Deyak of the Karpatska Sich tactical group told Radio Liberty, that the situation remains “very difficult, very tense and at times uncontrollable.”

Geolocated footage published since Tuesday also shows that “Ukrainian forces likely conducted successful limited counterattacks north of Khromove (immediately west of Bakhmut) and northwest of Bila Hora (southwest of Bakhmut) and made marginal advances in these areas,” according to the Institute for the Study of War.

Here’s a look at the state of control:

Cargo ships anchored in the Marmara Sea await to cross the Bosphorus Straits in Istanbul, Turkey, Tuesday, Nov. 1, 2022.

The United Nations, Turkey and Ukraine have called for the extension of a crucial grain deal agreement that enabled the passage of Ukrainian ships carrying agriculture products to depart the country, as the latest negotiations in Istanbul between the three parties and Russia ends Thursday. 

Turkey, alongside the UN, helped broker the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July. The agreement, which is set to expire on May 18, established a procedure that guaranteed the safety of ships carrying Ukrainian grain, fertilizer and other foodstuffs through a humanitarian corridor in the Black Sea.

Moscow stopped the ships from leaving in the early days of the war, exacerbating a global food crisis.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin said after Thursday’s meeting that the implementation of the Russian part of the agreement is “unsatisfactory,” Russian state media TASS reported.  

The UN’s representative Martin Griffiths said on Thursday: “The United Nations will continue to work closely with all sides to achieve the continuation and full implementation of the Initiative, in pursuit of their broader shared commitment to addressing global food insecurity.”

Griffiths added that over 30 million tons of grains and other food have been exported from Ukraine since the beginning of the initiative in July 2022. 

All parties at the meeting agreed to “engage with those elements going forwards,” according to the statement. 

Turkish National Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said on Thursday “our wish is the extension of the grain agreement,” according to Turkish state media Andalou Angency. 

Kyiv wishes to see the deal not only be extended but also expand to cover more ground, according to a statement from Ukraine’s Vice President Oleksandr Kubrakov, adding that future talks will take place virtually at the proposal of UN and Turkey.

Apartment blocks in Bakhmut in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on April 26.

The Ukrainian commander of a battalion involved in the country’s attack on Russian positions near Bakhmut this week has told CNN the first Russians to abandon the area were Wagner fighters, contradicting claims by the mercenary group’s chief that regular Russian troops initially fled the battleground in eastern Ukraine.

The commander of the First Battalion of the 3rd Assault Brigade, whose call-sign is Rollo, told a CNN team in eastern Ukraine that while Wagner units left their station southwest of the city of Bakhmut, the troops of the Russian army’s 72nd Brigade stayed and fought.

His remarks contradict those of Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin, who accused the 72nd Brigade of deserting their positions.

At one point, Rollo said, Kyiv’s forces used powerful HIMARS rockets against Russian infantry, who were gathering to reinforce positions. HIMARS rockets, provided by the United States, are normally used on more long-range targets such as ammunition depots and have a reputation for pinpoint accuracy.

Rollo added that the Russian soldiers only capitulated after being surrounded. “We spent two hours trying to persuade them to surrender.”

He said Prigozhin wanted to blame the Russian army for the failure, but they were good soldiers and fought hard. Prigozhin was a liar, he added.

Much of the fighting occurred in close quarters, and sometimes the enemy was just 20 meters away, according to Rollo.

Rollo commented that at least 200 to 300 Russian soldiers were killed and it may have been more.

CNN was not on the ground in Bakhmut to independently verify the death toll.

Some background: Prigozhin accused Moscow’s troops of “abandoning their positions” in front-line Bakhmut, laying bare deep fissures between the Wagner head and the Kremlin amid Russia’s faltering invasion of Ukraine.

Earlier this week, he said that “one of the units of the Ministry of Defense fled from one of our flanks, abandoning their positions. They all fled and [laid] bare a front nearly 2 kilometers wide and 500 meters deep.”

In comments on Tuesday, Prighozhin claimed the “72nd brigade f***ed up three square kilometers today, on which I had about 500 people killed. Because it was a strategic bridgehead. They just ran the hell out of there.”

CNN’s David VonBlohn and Olha Konovalova contributed reporting from eastern Ukraine.

Japan's Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki delivers a speech at the G7 High-Level Corporate Governance Roundtable in Niigata, Japan, on May 11.

Japan will provide $1 billion to help Ukraine’s neighbors in taking refugees from the war-stricken country, Japanese finance minister announced Thursday.

Suzuki was speaking at the G7 Finance Minister and Central Bank chief meeting in Niigata.

“I would like to achieve concrete results and bring them forward to the Hiroshima summit,” Suzuki said.

Japan is scheduled to host this year’s G7 summit in Hiroshima starting on May 19.

Firefighters work at a site of a residential house destroyed by a Russian military strike in the village of Malokaterynivka, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, on May 11.

The Ukrainian official leading the regional military administration in Zaporizhzhia, Yurii Malashko, said Thursday that the Russian military had shelled several towns and villages in the region, injuring civilians and damaging property. The Russians have claimed they are eliminating deployment points of the Ukrainian military.

Indirect fire in the region has intensified ahead of what observers expect to be a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

Malashko said that in the village of Malokaterynivka, eight people were injured by cluster shells. Three of them were ambulance workers who went to the scene, he said. There was also damage in the settlements of Huliaipole, Orikhiv and Stepnohirsk.

What Russia says: The Russian Defense Ministry on Thursday issued a statement claiming that Russian air defenses and Akatsiya self-propelled artillery crews had destroyed Ukraine’s temporary deployment point close to Huliaipole. The ministry claimed that an ammunition depot of the Ukrainian’s 102th Artillery Brigade had been destroyed.

“In South Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia directions, the attacks, launched by aviation and artillery of the Vostok Group of Forces have resulted in the neutralisation of the enemy units close to Vuhledar and Prechistivka (Donetsk People’s Republic), Malinivka, Huliapole, Novodanilivka and Kamianske (Zaporizhzhia region),” the ministry claimed.

A Russian military blogger said that elsewhere in the south – in Kherson region – the Russian air force had used powerful FAB-500 bombs to attack Ukrainian storage facilities. CNN is unable to independently verify the claim.

Visitors pass behind the French made Storm Shadow/Scalp EG cruise missiles at the opening of the five-day Dubai Air Show in Dubai on November 20, 2005.

The UK has donated Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Ukraine, the British defense ministry confirmed Thursday.

This follows exclusive CNN reporting earlier Thursday that the UK had supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, citing conversations with senior Western officials.

The donation of the Storm Shadow missiles “complements” long-range systems previously gifted to Ukraine as well as Ukraine’s own Neptune cruise missiles, Ben Wallace told lawmakers Thursday.

For weeks, a question has hung over the war: When will Ukraine launch its long-anticipated counteroffensive? Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tried to pour cold water on the speculation Thursday, claiming that his forces needed “a bit more time” to wait for equipment to arrive. But, after Ukrainian troops made significant gains around Bakhmut this week, Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin claimed the counteroffensive is already underway.

Here are the latest developments:

Russian forces have evacuated more than 12,000 people from frontline areas in the Zaporizhzhia region, a member of the Russian-installed main council of the military-civilian administration Vladimir Rogov said Thursday.

“Over 12,000 residents of frontline districts left for safe areas of Zaporizhzhia region,” Rogov said on his official Telegram account on Thursday. “More than 4,000 of them left by buses and more than 8,000 by their own vehicles.”

CNN could not independently verify the numbers put forward by the local Russian administration.

Rogov called on those still in these areas to take advantage of the opportunity to evacuate under what he called the “temporary relocation program,” with residents being given 10,000 rubles ($130), accommodation and meals.

Some background: Russian authorities began evacuating towns and cities in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia last week, amid rumors that Ukraine is set to launch a long-anticipated counteroffensive to reclaim territory seized by Moscow’s invasion.

Wagner founder and financier Yevgeny Prigozhin has rejected Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s remarks saying Kyiv still needs “a bit more time” before it launches a much anticipated counteroffensive.

Prigozhin’s remarks came after Zelensky said in an interview on Thursday his country needed “a bit more time” to allow additional Western supplies to arrive, before they could launch the counteroffensive. The Wagner founder went on to claim Ukrainian forces first had to resolve the situation in and around Bakhmut before trying to advance in other areas.

“That is why the offensive of the AFU has begun. Those units that have been trained, received the necessary weapons, equipment, tanks, everything else, they are already fully engaged,” he said, repeating his complaints against the Russian Ministry of Defense over the lack of ammunition supplies.

“Wagner continues to carry out combat missions in a terrible shortage of ammunition and shell hunger, because the promises made by the Ministry of Defense are not kept.”

What Ukraine says: Ukrainian military officials have previously said the counterattacks around Bakhmut mentioned by Prigozhin are part of a “positional struggle” and not necessarily related to a larger counteroffensive effort.

“Sometimes the enemy has some success after a powerful artillery strike and the destruction of infrastructure, and they can move forward,” the spokesperson for the Eastern Grouping of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Serhii Cherevaty said on May 1, explaining the frontline was constantly shifting. “But we counterattack and often win back our positions after inflicting fire on the enemy.”

The exterior of the International Criminal Court is seen on March 17, in The Hague, Netherlands.

Russia’s Investigative Committee will soon put on the country’s wanted list the judges of the International Criminal Court (ICC) who issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another official, the chairman of the Investigative Committee Alexander Bastrykin said Thursday, according to state news agency RIA Novosti.

“The Investigative Committee then very quickly opened a criminal case against the chairman and three judges, who actively influenced the adoption of this decision. They will soon be put on the wanted list,” Bastrykin said, speaking at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum.

Some background: The International Criminal Court issued on March 17 an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

The court said there “are reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Putin bears individual criminal responsibility” for the alleged crimes, for having committed them directly alongside others, and for “his failure to exercise control properly over civilian and military subordinates who committed the acts.”

Some context: The ICC charges were the first to be formally lodged against officials in Moscow since it began its unprovoked attack on Ukraine last year.

Russia is not a member of the ICC. As the court does not conduct trials in absentia, any Russian officials charged would either have to be handed over by Moscow or arrested outside of Russia.

The Kremlin has labeled the ICC’s actions as “outrageous and unacceptable.”

The Kremlin has warned its armed forces will provide an “adequate response’ to the United Kingdom’s decision to supply long-range missiles to Kyiv.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov condemned the move during a conference call with journalists on Thursday, promising a Russian reply.

“This will require an adequate response from our military who will naturally make relevant decisions with this in view,” Peskov added.

Some background: Earlier on Thursday, CNN reported that the United Kingdom had supplied Ukraine with multiple Storm Shadow cruise missiles, citing multiple senior Western officials.

The missiles have a maximum range of 250 km (155 miles) and give Ukrainian forces a new long-range strike capability in advance of a highly anticipated counteroffensive.

UK Defense Secretary Ben Wallace is expected to announce to the House of Commons that the UK is sending Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine.

The missile is “a real game changer from a range perspective,” a senior US military official told CNN and gives Kyiv a capability it has been requesting since the outset of the war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky pictured in his office in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 10.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is not worried about the outcome of the 2024 US presidential election and what it could mean in terms of Washington’s support for Kyiv, because he believes Ukraine will win before then.

“Who knows where we’ll be [when the election happens]?” he told European public broadcasters in an interview published on Thursday, according to one of the outlets, the BBC. “I believe we’ll win by then.”

Zelensky added that Ukraine continues to enjoy bipartisan support in the US Congress.

Some context: The US has provided significant financial support for Ukraine since Russia launched its invasion. On Tuesday, the US announced a $1.2 billion aid package to Ukraine to support the long-anticipated launch of its counteroffensive against Russian forces. With the new package announcement, the US has committed $36.9 billion in military aid to Ukraine since the beginning of the war in February 2022.

Zelensky’s comments came after former President Donald Trump would not say Wednesday night who he thinks should prevail in the war, instead telling New Hampshire GOP primary voters that he wants “everybody to stop dying” and that he doesn’t “think in terms of winning and losing.”

Speaking at CNN’s town hall, Trump – asked whether he supports providing US military aid to Ukraine – would not commit to sending aid to the war-torn country, should he win the Republican presidential nomination and then the White House.

While Trump said he would meet with Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin and solve the war in Ukraine “in one day, 24 hours,” he would not say whether he believed Putin was a war criminal but that it “should be discussed later.”

CNN’s Jack Forrest contributed to this post.