February 19, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

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

“Navalny,” a CNN Films and HBO co-production, took home Best Documentary at the British Academy of Film and Television Arts awards Sunday night. 

The film follows Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny through the assassination attempt against the Kremlin critic in 2020 and his political rise in Russia.  

The documentary win comes as Navalny himself remains in Russia, where he is serving a nine-year term in a maximum-security prison, and where he earlier this month was transferred to harsher solitary confinement for six months. 

Christo Grozev, a Bellingcat investigator and collaborator on the film, was barred from attending the BAFTA award ceremony this year following safety advice from the British police. 

But Dasha Navalnaya, Navalny’s daughter, was in attendance at the awards show on Sunday. 

Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in 2022.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry issued a statement Sunday accusing Russia of interfering with the work of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is currently occupied by Russian forces.

The UN watchdog said earlier this month that it has been unable to rotate its team of experts present in the plant in southern Ukraine due to “increased military activity.”

Since September, teams of experts have spent about one month each at the plant, then swapped out with another group, the IAEA explained in a statement. In order to do so, they have to cross the front line into Ukrainian-controlled territory. The organization deemed that too dangerous this month, calling the area surrounding the plant “volatile” and a “combat zone.”

In Ukraine’s statement Sunday, the foreign ministry claimed that Russia continues to surround the plant with military equipment and servicemen. Ukraine accused Russia of violating the norms of international law and undermining nuclear and radiation safety at the plant.

It called on Moscow authorities “to immediately unblock the rotation of IAEA experts and ensure their instant safe movement through the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine to the Zaporizhzhia NPP.” 

More background: IAEA chief Rafael Grossi held talks with senior Russian officials in Moscow earlier this month. According to the IAEA, the talks were part of the lengthy efforts to “agree and implement a much-needed nuclear safety and security protection zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP).”

Zaporizhzhia, with six reactors, is the largest nuclear power station in Europe. The area, and the nuclear complex, has been under Russian control since the beginning of the war. Grossi and other nuclear experts have been concerned about the threat of a nuclear accident amid shelling around the plant.

Grossi has assured Ukraine the IAEA will never recognize Russia as the owner of the Zaporizhzhia plant, according to Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal. Grossi also pledged a continuous presence of the IAEA at all of Ukraine’s nuclear plants.

CNN’s Katharina Krebs, Yulia Kesaieva and Lauren Kent contributed to this report.

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03:18 - Source: CNN

CNN spent time embedded with the Sikorsky Brigade in eastern Ukraine, which is operating from a secret base. It has a handful of helicopters and pilots there, conducting combat missions against Russian forces.

Given the gigantic advantage that Russia enjoys over Ukraine in terms of aircraft and pilots, it’s staggering that Ukraine can still threaten Russian forces.

Read Kiley’s full report here, and watch the story in the player above.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine approaches its one-year mark, residents in neighboring Moldova feel anxious over even more than the errant missiles that have entered their territory from the nearby battlefield.

Alarm bells are ringing in the capital of Chișinău and across the West that Russian President Vladimir Putin could seek to destabilize the Moldovan government.

Last month, the head of Moldova’s security service warned there is a “very high” risk that Russia will launch a new offensive in the eastern part of the country in 2023.

On Monday, Moldovan President Maia Sandu warned of an alleged Russian plot to destabilize her government. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken voiced “deep concern” Friday about the prospect of Moscow meddling with the tiny country.

And on Sunday, Poland’s prime minister became the latest prominent leader to stress the need to protect Moldovans, saying Russia’s “fingerprints” can be found all over the small nation, and that NATO allies “all need to help them” for the sake of stability in Europe.

Russia’s foreign ministry has rejected the accusations as “unfounded and unsubstantiated.”

Why Moldova is important: Moldova sits to the south of Ukraine, relatively close to Russia’s front lines along the Black Sea coast. Importantly, it separates southern Ukraine from NATO and European Union member Romania to the west.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, a handful of “frozen conflict” zones in eastern Europe emerged, including a sliver of land along Moldova’s border with Ukraine known as Transnistria.

The territory declared itself a Soviet republic in 1990, opposing any attempt by Moldova to become an independent state or to merge with Romania. When Moldova became independent the following year, Russia quickly inserted a so-called “peacekeeping force” in Transnistria, sending troops to back pro-Moscow separatists there.

This supposed “peacekeeping” presence has mirrored Moscow’s pretext for invasions in Georgia and Ukraine.

And concerns have only grown since the Kremlin began to claim the rights of ethnic Russians are being violated in Transnistria – another argument used by Putin to justify his February 2022 invasion of Luhansk and Donetsk regions in eastern Ukraine, which contained two breakaway Russian-backed statelets.

CNN’s Elise Hammond, Uliana Pavlova and Michael Conte contributed to this report.

Three civilians were killed and five others, including three children, were wounded by Russian shelling Sunday in southern Ukraine, local officials said.

The shelling hit the village of Burhunka in the Kherson region, the region’s military administration said in a Telegram post.

The three people killed were a mother, father and uncle from a family whose house was struck by the shelling, it said.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki attends the European Council Meeting in 2022 in Brussels, Belgium.

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he expects US President Joe Biden’s visit this week to signal “strong confirmation” of the countries’ shared goal of Russian defeat in Ukraine.

Biden “will reassure all Europe that the United States is with us in this fight for freedom and peace,” Morawiecki said in an interview with CBS’ “Face the Nation” program Sunday.

“I expect that there will be very strong confirmation of our resilience and our joint efforts to defeat Russia in Ukraine,” Morawiecki said.   

Biden is set to arrive in Warsaw on Tuesday for the two-day trip, timed around the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on February 24.

The president will meet his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda on Tuesday to discuss Polish aid to Ukraine alongside the “important” logistical role Poland has played in getting aid to Ukraine, the White House said Friday.

Ukrainian soldiers load ammunition on the frontline near Vuhledar, Ukraine on February 14.

The European Union’s top diplomat warned Sunday that Ukraine’s available ammunition is critically low, and Europe needs to solve the shortage quickly.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said that allies have been taking up too much time with decisions on battle tanks for Ukraine, while the ammunition situation grew dire.

“Don’t confuse the short-term objectives with the medium terms purposes. Short-term, very short-term, more ammunitions to Ukraine,” Borrell said, during a speech at the Munich Security Conference.

Borrell said the ammunition issue needed to be addressed in “a matter of weeks.”   

“The Ukrainians have a lot of applause and not enough ammunitions. That’s the paradox. They need to get less applause and better supplied with arms,” Borrell said, of Kyiv’s global reception.

He said EU has been slow in providing military aid to Ukraine and that future deliveries cannot be done by joint procurements, which he argued are too time-consuming: “We have to use what we have, what the member states have.”

Some background: CNN reported last week that Ukraine is burning through ammunition faster than the US and NATO can produce it.

The US and its allies have already sent nearly $50 billion in aid and equipment to Ukraine’s military over the past year.

Yet NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Monday that the “current rate of Ukraine’s ammunition expenditure is many times higher than our current rate of production,” which is putting “our defense industries under strain.”

Much of that strain is being shouldered by American defense contractors. Even as the US embarks on an historic effort to re-arm, there are questions about whether it’ll be enough. As Ukraine prepares for a much-anticipated spring offensive in the coming weeks, the US is still years away from reaching its expected level of increased weapons production.

CNN’s Haley Britzky and Oren Liebermann contributed to this report.

A US Air Force F-16 fighter jet flies at Nellis Air Force Base near Las Vegas in 2022. 

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham called on the Biden administration to begin training Ukrainian pilots to operate F-16 fighter jets “today,” in order to provide Ukraine with the planes as soon as possible.

The South Carolina senator said in an interview with ABC on Sunday that US lawmakers attending the Munich Security Conference were in “virtually unanimous belief” that the US should provide F-16 training, and that he believes President Joe Biden’s decision on the issue is “imminent.”

Graham urged the Biden administration to not be cautious or fearful of aggravating Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying “don’t worry about provoking Putin, worry about beating him.” 

Graham also called on the administration to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism following Vice President Kamala Harris’ remarks in Munich declaring Russia has committed crimes against humanity.

“You have to have actions consistent with that statement,” Graham said. 

The senator said Harris’ comments in Germany were particularly poignant given the historical context. 

On China’s support for Russia: Graham said he was concerned with the US intelligence assessment that China is considering providing deadly weapons to Russia for its war effort.

He said “that would change everything, forever.” 

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said Sunday that he is “seriously” planning to create his own private military company (PMC), inspired by the Russian mercenary Wagner Group.

Kadyrov already has a private army often referred to as Kadyrovtsy, who are fighting for Russia in Ukraine. 

Kadyrov and Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin have been publicly critical of Russian commanders for military failures in Ukraine.

Some background: While the Wagner Group has played a key role in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it has come at a steep cost to human life. The US government estimates Wagner has suffered more than 30,000 casualties, including roughly 9,000 fighters killed, during the conflict.

The group has relied heavily on convicts to fill out its ranks. “That doesn’t show any signs of abating,” a US National Security Council spokesperson said Friday, though Prigozhin claimed last week that he will no longer recruit from prisons.

“They’re treating their recruits, largely convicts, as basically cannon fodder, throwing them into a literal meat grinder here, inhuman ways without a second thought,” said John Kirby, the NSC official.

CNN’s Sam Fossum contributed to this report.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby speaks during a press briefing at the White House on February 13.

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby pushed back Sunday against some members of Congress who have criticized the level of US funding for Ukraine. 

Allegations against Russia: Kirby also weighed in on the crimes against humanity declaration against the Kremlin announced by Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday.

“We hope (it) will galvanize the rest of the world to likewise continue to want to hold — and to support investigative efforts to hold — Russia accountable for the war crimes and the atrocities that they are conducting inside Ukraine,” Kirby said on MSNBC. 

“That designation, crimes against humanity, demonstrates that we believe that this is a systematic effort by the Kremlin,” he added.

Read more about the crimes against humanity designation and war crimes prosecution here. 

SSecretary of State Antony Blinken said the US has concerns over China’s support of Russia’s military, specifically that Beijing is considering supplying Moscow with deadly weapons.

CNN’s Natasha Bertrand reported on these concerns Saturday, citing US officials.

“The concern that we have now is based on information we have that they’re considering providing lethal support, and we’ve made very clear to them that that would cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship,” Blinken said.

Blinken clarified that “lethal support” refers to weapons, among other items.

“There’s a whole gamut of things that — that fit in that category, everything from ammunition to the weapons themselves,” he told CBS.

CNN reported Saturday there are signs that Beijing wants to “creep up to the line” of providing lethal military aid to Russia without getting caught, according to US officials, who would not describe in detail the intelligence guiding the US in that assessment.

In an interview with NBC Sunday, Blinken also declined to provide what evidence the US has, but said he believed it would be “out there soon.”

Officials shared the intelligence with allies and partners at the Munich Security Conference over the last several days.

Aid for Ukraine: On weapons and equipment the US plans to provide to Ukraine, Blinken would not say whether he expects a policy change to greenlight US fighter jets. Blinken said it was challenging to train Ukrainian fighters on unfamiliar equipment, but reiterated that the US continues to engage with Kyiv about what they need.

He said it would be critical to to prepare Ukraine for what Blinken predicts will be its own counteroffensive against Russia.

The US government declared Saturday that Russia has committed crimes against humanity in its invasion of Ukraine.

The declaration marks the strongest accusation yet from the US as it seeks to punish Moscow for its war of aggression.

The US government declared last March that members of the Russian armed forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine. President Joe Biden has gone as far as saying that atrocities at the hands of Moscow’s troops qualify as “genocide.”

While the latest crimes against humanity determination is significant, it remains largely symbolic for now. It does not immediately trigger any specific consequences, nor does it give the US the ability to prosecute Russians involved with perpetrating crimes.

However, it could provide international bodies, such as the International Criminal Court, with evidence to effectively try to prosecute those crimes.

Here’s what you need to know about a few key facets of this story:

Still looking for answers? Read a full analysis on war crimes prosecutions here.

Texas Rep. Mike McCaul and Ohio Rep. Mike Turner.

Two leading Republicans in the US House of Representatives called on President Joe Biden on Sunday to increase military support to Ukraine.

Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio and Rep. Mike McCaul of Texas said in a joint interview on CNN’s State of the Union that bipartisan support remains strong for the Ukraine war effort.

McCaul, the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, warned that hedging support for Ukraine could prolong the conflict with Russia, which could play to Moscow’s advantage and allow anti-Ukraine dissent to build. 

When asked if he believes the US is considering sending F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, he replied, “I hope so,” adding: “I think the momentum is building for this to happen.”

Turner, who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, also defended congressional support for Ukraine, despite some House Republicans co-signing a “Ukraine Fatigue” resolution calling for the US to cut off military and financial aid.

Turner equated the resolution to a letter from some House Democrats asking the White House to pursue diplomacy between Russia and Ukraine, a letter the signees retracted shortly after.

When CNN’s Pamela Brown parsed the differences between the retracted letter from Democrats and the Republican resolution to suspend funding to Ukraine altogether, Turner replied, “You can’t retract a letter from Putin hearing it.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov on Sunday accused the United States of being the “main provocateur” of global tensions, in response to remarks about targeting Crimea from a top US diplomat.

“(US Under Secretary of State Victoria) Nuland belongs to a very large camp of the most aggressive hawks in American politics. This is a point-of-view well-known to us. It once again emphasizes the depth of our differences. It once again emphasizes, probably, the role of the United States as the main provocateur of the international tension,” Peskov said in an interview on the Russia-1 state-owned TV channel.  

Some context: Nuland said Friday that Washington supports Ukraine’s strikes on military installations in Crimea, calling them “legitimate targets.” 

Crimea is home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, which is based at Sevastopol. The peninsula has acted as a launching pad for Moscow’s invasion, with Russian troops pouring into Ukraine’s south from the annexed region.

It was forcibly seized by Russia in 2014 – soon after Ukrainian protesters helped topple pro-Russian President Viktor Yanukovych – when thousands of Russian special-operations troops wearing unmarked uniforms deployed around the peninsula in early March that year.

Two weeks later, Russia completed its annexation of Crimea in a referendum, slammed by Ukraine and most of the world as illegitimate, and at the time considered the biggest land-grab on Europe since World War II.

The Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov is docked in Durban, South Africa, on February 17 en route to scheduled naval exercises with the South African and Chinese navies.

As the anniversary of Vladimir Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine approaches, a Russian warship armed with one of Moscow’s most powerful weapons pulled into a port on South Africa’s east coast this weekend.

The frigate Admiral Gorshkov — carrying hypersonic Zircon missiles, according to President Putin — has a “Z” and “V” crudely painted in white on its blackened smokestack, just like the Russian tanks and artillery pieces that rolled into Ukraine a year ago.

It is participating in a 10-day naval exercise in the Indian Ocean alongside South African and Chinese warships, war games that South Africa says have long been planned.

But the timing of the exercises has Western diplomats privately incensed and publicly critical, and they risk an embarrassing backlash for the government in Pretoria.

On the basis of realpolitik alone, freezing out Russia or, at the very least, postponing the naval exercises, may have seemed like a smarter choice.

Ukraine’s biggest supporters, the United States and countries in the European Union, are also big trade partners for South Africa.

European Union and US two-way trade with South Africa outstrips Russian economic ties many times over. And though Russia promises more trade deals, its battered economy is unlikely to provide the direct investment that South Africa desperately needs.

Read the full analysis here.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova attends a news conference in Moscow in January.

Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday invoked Napoleon in accusing France and other western countries of attempting to “change the government” in Moscow.

“France did not begin with Macron, but the remains of Napoleon, revered at the state level, rest in the center of Paris. So that France understands everything, and so does Russia,” spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Sunday. 

The comments came in response to an interview French President Emmanuel Macron gave newspaper Le Journal Le Dimanche, in which he said: “I want the defeat of Russia in Ukraine and I want that Ukraine can defend its position, but I am convinced that at the end this won’t end militarily. I don’t think, like some, that Russia should be defeated completely, attacked on its on soil. These commentators want above all to erase Russia. That has never been France’s position and it will never be.”

Moscow also accused France and the “West” of trying “to change the government” in Moscow, alluding to Macron’s comments that several attempts of regime change have happened in Russia but “all ended in failure”. 

Macron vowed to increase support to Ukraine to guarantee Russia’s defeat during his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Friday.

“This is clear – we can’t let it [Russia] win if we want a stable international order and lasting peace,” Macron said.

“We must absolutely strengthen our support and our effort to help the Ukrainian people and army’s resistance and allow them to carry out the counter-offensive that alone will allow credible negotiations on the terms chosen by Ukraine,” he said, adding that the coming weeks and months are decisive.

CNN’s Xiaofei Xu and Marguerite Lacroix contributed to this post.

Russian President Vladimir Putin arrives to watch a Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9, 2022.

Russian opposition leader Alexey Navalny is fond of a phrase, “the wonderful Russia of the future,” his shorthand for a country without President Vladimir Putin.

But in the year that has passed since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia has gone back to a dark, repressive past.

Over the last 12 months, Putin’s government has crushed the remnants of Russia’s civil society and presided over his country’s first military mobilization since World War II. Political opponents such as Navalny are in prison or out of the country. And Putin has made it clear that he seeks to reassert Russia as an empire in which Ukraine has no place as an independent state.

Since last February’s invasion, Putin has shrugged off protests and international sanctions. Independent media and human rights groups have been branded as foreign agents or shut down entirely.

Russia is now in an uncertain new phase, and it’s clear there will be no rewind, no return to the status quo ante, for ordinary citizens.

So is Putin’s grip on power unchallenged? Rumors are now flying inside the country about another wave of mobilization. And in Moscow, signs of elite competition are beginning to emerge, even as some Russians are seeing through the cracks in the wall of state propaganda.

Ukrainian officials have been warning for weeks that Russia may be preparing a major new assault, perhaps to coincide with the anniversary of the 2022 invasion.

Back in September, Putin ordered a “partial mobilization” after a swift and unexpected Ukrainian counteroffensive that chased Russian forces out of the northeastern Kharkiv region and set the stage for Ukraine’s recapture of the southern city of Kherson.

Many of those troops have now gone through the training pipeline, further fueling speculation that Russia is committed to a manpower-intensive war of attrition.

Read the full analysis piece here.

Russia’s ambassador to the United States has labeled accusations of Russian war crimes in Ukraine an “excuse” made up by Washington to escalate the conflict.

On Saturday both US Vice-President Kamala Harris and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington had determined Russia had committed crimes against humanity.

According to state news agency TASS, Ambassador Anatoly Antonov responded by saying: “We consider such insinuations as an attempt, unprecedented in terms of its cynicism, to demonize Russia in the course of a hybrid war, unleashed against us. There is no doubt that the purpose of such attacks is to justify Washington’s own actions to fuel the Ukrainian crisis.”

The ambassador accused the US of saying one thing and acting “in the opposite direction” by supplying Ukraine with heavy armorment, intelligence and training. “How can we trust the West and try to come to any type of agreement after all these statements and actions?” the diplomat said.

Anatoly Antonov also accused US of “turning a blind eye to the atrocities of the Zelensky regime,” such as “the horrific scenes of the shootings of unarmed captured Russian soldiers.”

Harris’ speech at the Munich Security Conference, days before the anniversary of Moscow’s invasion, cited evidence of indiscriminate Russian attacks that deliberately targeted civilians, including the bombing of a maternity hospital that killed a pregnant mother and of a theater in Mariupol, where hundreds were killed.

The vice president spoke of the horrific images out of Bucha that showed men and women shot and left to rot in the streets and reports by the United Nations of a 4-year-old girl who was sexually assaulted by a Russian soldier.

The Ukrainian flag is seen in front of the US Consulate General in Krakow, Poland, on March 10, 2022.

Anna Yezerova, a Ukrainian national, arrived in the United States last year with her young daughter and a couple of months of summer clothes. Their hope: that the war in Ukraine would be over soon.

Nearly one year later, Yezerova remains in the US and is setting down roots in New Jersey, trying to chart out a life she never envisioned for herself.

“I have never dreamed of moving abroad,” Yezerova told CNN. “We started everything from nothing.”

President Joe Biden’s visit to Poland this week is expected to again put into sharp focus the Ukrainian refugee crisis and the need for humanitarian support in addition to security assistance. 

Poland was among the countries that took in millions of refugees as Russia invaded Ukraine.

But as Russia’s war in their country slogs on, Ukrainian refugees in the US who were once optimistic they would return to their homeland within two years are coming to grips with the fact that they’re probably not going back and having to wrestle with their legal status in the US.

Read the full story here.