March 5, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

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

Rescuers work at a site of a residential building heavily damaged by a Russian missile strike in Zaporizhzhia on March 4.

The city council in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia has declared Monday a day of mourning after 13 people were killed when a rocket hit a high-rise residential building earlier this week, the council’s secretary Anatoliy Kurtiev said.

“This is a great grief for the whole Zaporizhzhia. That is why tomorrow is declared a day of mourning in our city. Together, let us honor the cherished memory of everyone whose life was cut short forever on that tragic night in March,” Kurtiev said on Telegram Sunday.

Rescuers from the State Emergency Service searched for survivors for four days after the strike hit Thursday. Crews found men, women and a small child deceased.

Nine people — including one pregnant woman — were rescued from the rubble early Thursday, the State Emergency Service reported. Five others remain missing,?Kurtiev said.

Kurtiev added that a city council meeting will be held Monday with the surviving residents of the affected building.

Ukraine is planning to use more than $460 million worth of assets seized from Russian banks to rebuild the country and compensate Ukrainians, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said at a conference in Lviv Saturday.

In a Facebook post about the conference, Shmyhal said Ukraine is developing procedures for using the confiscated assets to help Ukrainian citizens and their communities recover in the wake of Russia’s invasion.

The government is working with allies to develop a system based on an international treaty, which will help decide how to issue reparations to Ukrainians.

The system will include an international register of losses from the war, a commission to consider applications for compensation and a fund from which compensation will be paid.

Aid from abroad: The prime minister also said Saturday that Ukraine is using billions of dollars worth of assistance from the United States and European Union to rapidly restore the country’s battered energy infrastructure and other ailing sectors.

Kyiv expects additional aid to come from Norway and Japan.

A view of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, in 2022.

Negotiations to return the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) to Ukraine’s control are not progressing, Ukrainian Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Sunday.??

“The situation is currently at a standstill,” the energy minister said during the Ukrainian national telethon “United News.”?

The nuclear plant, which is Europe’s largest, has been under Russian control since March last year.??

“But in response to this, we received (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s null and void decree that ZNPP is ‘federal property,’” the energy minister said.

Zaporizhzhia is among the Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia in violation of international law, and as part of that seizure, Putin has declared the plant Russian property and installed workers there.

As Russia continues to occupy the plant, Halushchenko claimed Ukraine is receiving “alarming signals” from experts with the United Nations nuclear watchdog agency working at the plant.?The minister accused the Russian side of “behaving extremely unprofessionally” at the nuclear site.?

Last week, the head of IAEA, Rafael Grossi, expressed concern about the situation in the plant, citing delays in rotations of its team of experts in the facility, an increased security presence on-site and nearby fighting.??

Ukrainian service members ride atop a tank near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on March 4.

Gen. Lord Richard Dannatt, formerly a top military leader in the United Kingdom, said Sunday that it makes “complete sense” for Ukraine’s troops to “withdraw to a more defensible line,” in the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut.?

Dannatt is the UK’s former chief of the General Staff —?the professional head of the British Army. Speaking on Britain’s Sky News, he argued that Bakhmut is strategically “not very significant” to Ukraine.

Despite that, the besieged city has already served effectively as “the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken, and therefore it makes complete sense for the Ukrainians now to withdraw to a more defensible line and continue the battle there,” Dannatt said.

A local Ukrainian commander on Sunday?dismissed?the growing speculation of a possible Ukrainian withdrawal from the city, saying?that there have been no “tactical changes” on their side.

Speaking on Sky News, he said that for Ukrainian forces, Bakhmut is strategically “not very significant,” but has “achieved its aim of effectively being the anvil on which so many Russian lives have been broken, and therefore it makes complete sense for the Ukrainians now to withdraw to a more defensible line and continue the battle there.”????

Ukrainian soldiers enter a bunker near Bakhmut, Ukraine, on March 4.

What fighters on the frontline are saying: A local Ukrainian commander on Sunday?dismissed?the growing speculation of a possible withdrawal from the city, saying?there have been no “tactical changes” on their side.

“On the contrary, some new reserves are coming in as reinforcement to hold the defense,” said Volodymyr Nazarenko, a deputy commander in Ukraine’s National Guard. “The entire combat area is under chaotic shelling but there is connection with the city, there are routes that are not cut off.”

More from Dannatt on the shape of the war: The general said it will be key for Ukraine to hold off Russia’s current offensives, which he believes will yet intensify. Then, in the late spring or early summer, Ukraine “can mount a really strong counteroffensive utilizing the modern equipment that we are now giving them.”

“I think that I am not alone in believing that a few decisive blows struck at certain points along that very extended front on the Russian army could well have the effect of breaking the morale of the Russian soldier or breaking the back of the Russian army,” Dannatt said.??

Asked about the West supplying equipment to Ukraine, the general said: “To be frank, I don’t think we have done enough. We need to do as much as we possibly can to ensure that this war is concluded this year.”??

Russian reservists said they were ordered to attack a Ukrainian strong point armed only with “firearms and shovels,” according to the UK Ministry of Defence.

“The ‘shovels’ are likely entrenching tools being employed for hand-to-hand combat,” it said in an intelligence update tweeted on Sunday. An entrenching tool is a digging tool used by military forces.

Designed in 1869, the ministry described the lethality of the standard issue MPL-50 entrenching tool as “particularly mythologised” in Russia.

“Its continued use as a weapon highlights the brutal and low-tech fighting which has come to characterise much of the war,” it said, adding that evidence has shown an increase in close combat.

One reservist told the MoD that they were “neither physically nor psychologically” prepared for attack.

According to evidence obtained by the ministry, there has been a rise in close combat, which it says may be the result of a Russian insistence on an offensive despite being short of munitions.

In December, Russian citizens were crowdfunding to equip soldiers deployed in Ukraine with socks, winter clothes, sleeping bags and body armor. This came after troops complained they were short of basic equipment, which Russian officials said were teething problems.

Read more here.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz speaks during a press conference on March 5, near Gransee, Germany.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz told CNN’s Fareed Zakaria that any negotiations around ending the war in Ukraine will only begin once Russian President Vladimir Putin understands he will not win.

“My view, it is necessary that?Putin understands that he will?not succeed with this invasion?and his imperialistic?aggression —?that he has to withdraw troops.?This is the basis for talks,” Scholz said in an interview that aired Sunday.

He added that he believes Ukraine is “ready for peace.”

Asked by Zakaria if there is a deal to be made that ends the war, perhaps with Ukraine conceding it will not retake Crimea or parts of the eastern Donbas region, Scholz said there will be no decision made?without the Ukrainian side.

“We will not take decisions?instead of them.?We support them,” he said.

Zakaria asked the chancellor if he would encourage Ukraine to consider such an agreement, however.

Scholz in the US: The German chancellor held meetings with US President Joe Biden in Washington Friday after a transformative 12 months that saw Germany undergo its most significant shift in military and energy policy in decades.

Russia’s war in Ukraine has turned Scholz, who took office two months before Moscow’s invasion, into a crisis leader, overseeing Europe’s largest economy and most powerful democracy during the worst violence on the continent since World War II.

And it has thrust him and Biden into one of the world’s most consequential relationships, sustained by shared opposition to Russia’s invasion but strained at moments over how to respond.

“You stepped up to provide critical military support. And I would argue, beyond the military support, the moral support you’ve given Ukrainians has been profound. Profound,” Biden told his counterpart this week in the Oval Office.

CNN’s Kevin Liptak contributed to this report.

When Sweden and?Finland?declared their intention to join?NATO?last May, it was seen by many as a poke in the eye for Russia.

Historically, both countries?had committed to non-alignment with NATO as a way of avoiding?provoking?Moscow. The invasion of Ukraine changed that.?

Both?Finland and Sweden?– along with the vast majority of NATO allies – would like to see the countries formally join the alliance at a NATO summit on July 11. However, a significant hurdle stands in the way of this becoming a reality: Turkey has yet to give the plan its?formal and official?blessing.?

Turkey is not the only nation blocking the move: Hungary has also failed to ratify the Nordics’ accession. But right now getting Turkey on side is considered the priority.?

Unfortunately for the pro-NATO gang, Western officials are increasingly pessimistic that Turkey will budge.

Officially, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan objects to Sweden and Finland’s membership on security grounds, stemming from a dispute over the extradition of a designated terror group from both Nordic countries.

But Gonul Tol, an expert in the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program, believes there are other reasons that Erdogan doesn’t want to upset?Russia’s President Vladimir?Putin.

From protecting his strongman image to maintaining Russia’s economic lifeline to Turkey, Tol says the Turkish claims about Sweden and Finland harboring terrorists provide perfect cover for Erdogan not to engage on the NATO question at a politically inconvenient time.

Read more here.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomes European Parliament President Roberta Metsola to Lviv, Ukraine, on March 4.

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola visited Ukraine Saturday, vowing “the aggressors that have started a war on our continent will not go unpunished.”

Speaking on a panel at the “United for Justice” conference in Lviv, Metsola reiterated the parliament’s support for initiatives collecting evidence of potential crimes committed by Moscow and its forces.

The three-day conference was organized by Ukrainian authorities “to ensure accountability for core international crimes allegedly committed in Ukraine,” according to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation.??

Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska was also on the panel with the European Parliament leader.

Metsola met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky Saturday, and together the pair met students at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv.?

In another tweet about her meeting with Zelensky, Metsola said she has “learnt many things from Ukraine the past year. But perhaps the most important lesson is one articulated by (Ukrainian poet) Taras Shevchenko: ‘Keep fighting, you are sure to win.’”

“True in the quest for peace & freedom as it is in life. Never give up,” she added.

Ukraine’s forces are holding on to a key route in and out of the fiercely contested city of Bakhmut, according to a deputy commander in the Ukrainian National Guard.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine are holding the Bakhmut-Kostiantynivka highway, it is fairly stable,” said Volodymyr Nazarenko, who ranks second-in-command in the Svoboda battalion. “Situation around Bakhmut as well as on its outskirts is very much like hell, as it is on the entire eastern front.”

The Bakhmut-Kostiantynivka highway is a crucial route for getting supplies into the city.??

Nazarenko also said there have been no “tactical changes” on the Ukrainian side, adding, “we are holding the defense.”?

Nazarenko dismissed the growing speculation of a possible Ukrainian withdrawal from the city.?

“There is no withdrawal. On the contrary, some new reserves are coming in as reinforcement to hold the defense. The entire combat area is under chaotic shelling but there is connection with the city, there are routes that are not cut off,” he said.?

A logo for the 2024 Olympic Games is displayed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

African Olympic committees said Sunday that Russian and Belarusian athletes should be allowed to compete in the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.??

In a statement posted on Twitter, the?Association of the National Olympics Committees of Africa?said that members had “decided unanimously to support the participation of Russian and Belarusian athletes in all international competitions.”??

This comes following a call from the United States and 30 other “like-minded” countries on February 20 to impose a ban on Moscow and Minsk’s athletes from competing in international sports because of Russia’s war in Ukraine —?an invasion launched in part from ally Belarus’ territory.

The International Olympic Committee sparked controversy in January when it unveiled a multi-step plan for Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate at the 2024 Summer Games in Paris and the 2026 Winter Games in Milan, but as neutral parties (rather than competing in the name and symbology of their home country).

The IOC has stressed its “strong commitment to the unifying mission of the Olympic Movement” remarking in a January 30 statement that “no athlete should be prevented from competing just because of their passport.”

The African association said Sunday that its decision is aligned with the position of the IOC and its President Thomas Bach and “will allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to participate in the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in total neutrality without any identity sign.”??

CNN’s Zayn Nabbi and Eve Brennan?contributed to this report.

TOKYO, JAPAN - JULY 23: Flag bearers Mikita Tsmyh and Hanna Marusava of Team Belarus walk out during the Opening Ceremony of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games at Olympic Stadium on July 23, 2021 in Tokyo, Japan. (Photo by Matthias Hangst/Getty Images)

Related article More than 30 countries calling on IOC to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes | CNN

Three people, including two children, have been killed by Russian shelling in a village in southern Ukraine, an official in Kyiv said Sunday.??

“Poniativka village of Kherson region was shelled with mortars. Residential building was hit. Three people died,” the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said in a Telegram post.?

The shelling came Sunday afternoon, according to Kherson’s regional military administration.

On Saturday, a 57-year-old man was killed by Russian shelling in Kherson’s village of Lvove, where several civilian houses and the area’s Palace of Culture were also damaged.

Rescue workers search a damaged building after a missile strike in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on March 2.

The death toll of Thursday’s early rocket strike on the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia?has risen to 13, according to a Ukrainian official.??

“(There are) 13 dead, including a little child, as a result of a rocket strike at Zaporizhzhia on March 2,” Anatoliy Kurtiev, secretary of the Zaporizhzhia Regional Council, said in an update on Telegram Sunday.

Following Russia’s shelling of the high-rise residential building, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, posted on Telegram Thursday that “people were sleeping at home, but for terrorists, residential buildings are also ‘military targets.’”

According to the update, five people have been reported missing and four people remain in hospital.

As of 11 a.m. local time (4 a.m. ET) Sunday, rescuers in Zaporizhzhia continued “to search for people under the rubble and dismantle dangerous elements of the building around the clock,” Kurtiev added.???

On the day of the strike, Ukrainian authorities said a pregnant woman was among the people rescued from the building.

Turkey is “working hard” to extend a UN-backed initiative that has enabled Ukraine to export grain from ports blockaded by Russia following its invasion, its Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Sunday, according to the country’s state media Anadolu.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative brokered by the United Nations and Turkey last July in Istanbul, allows grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned earlier this week that the current deal is set to expire March 18, and Russia has not agreed to extend the vital agreement.?

“We are working hard for the smooth implementation and further extension of the Black Sea grain deal,” Cavusoglu said in a speech at the United Nations Conference on Least Developed Countries being held in Doha, Qatar, Anadolu added.

Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky?said more than 22 million tons of food has been sent to over 43 countries through the initiative.

Russia said on Wednesday it will only agree to an extension if the interests of its own agricultural producers are taken into account, Reuters reported.

Some context: An extension to the deal is vital for the global food supply chain. In normal times, Ukraine - one of the globe’s breadbaskets - would export around three-quarters of the grain it produces. Together with Russia, it accounted for about one quarter of global wheat exports in 2019.

Currently, the world is grappling with one of the worst food crises in modern history, already shaken by extreme weather conditions and the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The Ukraine crisis has had this ongoing negative impact on world food prices and [added] even more volatility,” said Abby Maxman, CEO of Oxfam America. “The supply chains and how they flow to places like East Africa and the Horn of Africa are taking big hits.”

Read more here.

Evacuations from the frontline city of Bakhmut have slowed to a trickle, the city’s deputy mayor has told CNN.

Speaking over the phone from a neighboring town, Oleksandr Marchenko said five to 10 people were being evacuated each day, down from the up to 600 who were leaving the city when evacuations were at their peak.

“The enemy blows everything to the ground, strikes at multi-story buildings, and the residential sector. There are air raids, artillery shelling, mortar shelling. The enemy is striking the city with everything they can,” the deputy mayor told CNN.???

“There is no way we can get there,” Marchenko stressed.??

Approximately 4,000 to 4,500 people are still in Bakhmut, but Marchenko said it was difficult to persuade those there to leave.

Most, he said, “fear having nowhere to go and nothing to go with.”

He said four medical workers remain in the city and there are heating points available for residents.

Russia has been pressing hard to capture Bakhmut for months and appears to be closing in on the city.

One soldier inside the city told CNN Sunday that the situation remains “difficult,” as the Russian assault continues to cause “a lot of destruction” and losses for the Ukrainian side.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a meeting at the Turkish Grand National Assembly in Ankara on January 18.

When Sweden and Finland declared their intention to join NATO last May, it was seen by many as a poke in the eye for Russia and evidence of a shift in European thinking. Historically, both countries had committed to non-alignment with NATO to avoid provoking Moscow, but the invasion of Ukraine changed that.?

Both countries – along with the majority of NATO allies – would like to see them formally join the alliance at a NATO summit on July 11. However, a significant hurdle stands in the way of this becoming a reality: Turkey has yet to give the plan its formal and official blessing.?

Hungary has also failed to ratify the Nordics’ accession which further muddies the waters.?

Officially, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an objects to Sweden and Finland’s membership on security grounds, claiming both countries are harboring militants from the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a designated terror group in Turkey, Sweden, the US and Europe.?

But Gonul Tol from the Middle East Institute’s Turkey program believes there are other reasons that Erdogan doesn’t want to upset Russia’s President Vladimir Putin.?

“Russia has been a lifeline economically for Turkey after other nations imposed sanctions for their activities in Syria, their cooperation militarily with Russia and other hostile activity,” Tol explained.?

NATO diplomats are split on whether they think Turkey will budge before the July summit.

Read the full story here.

A Belgian F-16 fighter jet takes part in a NATO Air Nuclear drill at Kleine-Brogel air base in Belgium on October 18, 2022.

The US is working with Ukrainian pilots in the United States to determine how long it would take to train them to fly F-16 fighter jets, three sources briefed on the matter told CNN.

Two Ukrainian pilots are currently at a military base in the US having their skills tested in flight simulators to see how much time they would need to learn to fly various US military aircraft, including F-16s.

A US military official told reporters traveling with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin to the Middle East that the Ukrainian pilots were in Tucson, Arizona, for “a familiarization event” that he described as a “routine activity” in their military-to-military dialogue with Ukraine.

Ukraine has been pushing for the US to provide fighter jets, arguing that they need them to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks.

But that push has been met with skepticism by allied officials, who say the jets would be impractical because they require considerable training and Russia has extensive anti-aircraft systems that could easily shoot them down.

When previously asked if the US would be providing F-16s to Ukraine, President Joe Biden responded with a flat “no,” but this event suggests the US has not completely closed the door on providing F-16s.

Read the full story here.

An empty street and buildings are seen damaged by a Russian military strike Bakhmut on Friday, March 3.

Russian forces are continuing their efforts to encircle the eastern city of?Bakhmut?in the Donetsk region. The city sits toward the northeast of the Donetsk region, about 13 miles from Luhansk region, and has been a target for Putin’s forces for some time, but why is the city so important for Russia?

Since last summer the city has been a stone’s throw from the front lines, so its capture would represent a long sought-after success for Moscow’s forces – and bring some limited strategic value.

The city has important road connections to other parts of the Donetsk region; eastwards to the border with Luhansk, northwest to Sloviansk and southwest to Kostiantynivka.?

For several weeks, the routes into Bakhmut have gradually come under the control of Russian forces. Rather than drive directly toward the city center, Wagner groups sought to encircle the city in a wide arc from the north. In January, they claimed the nearby town of Soledar, and have since taken a string of villages and hamlets north of Bakhmut.

If the Russians can take the high ground to the west of the city, nearby industrial towns Kostiantynivka and Kramatorsk would be at the mercy of their artillery and even longer range mortars. And it is unclear where exactly Ukrainian forces would fall back to should they retreat from the city.

But the battle for Bakhmut has been costly for the Russians, which will come as some consolation to Kyiv.