April 19, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The United States government has gained "vitally important" intelligence about the war in Ukraine from a surveillance law that allows the government to collect foreign communications without a warrant, US Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco said Wednesday.

The law, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, enables the US government to obtain intelligence by targeting non-Americans overseas who are using US-based communications services.

Monaco's comments come amid an ongoing battle over whether to reauthorize the law, which is set to sunset at the end of 2023. The law has previously garnered bipartisan backing, although that support has frayed over the past several years over scrutiny for alleged misuse.

The searches are governed by a set of internal rules and procedures designed to protect Americans' privacy and civil liberties, but critics say loopholes allow the program to look through the emails and other communications of American citizens — as opposed to foreign adversaries — without proper justification. 

Reauthorization imperative: However, Monaco said losing Section 702 would hamper the department's efforts to hold Russia accountable because the information the department has uncovered from the law "has helped us as a country and as a national security community galvanize accountability efforts regarding Ukraine by allowing us to confidently and accurately speak with the international community about Russian atrocities."

Monaco also raised concerns that there are other areas where the Justice Department lacks the resources or the authority to take stronger action against Russia.

She emphasized that while the department has "active investigations" into crimes perpetrated in the war and those cases "are moving just as fast as we can possibly move them," the department is hoping to work with Congress to give federal prosecutors criminal jurisdiction over "crimes against humanity" and "expanding the department's authority to prosecute acts of torture committed against US nationals abroad."

Monaco also told the Judiciary Committee that the US government is "leaving money on the table" to support Ukraine that the Justice Department has seized from Russian oligarchs.

According to Monaco, the department has seized more than half a billion dollars in assets from Russian oligarchs and people who support the Russian government and have evaded US sanctions. But the department is only able to seize and transfer Russian assets that came from certain types of sanctions evasion, Monaco said.

That means "millions" of dollars can't be transferred to the Ukrainian government for humanitarian efforts like repairing damage from the war, she said.

"We are leaving money on the table if we don't expand our ability to use the forfeited access that we gain from enforcement of our export control violations," Monaco said, adding that the DOJ wants "Congress to give us that authority so we can make the oligarchs pay for rebuilding Ukraine."

The Ukrainian military says its units are standing firm in the eastern city of Bakhmut and elsewhere in the Donetsk region amid heavy fighting.

Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov has welcomed the arrival of more foreign weaponry – amid growing speculation about when and where Ukraine might launch a counter-offensive.

Besides Bakhmut, fighting is heaviest along the Donetsk front in Lyman, Avdiivka and Mariinka, according to the Ukrainian military's General Staff.

In the Lyman sector, to the northeast of Bakhmut, the enemy “conducted unsuccessful offensives near the southern outskirts of Kreminna,” the Ukranian military said. And the Russians, it claimed, made no progress in the Avdiivka area, which President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Tuesday.

“In the Mariinka sector, our defenders repelled numerous enemy attacks in the areas of Mariinka and Pobieda,” the Ukrainian military said.

Further south in the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson sectors, it reported Russian shelling of more than 30 settlements. But unlike in Donetsk, Russian forces in these areas are in defensive mode.

The Ukrainian military asserted that Russian occupation “authorities” continue to set up military hospitals behind the front lines – the latest being in the Luhansk village of Kabychivka.

More US, French and German hardware arrives

While Ukrainian units hold their ground, Ukraine continues to receive Western equipment for both offensive and defensive units, including French armored vehicles (AMX-10 RC) and US Patriot missile defense systems.

Defense Minister Reznikov said that “building a multi-level air and missile defense system as soon as possible is our priority. This is to protect peaceful cities, critical infrastructure, and our people in the rear and at the front. Patriot systems create a capability that did not exist before — to defeat ballistic targets.”

Recently leaked US military documents indicate the Ukrainians were rapidly depleting or had exhausted some categories of anti-air munitions.

Reznikov also welcomed another IRIS-T from Germany – a highly effective system for combatting cruise missiles. 

But, he said, “We need more platforms of various levels and ammunition for them. We need more man-portable air defense systems.”

Reznikov’s deputy — Oleksandr Pavliuk — later confirmed that “Patriot air defense systems from the United States, the Netherlands and Germany arrived to Ukraine.”

The United States is pledging an additional $325 million security assistance package to Ukraine, Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Wednesday.

The aid will help Ukraine defend itself against Russia, he said.

"Russia could end its war today. Until Russia does, the United States and our allies and partners will stand united with Ukraine for as long as it takes," the statement said.

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin told US lawmakers Wednesday that his office has registered around 80,000 incidents of potential war crimes, and to date has convicted 31 Russians for war crimes in Ukrainian courts.

Kostin told lawmakers in the House Foreign Affairs Committee that his office has also identified 310 potential perpetrators of the crimes, and has “finished cases against 152 potential war criminals."

Kostin urged the international community to share intelligence information to help aid his office’s work in convicting alleged war criminals, noting that they have identified thousands more but they do not have complete evidence to convict those alleged criminals.

The Biden administration is set to announce additional security assistance for Ukraine, marking the 36th drawdown of aid amid Russia’s ongoing war. 

The package is expected to be announced by the Pentagon and the State Department on Wednesday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

The security assistance is "part of our ongoing efforts to help Ukraine defend itself against Russia's brutal invasion,” Jean-Pierre said.

Jean-Pierre did not say how much the assistance will cost.

A 16-year-old Ukrainian was forcibly sent to Russia "for vacation" and was placed with a family who attempted to indoctrinate him with pro-Russian propaganda, a representative for the teen told the US House of Representatives' Foreign Affairs Committee.

Last month, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin and another top Russian official, Maria Lvova-Belova, for an alleged scheme to deport Ukrainian children to Russia.

At Wednesday’s hearing, the representative told lawmakers that 16-year-old Roman, who is an orphan, left his school after the Russian invasion of Ukraine and walked 60 kilometers (about 37 miles), all while allegedly being threatened by Russian soldiers along the way. After he reached his destination — a village in Donetsk — Russians occupied that village as well, and Roman was put in a local hospital with other children, the representative said.

The representative said he was then sent to another hospital in Donetsk, issued a new birth certificate on behalf of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic, and then was sent to Russia "for a vacation." Once there, Roman and other Ukrainian children were visited by Lvova-Belova, who told them they would be adopted, which the children protested. They were instead sent to a boarding school, the representative said.

His communication with his peers was restricted, his movements were tracked through his cell phone, and they "forced him to say that he liked his new family and his new life," she said. 

"He was forced to obtain a passport of the Russian Federation, but then immediately they took it away from him, saying that they will process papers for adoption," she said.

Roman was able to make his way back to Ukraine with the help of volunteers from the country, the representative said.

More background: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said there have been 16,000 forced deportations of Ukrainian children, but that number could be higher.

The Russian government doesn’t deny taking Ukrainian children and has made their adoption by Russian families a centerpiece of propaganda. According to Lvova-Belova’s office, Ukrainian children have been sent to live in institutions and with foster families in 19 different Russian regions.

Moscow battered parts of eastern Ukraine with a fresh round of strikes on Wednesday, in a region that has been the site of some of the most intense fighting since the war began.

Catch up on the latest developments in the war:

A Ukrainian woman from Kherson recounted to US House of Representatives lawmakers on Wednesday how she was beaten at the hands of Russian forces earlier this year. 

Lyubov, 57, whose last name was withheld and face was not shown, worked as an accountant and lived under Russian occupation for more than a year. 

“In January of this year, they came for me,” she told the House Foreign Affairs Committee via a translator. Lyubov said that Russian soldiers forced their way into her house, claiming they were looking for weapons, and confiscated "a map of Ukraine, the flag of Ukraine, souvenir magnets with Ukraine images, and a token with blue and yellow ribbon symbolizing victims of World War II."

“Those were their evidence against me,” she said.

She was taken to what she called a "torture chamber" and held for five days, where she was beaten, forced to undress, cut with a knife, and threatened with rape and murder.

She said she saw other people being tortured, "taken out with black plastic bags on their heads."

"I worry so much for them. I would love to find them one day but I am not sure if they’re still alive," she said.

Lyubov said the soldiers let her go, “but they said they will come back.”

When she returned to her house, it had been looted, and they had taken away medals that belonged to her father.

She was able to flee Kherson and made her way to the United States to be with her daughter, but she hopes be able to return to Ukraine.

Documenting atrocities: The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights catalogued thousands of cases of civilian casualties along with cases of torture, rape and arbitrary detention in the Ukraine conflict over six months, from August 2022 to January 2023, calling the situation "dire."

State of control: Russia currently occupies areas of the southern Kherson region, while Moscow's troops were pushed out of the city of Kherson and the western part of the region in November 2022.

As speculation intensifies about where and when a Ukrainian counteroffensive may take place, the mayor of one town in occupied Zaporizhzhia has warned residents to be aware of tougher scrutiny by Russian forces.

The town is adjacent to the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power plant (ZNPP). Orlov himself is not in Enerhodar, and his remarks cannot be verified. 

Russian forces check phones for "Ukrainian channels, patriotic photos," call the Ukrainian currency hryvnia a "foreign currency" and suspect everyone of "illegal currency transactions,” Orlov added.

Additionally, Ukrainian officials and Western analysts have said that Russian forces have strengthened their defenses in the Zaporizhzhia region with extensive use of minefields.

Last week, a Russian mine exploded near the engine room of a reactor at ZNPP, according to Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom. Orlov also claimed that the minefields are also near Enerhodar.

Over the weekend Oleksii Dmytrashkivskyi, a military spokesman in the east, said the Russians were “trying to take children out from the occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia region."

According to posts on an unofficial Enerhodar telegram group in recent days, the evacuation of children has already begun.

One post said: “Information about forcible evacuation is being spread in local schools and kindergartens in Enerhodar. The evacuations has already begun and will last until April 20. They plan to take children to Crimea using ZNPP buses, thus allegedly authorising the theft of ZNPP vehicles used for the staff transfer to work.”

CNN is unable to verify the claim.

The Russian-backed local authorities in Zaporizhzhia denied that there are plans to organize the evacuation of children from the town of Enerhodar.

In a Telegram post on Wednesday, authorities said the town’s civil military administration had reported “false information about the evacuation of children.”

The Russian-backed local government was responding to the circulation on social media of a poster advising that children in Enerhodar would be evacuated.

It said the text referred to a Department of Education and Youth, which does not exist.