April 22, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will travel to Ukraine next week where he is expected to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday, according to a UN spokesperson.

Guterres will also meet with Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba as well as UN agency staff members to discuss the scaling up of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine.

Earlier today, the UN said Guterres “will be received by President Vladimir Putin” on Tuesday after having a working meeting and lunch with the foreign minister of Russia.

A UN spokesperson said Wednesday that Guterres was requesting separate audiences with Putin in Moscow and Zelensky in Ukraine to discuss the urgent need to bring about peace.

CNN's Kristina Sgueglia contributed reporting to this post.

Ukraine is looking at weapons, ammunition, sanctions against Russia, financing for Ukraine and “European perspectives” rather than “Soviet” ones to win the war against Russia, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said.

Speaking alongside US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the State Department Friday in Washington, DC, Shmyhal thanked the United States for its support.

Ahead of his Blinken meeting, he noted that he had met with US President Joe Biden and finance leaders from across the world while in Washington and that he’s “sure that after this visit during the next day, days, weeks and months, Ukraine will win and will have absolutely perfect recovery plan.”

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said earlier on Friday that it's a "realistic possibility" that Russian President Vladimir Putin win the war in Ukraine, calling the situation "unpredictable" at the moment.

Shmyhal said that Ukraine strongly wants to join Europe, “and because of this, many of our young guys and girls pay their lives in this war for this Ukrainian perspectives, European perspective and civilized perspectives.”

Blinken, who spoke ahead of the prime minister, noted that this is the first visit by a Ukrainian senior official since the war began. However, he did not answer a question about the US Embassy in Ukraine. CNN has reported there are not active conversations about reopening the embassy in Ukraine. It has relocated to Poland.

US President Joe Biden's national security advisor Jake Sullivan also met with Shmyhal on Friday afternoon to discuss economic and humanitarian assistance, according to National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson. 

"Mr. Sullivan conveyed the United States’ unwavering commitment to supporting the government and people of Ukraine. The two discussed the security, economic, and humanitarian assistance the United States is providing, including the new support announced by President Biden yesterday, and ongoing efforts with international partners to impose further costs on Russia for its unprovoked aggression," Watson said in a written statement. 

Biden announced Thursday that the US will send an additional $800 million in military assistance to Ukraine as Russia's war enters what he called a "critical window," but warned congressional action is necessary for further shipments as the war grinds on.

CNN's Kevin Liptak and Kaitlan Collins contributed reporting to this post. 

When Russian troops invaded Ukraine and began closing in on its capital, Kyiv, Andrii Dereko begged his 22-year-old stepdaughter Karina Yershova to leave the suburb where she lived.

But Yershova insisted she wanted to remain in Bucha, telling him: "Don't talk nonsense, everything will be fine — there will be no war," he said.

With her tattoos and long brown hair, Yershova stood out in a crowd, her stepfather said, adding that despite living with rheumatoid arthritis, she had a fiercely independent spirit: "She herself decided how to live."

Yershova worked at a sushi restaurant in Bucha, and hoped to earn her university degree in the future, Dereko said: "She wanted to develop herself."

As Russian soldiers surrounded Bucha in early March, Yershova hid in an apartment with two other friends. On one of the last occasions Dereko and his wife, Olena, heard from Yershova, she told them she had left the apartment to get food from a nearby supermarket.

"We did not think that Russians would reach such a point that they would shoot civilians," he said. "We all hoped that at least they would not touch women and children -- but the opposite happened."

When weeks went by without a word from Yershova, the family became desperate for news. Her mother left a message on Facebook begging anyone who knew what had happened to her to get in touch.

She was told by friends that images of a dead woman with similar tattoos to Yershova's — which included a rose on her forearm — had been posted on a Telegram group set up by a detective in Bucha who was trying to identify hundreds of bodies found in the town after Russian troops withdrew from the area two weeks ago.

Dereko says the images, seen by CNN, show his stepdaughter's mutilated body. Police told the family she had been killed by Russian soldiers.

It looked like she was tortured or put up a fight, he said. "They mutilated her. They shot her in the leg, and then gave her a tourniquet to stop her bleeding. And then they shot her in the temple."

Dereko also believes Yershova was sexually abused by Russian troops. "The [police] investigator hinted" that she had been raped, he said.

CNN has not been able to independently verify this claim. Officers who oversaw the case declined to comment to CNN due to the ongoing investigation. CNN has reached out to Kyiv prosecutors for comment.

The Dereko family's agonizing wait for answers reflects the rising anxiety amid reports of wartime rape in the country.

Ukrainian officials say Russian forces have been sexually abusing women, children and men since the invasion began, using rape and other sexual offenses as weapons of war.

Human rights groups and Ukrainian psychologists who CNN spoke to say they have been working around the clock to deal with a growing number of sexual abuse cases allegedly involving Russian soldiers.

Read the full story:

RELATED

Russian troops use rape as 'an instrument of war' in Ukraine, rights groups allege

One crew member died and 27 are missing after Russia's guided-missile cruiser, the Moskva, sank last week in the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said Friday, according to Russian state media TASS.

It added that the remaining 396 crew members were evacuated from the Moskva cruiser to nearby Black Sea fleet ships and sent to Sevastopol, a city in Crimea. The state media outlet said that the crew member who died, Ivan Leonidovich Vakhrushev, saved "hundreds” of his fellow servicemen. 

The Russian government, as of Tuesday, had not previously acknowledged any casualties.

Ukraine and Russia have provided conflicting accounts of what happened that day.

Ukrainians said the Moskva sunk after being struck by Ukrainian missiles, but Russia denies the claim, insisting that the reason for the sinking was a fire. But the US on April 15 confirmed Ukraine's account, with a senior defense official saying that the US believes that two Ukrainian Neptune missiles hit the Russian warship.

“And now we'll have to look into the matter as to how long this ‘gone missing’ in the open sea can continue,” said Dmitry Shkrebets, the father of a conscript aboard the ship, in a post on the Russian social network Vkontakte in reaction to Friday's announcement.

Earlier, Shkrebets posted to the network seeing information on the sailors missing after the ship sank, and claimed his son, Yegor Shkrebets, had been aboard the ship and served as a ship's cook.   

Shkrebets said in his earlier post, "It was reported that the entire crew had been evacuated. It's a lie! A blatant and cynical lie!"

The ship sank in the Black Sea on April 14, and CNN reported that it was the biggest wartime loss of a naval ship in 40 years.

The state media outlet quoted the Russian Defense Ministry, saying it is providing all necessary support and aid to the relatives and close ones of the dead and the missing in action.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the UK for planning to reopen its embassy in Kyiv, in his nightly address posted to social media on Friday. This would be the 21st state to resume its diplomatic mission in the Ukrainian capital, he added.

Earlier on Friday, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced that the British Embassy in Ukraine will reopen in Kyiv next week and said that the UK and its allies will “not watch passively as Putin carries on this onslaught.” 

Zelensky also reacted to an announcement made by a Russian general earlier on Friday regarding Moscow's aim to create a land corridor between Ukraine's eastern Donbas region and Crimea. The general said that control over Ukraine's south would give Russian forces access to Transnistria, a separatist statelet in Moldova, where a contingent of Russian forces has been stationed since the early 1990s, according to Russian state media TASS.

He went on to say that this “only proves” that the Russian invasion of Ukraine “was intended only as a beginning, then they want to capture other countries.” 

The Ukrainian president also thanked Ukraine’s allies who have been supplying weapons. 

“I am grateful to all our partners who finally heard us, who provide us with exactly what we asked for,” he said. “Because we know for sure that with these weapons, we will be able to save the lives of thousands of people. And we will be able to show the occupiers that the day when they will be forced to leave Ukraine is approaching.” 

Zelensky said normal life is returning to areas that have been freed from Russian control and that 184 settlements have been de-mined, humanitarian operations are taking place in more than 500 liberated settlements, and medical and educational services along with financial institutions are also returning to many settlements.

Transportation infrastructure is being restored at a “fairly fast pace” with 96 settlements regaining transportation connections on Friday, 183 settlements now with functioning gas stations and 90 settlements with restored electricity, he added. 

“The return of Ukraine to cities and communities means the return of life in the full sense of these words,” Zelensky said, adding, “I believe that such a return will take place in the south of our country and in the east of Ukraine. In all areas where degradation, destruction and death have been brought under the Russian flag.” 

Austria’s finance minister told CNN that his country supports all sanctions on Russia except a gas embargo.

There was not much sense in a sanction that harmed Austria’s economy more than Russia’s, he stressed.

More context: The European Union imported nearly 100 billion euros ($110 billion) worth of Russian energy last year. Russia supplies about 40% of the bloc's imports of natural gas, and about 27% and 46% of its imported oil and coal respectively.

In March, EU leaders pledged to reduce consumption of Russian gas by 66% before the end of this year, and to break the bloc's dependence on Russian energy by 2027.

Russian oil has already been banned by the United States and United Kingdom.

CNN's Anna Cooban contributed reporting to this post.

European companies may be able to purchase Russian gas in rubles without violating the European Union's sanctions against Moscow, according to new advice issued by the European Commission on Friday. 

The advice issued states how a process involving the Russian Central Bank would be a breach of sanctions and how continued payment in Euros/Dollars would be possible.

In a document issued to the member states and published online Thursday, the Commission states it "appears possible" that Moscow's decree demanding energy payments be made in Russian currency "does not preclude a payment process which is in line with the EU restrictive measures." 

However, the commission notes the procedure is not yet clear. 

A Russian decree issued in late March demands companies hold accounts in Russia's state-owned Gazprombank, which would convert payments for gas into rubles, in order to fulfill contracts, instead of trading directly with state gas giant Gazprom. The decree only applies to existing contracts.

Gazprombank has been sanctioned by the UK and the US, but not the EU.

However, the Russian Central Bank, which is sanctioned by the EU, could be involved in Gazprombank's currency conversion, the commission notes. 

"Agreed contracts must be respected," a spokesperson from the EU Commission told CNN Friday, adding that "97% of the relevant contracts explicitly stipulate payment in euros or dollars. Companies with such contracts should not accede to Russian demands."

"We have carefully analyzed the new decree, and we are in contact with Member State authorities and with energy companies that would be affected. The EU will continue to respond in a united manner to this latest attempt by Russia to circumvent our sanctions," the spokesperson continued.

A number of homes have been destroyed in Moschun, a small village to the north of Kyiv and near the Hostomel Air Base, new drone video taken on Friday and obtained by CNN shows.

CNN has geolocated the video and verified its authenticity. They were shot by travel company owner Ihor Zakharenko, who told CNN he's since become a war journalist

The village of Moschun was vital to the Ukrainians repelling the Russian advance towards Kyiv. Ukrainian forces there, and nearby in Irpin and Bucha, are largely responsible for stalling the Russians, who were trying to advance towards Kyiv across the Irpin River.

That's why Bucha, Irpin and Moschun were subjected to intense barrages of military strikes, and were the site of an intense, weeks long firefight. As a result, much of the destruction in the Kyiv region are in these three locations.

In addition to the countless military strikes in Moschun, which sits on the eastern bank of the Irpin River, Russian forces also tried to take the village through a ground assault.

CNN has previously reported that Russian forces from the village of Ozera, on the western bank of the Irpin River, utilized one of their pontoon bridges to cross the Irpin and advance towards Moschun.

However, a Maxar Technologies satellite image shows that Ukrainian forces successfully thwarted that ground assault, blowing up the bridge crossing the Irpin River, and the vehicles that had crossed it.

The Ukraine's prosecutor's office has launched an investigation into the alleged shelling of the town of Sloviansk by the Russian army with cluster munitions, it said on Telegram on Friday.

According to the preliminary data, Russian troops used "Tochka-U," a missile system with a cluster warhead, the statement added.

Use of cluster munitions — which scatter submunitions over a wide area — is banned by many countries. Russia and Ukraine are not signatories to an international convention barring their use.