April 25, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Defense Ministry in Ukraine has described explosions that took place in the Transnistria region of neighboring Moldova as a "planned provocation" by the Russian secret services.

The ministry's defense intelligence department said in a statement on its Telegram channel that three days before the incident, the leaders of the breakaway region "were already preparing for it and took care to install a secure and comfortable bunker" at the Ministry of State Security, which was damaged in the explosions. 

"Obviously, this case is one of a number of provocative measures organized by the FSB (the Russian security service) to instill panic and anti-Ukrainian sentiment," it said.

What Russia is saying: Earlier Monday, Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported a series of explosions were heard around the building of the Ministry of State Security in Tiraspol, the capital of the separatist statelet of Transnistria in Moldova.

A correspondent for Russian state news agency RIA-Novosti reported explosions, saying that powerful booms were heard on the scene and that windows in neighboring houses were damaged. Traffic near the ministry building was blocked, the agency reported.

Russia has maintained a contingent of troops inside Transnistria since the early 1990s. Last week, a top Russian general said Russia intended to establish "full control" over southern Ukraine in the second phase of its invasion of Ukraine, adding that control over Ukraine's south would give Russian forces access to Transnistria. 

CNN's Nathan Hodge contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian officials and the Russian Defense Ministry have reported another day of heavy fighting in the eastern Ukrainian region of Luhansk.

Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said on Ukrainian television Monday that the Russians "keep razing everything to the ground."

He referred to a village on the frontlines, Novotoshkivka, which now lies in ruins.

Drone video from the area showed that much of the village has been destroyed.

Hayday said Russian forces were still trying to break through in the neighboring towns of Rubizhne and Popasna. "They don't get anything there. But they throw huge forces there. And shelling is carried out there around the clock."

Hayday also said that the Russians had "damaged the electricity substation that powered the entire region."

Further west, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that four command posts and one ammunition depot near the town of Sloviansk had been destroyed. Russian forces have been targeting Sloviansk and nearby Kramatorsk as they try to reach the borders of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. It also said another Ukrainian military target — in the town of Novogrodovka — had been hit. 

The Russians have amassed forces around the town of Izium, which they occupied at the beginning of April, but have made little progress since. Ukrainian officials reported fighting around the nearby village of Zavody Monday. 

The General Staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said the "enemy continues to carry out offensive operations in the Eastern Operational Zone to defeat the Joint forces, establish full control over the territory of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions and maintain the land route with the occupied Crimea."

Russian forces struck five railway stations in central and western Ukraine on Monday morning as part of a campaign to "systematically destroy railway infrastructure," according to the chairman of Ukrzaliznytsia, Ukraine's state railway company. The rail system has become a vital cog in the country's war effort, ferrying essential supplies in, and desperate civilians out of harm's way.

Russia has made only "minor advances" since shifting their focus to taking control over the eastern Donbas region of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Monday. "Without sufficient logistical and combat support enablers in place, Russia has yet to achieve a significant breakthrough," said the MoD on Twitter.

Here are more of the latest headlines from the Russia-Ukraine war:

Day after day, Maria Shtern gets into her rusty Lada car and drives the rutted roads of eastern Ukraine.

Shtern, 21, has been volunteering for more than five years on the frontlines of Ukraine’s conflict with Russia – first with its proxies in the Donbas region, now with its military.

On this sunny spring Monday, in a uniform of camouflage cargo pants and hemp leaf bucket hat, she’s delivering food and medicine to homes to the village of Mykolaivka.

“Many people just do not understand that what was in 2014 in Slovyansk and what can happen now are two very different scenarios,” she told CNN.

Every day, Shtern tries to put herself out of a job, telling her patrons to evacuate.

“I am asking people a specific question: Are you ready to hear your children crying and saying, 'Mom, I’m scared to die?'" she said.

As the Russian military closes in, and commercial supply lines stop, Shtern's deliveries of food and medicine are the only lifeline for many people. The Russians have captured Izium, a nearby urban center, and their artillery is bombarding the town of Lyman, just a few miles down the road.

She weaves though the chicanes of checkpoints, past the husks of buildings destroyed in 2015, and alongside gardens blooming with tulips planted long before people even in this war-torn region could have imagined a full-scale war with Russia.

In Mykolaivka, each resident is faced with the same decision every day: stay or go.

The torment is visible in a woman who approaches us and yells that she has no idea what will happen, but she cannot leave.

“My elderly grandmother, who is 80 and can hardly walk, I can’t leave her. Do you understand? It’s my family. Don’t you have families at home that you can’t leave behind? Not under any circumstances," she tells CNN.

Natalia Maligon is among the residents who have had enough and have chosen to leave.

“My sister woke up this morning and said we had to leave,” she explains as her twin nieces run between the elder branches. “We didn’t want to leave until the last minute, but then something made her want to. So we had to.”

Olha Konovalova contributed reporting to this post.

The European Union has evacuated around 200 Ukrainian patients requiring urgent medical care from Ukraine and neighboring countries to hospitals in other European nations, European Commission spokesperson Balazs Ujvari said on Monday. 

Following requests from Poland, Slovakia, Moldova and also Ukraine, the EU has transferred Ukrainian patients who need specialized medical help to hospitals in “11 different European countries,” Ujvari explained.  

The transfer of patients has been supported the EU’s first dedicated medical evacuation plane, which has been operational since March. 

United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is currently on a plane en route to Moscow, Deputy Spokesperson for the Secretary-General Farhan Haq said Monday.

Guterres will be “received” by Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and will have a working meeting and lunch with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. He is also scheduled to travel to Kyiv and meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday. 

Haq also said that while Guterres has not spoken with United States President Joe Biden ahead of his upcoming trip to Moscow and Kyiv, he has spoken with other senior US officials.

“He has been speaking to senior US officials and indeed, many other senior officials by phone in recent days,” Haq said. “He talks to a number of different leaders. I wouldn’t characterize what their discussions are in any particular detail, but certainly, he is apprised of the viewpoints of most of the key governments in terms of what needs to be achieved.”

Haq declined to go into detail Monday about the sort of proposals Guterres is bringing to his meetings but noted that officials from both Ukraine and Russia accepted the itinerary. He added that there is no significance to the Secretary-General visiting Russia before visiting Ukraine. Travel plans remain in flux and it’s possible that Guterres will stop in a third country in between his meetings in Moscow and Kyiv, Haq said.

A senior official in Ukraine's Interior Ministry says there has been a large explosion in the town of Kreminna in the Luhansk region, an area recently occupied by Russian forces.

Anton Gerashchenko said the explosion took place at an administrative building in the town. Ukrainian forces withdrew from Kreminna last week.

"Simultaneously with the natural gas explosion in the building of the city council, there was a second explosion of domestic gas in the district police department, where a group of collaborators had gone for a meeting," he said.

CNN cannot verify the number of casualties nor the origin of the explosion.

A deputy to Russia's ambassador to the UN took to the stakeout podium at the UN Monday to say that a ceasefire in Ukraine is not a good option right now.

He also alleged that Ukraine, with backing from the US, was preparing to deploy "chemical, biological, and tactical nuclear weapons" in a false flag operation, and claim that Russia had been responsible. 

The representative also said he did not think it was time for a humanitarian ceasefire.

Polyanskiy was speaking on the eve of the UN secretary general’s visit to Russia, where he will be received by President Vladimir Putin.

“Our ministry of defense keeps collecting information that the Kyiv regime backed by the US is preparing staged provocations in order to accuse the Russian armed forces of using chemical, biological, and tactical nuclear weapons,” Polyanskiy said. 

Still, Polyanskiy gave several speculative scenarios in which he claimed a Ukrainian attack could happen. 

He urged the media to take note of specific locations so it “does not come as a surprise if an incident happens” adding “we have warned the world about it.”

“What has long been considered as unthinkable is now a realistic scenario plotted by the Kyiv regime, encouraged and supported by the USA,” he continued, parroting the accusations of Russian leaders.

He added “the US and its allies have a proven record of using (allegations of) weapons of mass destruction... to assault sovereign countries which do not want to succumb to their pressure,” referencing justifications US officials gave for previous military actions in Iraq and Syria.  

The Russian diplomat also denied that the Russians were responsible for the killing of civilians in Bucha where CNN found mass graves. 

US military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine could be at risk of being bogged down in the immigration battle brewing on Capitol Hill between Republicans and the Biden administration.

The Biden administration is expected to send another supplemental request to Congress this week for Ukraine after warning that money from the last package is nearly depleted. But, while there is broad support on Capitol Hill to give Ukraine more assistance, the path to passage is much more uncertain in the U.S. Senate.

It’s still not clear what vehicle Democrats would use to pass Ukraine aid, but one likely option would be to attach the aid to $10 billion in COVID-19 funding that is already moving through the Senate. Attaching Ukraine aid to money for COVID-19 testing and treatments, however, could put the critical wartime aid in the crosshairs of political infighting over immigration.

Where things stand on Covid relief: Before the recess, the $10 billion COVID-19 relief package stalled out after Republicans insisted they wouldn’t fast-track the process unless Democrats agreed to vote on an amendment that would block the administration’s decision to overturn Title 42, a Trump-era order that during the pandemic allowed both the Trump and Biden administrations to turn immigrants at the border back to their home countries immediately citing a public health crisis. That order is expected to be overturned at the end of May, but the decision faces stiff opposition from Republicans and some moderate Democrats who have warned the decision will cause an uptick of illegal crossings at the border.

In order to pass Covid-19 relief quickly before the recess, Republicans argued they wanted a vote to block the administration’s decision on Title 42. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer wouldn’t give it to them.

Talks over how to pass both covid relief and Ukraine aid will begin Monday when lawmakers return to Washington. Schumer has also made it clear that he wants to include global vaccine funding in a Ukraine aid package. The vaccine funding wasn’t included in the $10 billion Covid package because of opposition from Republicans in the negotiations.

Why the Biden administration needs more money for Ukraine: The reason the Biden administration says it needs more money for Ukraine now is that the administration has used $2.45 billion out of the $3 billion in funding Congress authorized in Presidential Drawdown Authority funding as of April 22, according to a source familiar with the matter. Congress authorized $3 billion in that specific pot of money when they passed the omnibus spending bill in March.

Overall, Congress passed $13.6 billion in aid for Ukraine when they passed their government funding package in March. That included increasing the specific pot of money the administration had at its discretion to spend for Ukraine to $3 billion.

But the pot of money is running out. After six weeks, the Biden Administration has used up all but about $50 million of a $3 billion pot. Lawmakers are already having preliminary discussions about writing and passing another supplemental aid package for Ukraine, but conversations are still preliminary, a Congressional aide said.

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said the administration does not want to run out of funding from the Presidential Drawdown Authority before another supplemental aid package is passed in Congress.

“We are getting close to the end of those funds, and so that’s why we are actively engaging with members of Congress,” Kirby told reporters during a briefing at the Pentagon Friday. “We don’t want to get to a point [sic] where we’re in extremes, where we’ve actually run out of the authority and the funding to execute it. So we’re having those discussions.”

Last week, the top Republican of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Sen. Jim Inhofe, called for Congress to start writing a new supplemental aid package for Ukraine in a series of tweets.