May 10, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukraine has killed between “eight and ten” Russian generals during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

US officials have closely watched the climbing number of general officer deaths in the Russian military — an unusually high number for a modern military that far outstrips the number of US generals lost during 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan.

Some US officials have attributed that atypically high figure in part to the intelligence support provided by the United States, while others believe it is because Russian generals are being forced to operate far more forward in the conflict zone than would normally be expected in order to motivate their troops. 

“Does the fact that Russia is losing all these generals suggest to you that these generals are having to go forward to ensure their orders are executed?” Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton asked.

“Yes,” DIA head Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier said. 

Overall, Berrier said that Ukraine is better poised to field motivated soldiers in the conflict — even as its military is far smaller than the Russian force. 

“I think the Ukrainians have it right in terms of grit and how they face the defense of their nation,” Berrier said. “I’m not sure that Russian soldiers from the far-flung Russian military districts really understand that.”

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) met on Tuesday to elect the Czech Republic to replace Russia on the Human Rights Council, with 157 votes in favor and 23 abstentions.

The Czech Republic’s term begins Tuesday and will expire on December 31, 2023. It was the only candidate announced to replace Russia. 

On April 7, the UNGA voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council with 93 votes in favor, 24 against, and 58 abstentions. 

In the draft of the April 7 resolution, the UNGA said the General Assembly would “suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”

With previous reporting from CNN’s Richard Roth.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that Western sanctions have delivered a powerful blow to Russia’s economy following the invasion of Ukraine.

“Their economy is clearly in recession,” Yellen told lawmakers during a hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s annual report to Congress, adding that there are forecasts the Russian economy will contract by 10% to 15%. 

Inflation in Russia is probably running around 20% this year, Yellen said. That would be more than double the 8.5% year-over-year jump in consumer prices in the United States in March.

Earlier, Yellen said that “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has further increased economic uncertainty.”

The war in Ukraine has disrupted supplies of food and energy, contributing to the highest level of inflation in decades. The average price of regular gasoline has increased about 25% to record highs since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Yellen said financial regulators will continue to monitor developments and “coordinate actions as the risks and threats evolve.”

The Lithuanian Parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution declaring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a "genocide" and Russia a perpetrator of terrorism.

In the resolution, the Seimas, Lithuania’s Parliament, recognized "the full-scale armed aggression — war — against Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and its political and military leadership [...] as genocide against the Ukrainian people."

Passed unanimously, the resolution accuses Russian military forces of "deliberately and systematically targeting civilian targets," declaring Russia "a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism."

The Seimas also called for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told CNN Tuesday that the decision is a recognition of reality and “gives impetus for further legal investigations into the situation.”

In his first reaction to the unanimous passage of the resolution, Landsbergis said the designations must be followed up by investigations, such as those being carried out by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

“We haven't seen anything like it since the Second World War, so that might give additional speed to the investigation and resources that they require, because especially ICC … they have as much money as the countries provide and as many investigators as the countries provide,” said Landsbergis, who noted Lithuania was one of the first countries to provide financial assistance to the investigators.

Landsbergis said that the international community must not only work to strengthen mechanisms aimed at accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but perhaps look for new ones because “Russia truly changed the reality with their attack on Ukraine."

“We had trust that after the Second World War, we built the mechanism that should empower this ‘never again’ concept. Obviously the mechanisms were not sufficient. And so we really need now to start working on strengthening those mechanisms,” he told CNN. “I think that we not only need to strengthen what we built, but maybe even to look for new mechanisms and new instruments that would really allow us once again to say this was the last time.”

The US intelligence community believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is likely to become “more unpredictable and escalatory” in the coming months, the nation’s director of national intelligence told Congress on Tuesday. 

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines painted a grim and uncertain picture of the next phase of Putin’s two-month-old invasion, which she told the Senate Armed Services Committee will be difficult to predict in part because “Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities.” 

Still, Haines told lawmakers, the intelligence community does not believe Putin would turn to the use of nuclear weapons unless he felt there was an existential threat to Russia.

The intelligence community believes that Putin is preparing for a protracted conflict — and that his goals extend far beyond the eastern region of the Donbas, where his military is currently focused after being repelled from Kyiv in the early weeks of the war. 

In the near term, Putin wants to capture the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, control the city of Kherson and potentially extend a land bridge around the southern rung of the country to Transnistria, a separatist region of Moldova where Russian troops are currently stationed, Haines said. 

But to reach Transnistria, the intelligence community believes that Putin would need to launch a full mobilization inside Russia, a step he has so far not taken. 

“As both Russia and Ukraine believe they can continue to make progress militarily, we do not see a viable negotiating path forward, at least in the short term,” Haines said. 

The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a five-story building in the town of Izium, which is currently controlled by Russian troops, according to the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

Oleh Syniehubov said the building had been "completely destroyed by the occupiers" but it's not yet clear when it happened.

Russian forces have been in control of Izium for nearly two months. Before that, the town was heavily contested and intensively shelled.

Syniehubov said that locals who had stayed behind in Izium had excavated the site.

He said there was "no special equipment for dismantling debris, everything is done by hand."

"And of course it does not happen around the clock. When there is no shelling, people come out and try to dismantle those blockages," he added.

What's unclear is whether Russian forces in the area were aware of the operation and permitted the retrieval of the bodies.

Syniebuhov said that, since Izium was occupied, about 1,700 people had been evacuated while what he called a "green corridor" was in existence.

"After that, the occupiers did not allow people to be taken out or humanitarian aid brought there," he added.

He also said that Tsirkuny, a town near Kharkiv, had been liberated and described the scene there as a "total war crime."

What we know: The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor's Office said a criminal case "for violating the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder" has been opened.

Between March 7 and 10, the Russian military "systematically shelled the city of Izium. As a result of the shelling, public infrastructure and residential buildings were destroyed," the prosecutor's office said. "So far, the bodies of the victims have been removed from the rubble, and 14 people have been identified."

Chinese President Xi Jinping "agreed on the urgency of a cease-fire" in Ukraine during a 90-minute phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, the Élysée Palace said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All efforts to provide humanitarian support to the Ukrainian population should also be supported," it added.

Belarus has started the second stage of inspection of its army's reaction forces, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said Tuesday in a video commentary posted on the Telegram account of Belarusian state media Belta.

"This is all planned as part of an adequate response to the 'Defender-Europe' exercises that have been taking place on the territory of NATO countries since May 1," Khrenin said.

He said that the Belarusian side watches the NATO exercises and sees "every movement that battalion groups are involved in" and "the tasks that they plan to carry out."

Last week, the Belarusian army began a previously unannounced inspection of its reaction force, planning movement of a significant amount of military equipment, according to a statement published by the Belarusian Ministry of Defense.

The threat of missile strikes on military and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine from the territory of the Republic of Belarus has never ceased, said Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, the spokesperson of Ukraine's defense ministry, last Wednesday.

"As you know, today the Russian army is using the territory of the Republic of Belarus as a springboard for the attack on Ukraine. In fact, due to this, Russian units were able to appear in the suburbs of the capital so quickly," Motuzyanyk said last week.

More than eight million people have been internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the latest report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.

Over 18% — or nearly one in five — of Ukraine's pre-war population is now internally displaced, said the fourth Ukraine Internal Displacement Report, published Monday.

The latest survey, conducted between April 29 and May 3, found that 63% of those internally displaced are women. 

More than 50% of displaced households have children, 55% include elderly members and over 30% have people with chronic illnesses, according to the survey.

With more than 5.9 million refugees having left Ukraine for neighboring countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a total of at least 13.9 million people have been left displaced since the beginning of the Russian invasion in late February.