May 17, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

The Council of Europe (COE) announced that it has established a "register of damage" to help hold Russia accountable for its actions in Ukraine, the organization announced on Wednesday at the conclusion of a two-day summit in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The register — officially the "Register of Damage Caused by the Aggression of the Russian Federation Against Ukraine" — will document "damage, loss or injury caused by the Russian aggression against Ukraine," the COE said, in an initiative that will last for an initial period of three years.

The system is "vital" if Moscow is to be held liable for compensation to victims of the war, said Marija Pejčinović Burić, secretary general of the COE.

The COE has 46 member states. The gathering in Reykjavik is only the fourth summit since the council was established in 1949. The summit’s "top priority" was supporting Ukraine in Russia’s war, according to the COE’s website.

"The register is an important step towards accountability for crimes committed in Russia’s brutal war and a strong message of support to Ukraine," Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said that the register is "an important milestone on the road to justice and reparations for Ukraine and the Ukrainians who have suffered so much from this war."

Forty nations — including some, like the United States, who had observer status at the summit — have joined the register, with a further three having expressed an intention to join.

Nine countries who are either member or observer states of the council have not yet joined the agreement: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Hungary, Serbia, Turkey, The Holy See, Israel and Mexico.

An agreement has been reached to extend the deal that allows grain to be exported from Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, according to Turkish, Ukrainian and Russian officials.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was first to announce that the deal, which was scheduled to expire Thursday, will be extended for two months. 

The agreement, brokered by Turkey and the United Nations, was originally signed last year and has since been extended. 

What Ukraine says: Oleksandr Kubrakov, the Ukrainian minister of Communities, Territories and Infrastructure Development, has confirmed that the grain deal has been extended.

Russia had balked at extending the deal without better guarantees for its own exports.

“In mid-April, Russia began to unreasonably restrict the work of the Initiative, and in May it actually blocked it by refusing to register a new fleet and conduct inspections of the fleet that is being loaded at Ukrainian ports,” said Kubrakov.

“Almost 70 vessels are currently waiting in Turkish territorial waters, 90% of them are ready to deliver the products of our farmers to the world,” he claimed.

“We welcome the continuation of the Initiative, but emphasize that it must work effectively. For this purpose, it is necessary to eliminate the problems that Russia has been creating for several months now by sabotaging inspections and registration of the new fleet,” he added.

What Russia says: Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has also confirmed the extension of the Black Sea Grain initiative.

However, Zakharova said that "distortions in the implementation of the grain deal should be corrected as quickly as possible."

US praises extension: The US State Department praised the two-month extension Wednesday, with spokesperson Vedant Patel saying in a briefing that we "strongly support the UN's and Turkey's efforts on the deal, which keeps the global food and grain prices low."

Patel also chastised Russia for the need to repeatedly extend the deal.

“We should not need to remind Moscow every few weeks to keep their promises and to stop using people's hunger as a weapon in their war against Ukraine,” said Patel.

CNN's Uliana Pavlova and Michael Conte contributed reporting to this post.

Senior Russian officials at the Kremlin and in the regions have been forbidden from leaving their posts, claims IStories, an independent Russian media outlet.

IStories is an online investigative news outlet based outside Russia and is run by a well-known journalist Roman Anin, who said his sources included acquaintances of high-ranking officials in the Presidential Administration.

Anin told CNN he did not know how many people had tried to quit but had not been allowed to. “However, I know of concrete examples of those who tried to quit. These are governors, [from the] security forces, and people from the presidential administration," he said.

The journalist declined to provide names so as to protect his sources.

IStories said it had been told by a former officer of the Federal Security Service (FSB) that he knew of “at least two cases when governors tried to leave their posts,” but the Internal Policy Department of the Presidential Administration had banned them from resigning and had hinted at criminal cases against them.

There is no way to verify the claims, and Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told CNN on Tuesday that reports about high-ranking officials being banned from resigning for the duration of the "special military operation" — as Moscow refers to the war in Ukraine — were “another hoax.”

Anin said the policy was not formal and never conveyed in writing. “There can be no written refusals or recommendations, because the ban is illegal. It all happens informally. A governor of the region submits his resignation, he is summoned to the Department of Internal Policy, intimidated, called a traitor and threatened with a criminal case if he insists," he noted.

According to a presidential decree, servicemen under contract (which would include the majority of FSB employees) cannot leave even after their contract expires.

The ban has two goals, Anin said. If many people leave, then public administration may become unmanageable, so the ban would "prevent the loss of control," he said, adding that the other goal is to "show the people and subordinates that the authorities are united, that everyone is in place and no one is going to run away.”

Bank accounts of the Finnish Embassy in Moscow and General consulate in St. Petersburg have been frozen by the Russian government at the end of April, Finland’s Foreign Ministry in Helsinki told CNN Wednesday. 

“Finland has been in contact with the Russian authorities and demanded an investigation. Also, Finland has demanded Russia to secure Finland´s diplomatic missions' local money and payment transactions,” the ministry said in a statement. 

Russian authorities have yet to explain their decision to the Finnish side to freeze the accounts, according to the Finnish Foreign Ministry. 

Some context: In April, Finland officially became the 31st member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), marking a major shift in the security landscape in northeastern Europe that added some 1,300 kilometers (830 miles) to the alliance’s frontier with Russia.

Finland’s acceptance into the US-led security alliance presented a blow to Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has long sought to undermine NATO, and before invading Ukraine, demanded the bloc refrain from further expansion.

Earlier this year, Finland began construction of barrier fences on its eastern border with Russia. The project, which launched at the end of 2022, included plans to build a 130 to 260-kilometer (80 to 161 miles) fence along the country's eastern border. 

CNN's Tara John, Jessie Gretener and Sugam Pokharel contributed to this post.

The damage to a Patriot air defense system following a Russian missile attack near Kyiv on Tuesday morning is minimal, three US officials tell CNN, with one official describing it as "minor" damage. 

The US sent inspectors to examine the system on Tuesday, after being told by the Ukrainians that the system appeared to have been damaged, one official said.

The system itself is still operational, the officials said, and the radar component of the Patriot, one of its most important elements, was not damaged. US officials do not believe the Patriot will need to be removed from the battlefield for repairs. 

A complete Patriot battery has six major components: generators, a radar set, a control station, antennas, a launcher station and interceptor missiles. The components operate together to fire a Patriot missile and successfully guide it to its target.

It is not clear what part of the Patriot was damaged or if it was damaged by an actual missile strike or falling debris. The Ukrainians said they successfully intercepted all six Russian Kinzhal missiles on Tuesday morning. 

Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for Ukraine’s Air Force Command, has told Ukrainian TV that the US-made Patriot air defense system could not be destroyed by a Kinzhal missile. 

"Do not worry about the fate of the Patriot. From a technical point of view, Patriot is a ... system," he said, noting that it consisted of components that can be located at a distance from one another.

Ukraine is holding on to the substantial areas around Bakhmut that it claims to have taken back from Russian troops, and Ukrainian forces are still advancing in certain areas, according to Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar.

"Almost 20 square kilometers liberated in the suburbs in recent days have not been lost. We are moving on. We are advancing in some areas," Maliar said on her Telegram account.

She said "fierce fighting" continues around the embattled eastern city, adding that Russian troops are also "advancing somewhat."

Maliar’s statement cannot be verified, and many observers think Ukrainian progress has been more modest than claimed.

On Tuesday, Maliar said Ukrainian troops "liberated about 20 square kilometers (more than 7 square miles) of the Bakhmut suburbs in the north and south of the city."

CNN's Tim Lister contributed reporting to this post.

Britain and the Netherlands are working on an “international coalition” to help Ukraine procure F-16 fighter jets that Kyiv says are vital to its defense as Russia ramps up its its aerial strikes, a spokesperson for UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Tuesday.

The two NATO allies are trying to get the US-made warplanes to Ukraine as well as training Kyiv’s pilots to fly them, according to the Downing Street readout following a meeting between Sunak and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte at the Council of Europe Summit in Iceland.

Ukraine, which has been saying the fighter jets are essential to defend against Russian missile and drone attacks, welcomed the announcement from the British and Dutch leaders.

Yermak said Belgium, another NATO ally, in particular, had “confirmed its readiness to train” Ukrainian pilots.

Britain does not have F-16s in its air force, but the Netherlands and Belgium do. The US Air Force has almost 800 F-16s in its fleet.

Read the full story here.

A retired US Army Special Forces soldier has been identified as the American citizen killed by Russian artillery in the embattled city of Bakhmut this week, according to a close friend and the founder of a non-profit group working in Ukraine.

Retired Army Staff Sgt. Nicholas Maimer was in a building in Bakhmut that collapsed after being hit by artillery fire, according to Retired Lt. Col. Perry Blackburn, founder of the non-profit AFGFree, with which Maimer was working in Ukraine.

Ukrainians who were with Maimer believed he was either trapped in the collapsed building or killed by a “barrage” of Russian artillery fire, Blackburn said.

Confirmation of Maimer’s death comes after the leader of Russian private military company Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, claimed to show the body of an American in a video posted on the Wagner Telegram group on Tuesday. 

Read more here.

At least one person has died and several were injured in the latest Russian shelling to hit frontline regions in eastern and southern Ukraine. But in Kyiv, air defenses are looking virtually impenetrable – in defiance of the expectations of Western analysts and Russian military commanders.

Here are the latest developments: