June 16, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Thursday that the United States has purposefully “refrained from laying out what we see as an end game” for the war in Ukraine and will “not be pressuring [Ukraine] to make territorial concessions” to Russia, but noted that the US has been in talks with Ukraine about what a settlement could look like.

In the discussion with the Center for a New American Security, Sullivan said that the US will continue “to support and consult” with Ukraine “about how they want to approach a negotiated outcome with the Russians."

"And for the time being, supporting them in that means supporting them through the steady provision of weapons and intelligence” in order to strengthen the country's hand at the negotiating table, he added.

CNN has previously reported that, staring down the prospect of an extended stalemate in Ukraine, the US and its allies are placing a renewed emphasis on the need for a negotiated settlement to end the war. In recent weeks, US officials have been meeting regularly with their British and European counterparts to discuss potential frameworks for a ceasefire and for ending the war through a negotiated settlement.

Asked about the apparent discrepancy between how many HIMARS (High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems) the US had provided to Ukraine versus how many Ukraine has asked for, Sullivan said:

A senior adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said earlier this week that Ukraine needs around 300 of the systems, but the US has only provided four so far. 

“These are highly sophisticated systems that require real training,” Sullivan added. “We’ve trained an initial cadre of Ukrainians to be able to use them. But as you increase the number of systems, you obviously have to increase the number of personnel being prepared to use them. So that will be a process that unfolds over the course of the coming weeks and months.”

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday that NATO's military assistance for Ukraine is not "a provocation" but rather support for an independent state. 

When asked to comment on remarks by Pope Francis published earlier this week that the war in Ukraine "was perhaps in some way either provoked or not prevented," Stoltenberg said that "NATO is a defensive alliance and the war is President Putin's war."

"This is not a provocation, and that is what we continue to do," he said. "It is President Putin and Moscow that is responsible for this brutal aggression against an independent country," he added.

On Tuesday, Italian newspaper La Stampa published the Pope's remarks, in which he said "we do not see the whole drama that is unfolding behind this war, which was perhaps in some way either provoked or not prevented."

Hundreds of civilians sheltering at the Azot chemical plant in Severodonetsk are no longer able to evacuate because of the sustained Russian artillery barrages, the Luhansk regional military governor told CNN in a telephone interview on Thursday. 

“It is impossible to get out of there now,” Serhiy Hayday said. “I mean, it is physically possible, but it is very dangerous due to constant shelling and fighting.”

Hayday told CNN that 568 people, including 38 children, were currently taking refuge in the eastern Ukrainian plant.

The civilians sheltering at Azot have stocks of food, but they have not been resupplied in two weeks, head of the Severodonetsk district military administration Roman Vlasenko told CNN via text message on Wednesday. Most of those sheltering there are employees of the chemical plant, their families and some local residents, he said.

“They have been hiding there from the very beginning,” he told CNN. “There are real bomb shelters there.”

The Azot plant is a massive chemical manufacturer that before the war was one of the largest producers of ammonium nitrate, which is used as a fertilizer, in the country. Group DF, a conglomerate run by the Ukrainian businessman Dmytro Firtash, said that the plant had an annual capacity of over two million tons and also produced products such as ammonia.

Those compounds, of course, are highly explosive and harmful to human health. But Group DF said in March that it acted quickly to secure the plant when war broke out at the end of February and that it “poses no danger” to the surroundings and its residents.

“Following the outbreak of the war, the production was completely suspended,” the company said on its website. “The remainders of the finished products (fertilizers) and chemicals were completely removed from the territory of the enterprise beyond the Luhansk region.”  

Hayday told CNN that authorities had tried to convince the civilians sheltering there to leave the plant last month, before major bridges were destroyed, but that many were convinced that they would be safer to stay in place.

He said that there have been several cases of civilians leaving shelter — for example, to cook — and then being injured or killed by incoming fire.

As of this this week, all three main bridges between Severodonetsk and neighboring Lysychansk are impassable. Hayday said that routes still existed between the cities, but they require more travel along the Siverskyi Donets river — and more exposure to incoming fire.

The fact that those routes exist at all, though, distinguish the Azot plant from the Azovstal plant in Mariupol, where civilians and fighters sheltered for weeks earlier this year. In that case, the Ukrainians were surrounded by Russian forces on three sides and the Sea of Azov on the fourth side.

Russia earlier this week said that it would open a “humanitarian corridor” for civilians at the plant to evacuate, but only to Russian-controlled territory to the north, not to Ukrainian-held Lysychansk to the west.

Hayday said that an evacuation would be possible only if there were a complete ceasefire, but he was highly skeptical of any promises made by Russia.

At repeated points during the war, Ukrainian officials said, Russian forces have broken promises to open evacuation corridors, driven civilian evacuees onto their territory and failed to observe ceasefire agreements.

“I hear a lot of what they say, but 99% of it is just nonsense or a lie,” Hayday said. “If there is a complete ceasefire, then we can take people out. But I do not believe the Russians — as much as they lie, as much as they gave their word and did not keep it. There is a lot of such evidence.”

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi vowed to “rebuild everything” after visiting Ukraine’s war-torn city of Irpin on Thursday.

“They know exactly where the sites that need to be rebuilt are. Each family has an app where they describe what happened, and they are already in a very advanced state,” he added. 

During his visit to the Kyiv suburb, locals spoke to him “about rebuilding. Words of pain, of hope but also of what they will want to do in the future,” the Italian leader said.

The leaders of France, Germany and Italy have arrived in Kyiv for a high profile trip to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's defense minister said the number of Ukrainians who have died since Russia invaded the country in February likely stands in the tens of thousands.

Here are the latest developments:

European leaders meet Zelensky: French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi are meeting with Zelensky, during a visit to Kyiv designed to smooth out tensions over what Ukrainian officials perceive as lukewarm support in their fight against Russia. Speaking to reporters on the platform as he arrived at Kyiv train station, Macron told reporters he had a "message of European unity addressed to Ukrainian men and women." 

US aid bolsters Ukrainian military: US weapons will help Ukraine recapture Russian-occupied territory, including Crimea and Donbas, the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov told CNN's Matthew Chance in an exclusive interview in Brussels. The defense minister said the first step would be stabilization of the situation on the ground to prevent further losses against Russian forces. He said the second stage is to push Russian forces back to their positions before the invasion on February 24, adding the military "will move step by step." 

Fighting in the east intensifies: The Russia-backed leader of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in eastern Ukraine said on Thursday that his fighters will push beyond the borders of the Donetsk region. “The West's supplies of new weapons to Ukraine are forcing DPR troops not to stop at the borders of the Donetsk Republic,” Denis Pushilin told Russian State Media RIA Novosti. He added that he wants to see a "referendum" held for his region to join Russia. Huge parts of the Donetsk region are still controlled by Ukraine, most notably the population centers of Kramatorsk and Slovyansk.

UK increases sanctions on Russia: Britain on Thursday sanctioned the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, for his "prominent support of Russian military aggression in Ukraine," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement. Patriarch Kirill has been sanctioned alongside several of Russian President Vladimir Putin's allies and military commanders. The announcement came two days after Russia published an updated “stop list” banning a total of 49 British citizens from entering the country, including journalists, UK military officials, defense contractors and members of parliament.

China reaffirms support for Russia: Chinese leader Xi Jinping reiterated his support for Moscow on "sovereignty and security" matters in a call with counterpart Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, upholding his backing for the countries' partnership despite the global backlash against Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Speaking on his 69th birthday, Xi also pledged to deepen strategic coordination between the two countries, according to China's Foreign Ministry.

Federal prosecutors in New York announced on Wednesday they were moving to seize more than $5.3 million from a United States bank account belonging to sanctioned Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev, according to court documents.

Malofeyev was recently targeted by the US in a round of sanctions imposed on Russia over the war on Ukraine. On April 20, the US unveiled sanctions targeting a key commercial bank and "a global network of more than 40 individuals and entities led by US-designated Russian oligarch Konstantin Malofeyev."

The reasons given for these sanctions were "for having acted or purported to act for or on behalf of, directly or indirectly," the government of Russia.

The US previously sanctioned Malofeyev in December 2014 for funding "separatist activities in eastern Ukraine" and for his close links to "Aleksandr Borodai, Igor Girkin (a.k.a. Igot Strelkov), and the so-called Donetsk People's Republic, which have all been previously sanctioned as Specially Designated Nationals (SDNs)," according to a Treasury release at the time.

Ukraine’s Irpin and Bucha have “become a symbol of the unimaginable cruelty of the Russian war,” German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said Thursday after visiting Irpin, a suburb outside Kyiv.

This is Scholz's first trip to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion.   

“The brutal destruction in this city is a memorial — this war must end," Scholz demanded in a tweet.  

Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, who is also visiting Kyiv, tweeted that Romania wants “all Russian perpetrators to be held responsible by the international criminal justice.” 

“No words to describe the unimaginable human tragedy and horrible destructions we saw today in Irpin,“ Iohannis wrote. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is meeting in Kyiv with French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian President Klaus Iohannis, according to a photos and video distributed by Zelensky’s office.

“Busy day. Important meetings,” Zelensky said via his official Telegram channel, adding that he is pleased to meet these leaders.

Britain on Thursday sanctioned the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, for his "prominent support of Russian military aggression in Ukraine," the UK Foreign Office said in a statement. 

Patriarch Kirill has been sanctioned alongside several of Russian President Vladimir Putin's allies and military commanders, in UK's latest round of sanctions against Russia.

In May, a branch of Ukraine's Orthodox church broke ties with Russia's Patriarch Kirill over the Russian spiritual leader's support for the war in Ukraine, deepening a rift between the Moscow church and other Orthodox believers.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Thursday that the sanction is another example of "Russophobia."

“This is craziness. It just shows how inadequate some countries are in their Russophobia,” Peskov told CNN senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen. 

Targeting those responsible for "the barbaric treatment of children in Ukraine," the UK also announced sanctions against Russian Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova for her alleged involvement in the "forced transfer and adoption of Ukrainian children."

In the statement, the Foreign Office said Lvova-Belova stood accused of enabling the "violent" transfer of 2,00 children from the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and orchestrating a policy allowing for their forced adoptions in Russia.

The UK's latest sanctions list also includes four Military Colonels from the 64th Separate Motorised Rifle Brigade -- the unit is allegedly responsible for the murder and torture of civilians in Bucha.