September 14, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said approximately 8,000 square kilometers (3,088 square miles) of territory has now been liberated by Ukrainian forces so far this month, with roughly half the area still undergoing “stabilization” measures. 

In a statement Monday, Zelensky said most of the liberated territory retaken by Ukrainian forces since the start of September was concentrated in the country’s northeast and south. 

Zelensky promised to immediately resume pension payments to all Ukrainians living in recently reclaimed areas in his message Tuesday. 

“As an example, in Balakliya, in Hrakove, the payment of pensions for five months at once, for the time when we simply could not make payments due to the occupation, has already been started,” he said, adding that “Ukraine always fulfills its social obligations to people.”

Russian shelling killed at least two people and injured six in Ukraine’s southern port city of Mykolaiv near the Black Sea on Wednesday, according to the head of the region’s civil military administration Vitalii Kim.

“At approximately 01:10 a.m. Mykolaiv was shelled. According to preliminary data, these were S-300 missiles. An educational institution, infrastructure facilities and residential buildings were damaged,” Kim said in a post on Telegram, claiming that a fire had broken out at a factory due to the attack. 

Kim also urged citizens to stay away from power stations, due to possible shelling in their vicinity. 

The city’s mayor Oleksandr Sienkevych also posted about the shelling on Telegram. 

“We are still collecting all the info on the consequences of shelling. I will inform you of the details later,” he added. 

Some context: On Tuesday Pro-Russian regional officials insisted that the Ukrainian counteroffensive in the southern areas of Kherson and Mykolaiv was being contained. 

Ukrainian officials claim that they’ve taken back approximately 500 square kilometers of territory in the south so far, along the borders of Mykolaiv and Kherson. 

Pope Francis has arrived in Kazakhstan for a three-day visit to the country.

The Pope addressed political leaders in the capital Nur-Sultan on Tuesday evening telling them that he had come at a time of “the senseless and tragic war that broke out with the invasion of Ukraine.”

On Wednesday the Pope attends the VII Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions, a gathering of international religious leaders.

One religious leader who is noticeably absent is Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Kirill, who was due to meet Francis in Kazakhstan but announced at the end of August that he would not be attending.

Chinese President Xi Jinping is also due in Kazakhstan on Wednesday for separate political meetings.

The Vatican has said that there is no planned meeting between the Pope and the Chinese President.

Pope Francis told journalists on the papal plane from Rome that “he was always ready to visit China.”

The Pentagon said some Russian forces have crossed from the Kharkiv region back into Russia.

But Russian forces still “do exist en masse in Ukraine,” Ryder said.

The US was not surprised that Ukraine forces “pushed as quickly as they have” in the counteroffensive, Ryder said, but based on reports that the Pentagon has seen “on the Russian military response, it was probably the Russians” who were surprised by the push.

As Ukrainian units press their offensive in parts of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, Russian forces are trying to gain ground elsewhere, according to the Ukrainian military.

The military's General Staff, in its latest bulletin, said Ukrainian units had successfully repelled Russian attacks around the city of Bakhmut, while Russian artillery and air strikes continued to pound settlements near the front lines across Donetsk.

There was also Russian mortar and tank fire in the Zaporizhzhia region, the General Staff said.

Looting claims: The military claimed that in areas of Kharkiv and Luhansk, there was widespread looting from retreating Russian forces.

The General Staff said that on the Starobilsk-Luhansk highway, in the direction of Luhansk, "about 300 civilian cars, mostly with state license plates of the Kharkiv region were spotted – most on trailers driven by Russian military personnel."

It claimed that in the south, around the city of Polohy, Russian troops were also stealing private cars. And in Nova Kakhovka, in the Kherson region, Russians "began to massively remove furniture and household appliances from temporarily abandoned settlements."

CNN is unable to confirm the military's claims, but there has been widespread evidence of looting in Kharkiv and other previously occupied Russian areas.

Military shortage claims: The General Staff also claimed that the Russian military was moving up the graduation of cadets from some Defense Ministry academies, such as the Black Sea Higher Naval School, to make up for shortages of junior officers.

"The shortage of tactical-level commanders is due to the refusal of reserve officers to sign contracts amid recent events. The level of morale and psychological state of the enemy's personnel continues to decline," the General Staff asserted. "A significant number of servicemen do not return to military units after the end of their vacations."

Relevant US House of Representatives committees will get classified briefings on Ukraine over the next two weeks, multiple sources tell CNN.

The House Armed Services Committee will be briefed on Thursday at 10 a.m. ET, while the House Foreign Affairs Committee will also get a briefing next week, those sources said. Committee members from both parties are invited to attend.

The briefings come in the wake of Ukraine’s recent stunning advances on Russian-held territory. Lawmakers are also pushing to include additional Ukraine aid in the upcoming short-term government funding bill. Current funding expires Sept. 30.

Ukraine continues to liberate swathes of territory from Russian occupation in the east, but presidential military adviser Oleksiy Arestovych says the country’s counteroffensive has slowed.

“The counteroffensive continues but has slowed down slightly because most of the Ukrainian forces are fighting to capture the city of Lyman, to open our way into the Luhansk region. We will intensify our strikes and liberate new territories in a different way,” he told CNN’s Becky Anderson in an interview.

Lyman, an important rail hub, is roughly 37 miles (60 kilometers) west of the strategically important Ukrainian city of Severodonetsk.

President Volodymyr Zelensky says Ukrainian forces have taken 8,000 square kilometers of land since the beginning of the month. His adviser also said they conducted a storm operation that liberated “more than 300 settlements in four days.”

During the recent offensive, Ukrainian forces managed to capture Russian weaponry that would support around three brigades in their fighting, Arestovych told CNN. He also said Russia suffered “huge casualties” and lost some soldiers who Ukraine had captured as prisoners of war. Asked by CNN whether they will be afforded the rights they are entitled to under the Geneva convention, he said “absolutely.”

Arestovych said Ukrainian forces used disinformation to trick Russian soldiers on the battlefield by making them think they were going to strike at Kherson.

“They thought we were going to start the main strike on the city of Kherson. We did start our strike on Kherson, but it was an assisted strike, not the main strike. The main strike we provided in the east of our country, and the Russians were completely surprised about this, because two months before, we were only speaking about the Kherson region. That’s why we liberated territory in four days that Russians tried to keep for about four months.” he said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was concerned about whether Russia might try to “stir the pot” between Armenia and Azerbaijan “to create a distraction from Ukraine.”

Blinken said he spoke last night with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan and “urged them to do everything possible to pull back from any conflict and to get back to talking about building a lasting peace between their countries.”

“We’d seen the outbreak of hostilities again, something that is in no one’s interest,” Blinken said.

Some more context: Russia claimed Tuesday it brokered a ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan after fighting erupted on the border between the two countries this week, bringing a decades-old conflict to the brink of reigniting.

"We are in close contact with Baku and Yerevan. An appeal was received from the Armenian leadership to assist in resolving the situation ... We expect that the agreement reached as a result of Russian mediation on a ceasefire from 9 a.m. Moscow time on September 13 will be carried out in full," the statement added.

The statement follows a call between Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Vladimir Putin earlier Tuesday. Local media in Azerbaijan also reported on the ceasefire but said it had already been broken.