March 3, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

France's Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has warned that the situation in Ukraine could further deteriorate under relentless bombardment from Russia.

“Indeed, it’s possible that the worst is ahead of us,” Le Drian said in a TV interview with France 2 on Thursday, adding that the conflict had entered a "logic of siege."

Due to fierce resistance from the Ukrainian military and people, Russia’s hope to end the war quickly is gradually fading away, he said.

The continuous build-up of forces around major Ukrainian cities like Kharkiv and the capital, Kyiv, could mean that the war is entering a stage of siege, according to Le Drian.

“You know the Russians are accustomed to fighting wars in a logic of siege, remember Aleppo and remember Grozny,” he said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is becoming increasing isolated, added Le Drian, citing the UN General Assembly vote to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Wednesday, at which only four countries voted in support of Russia.

However, it’s still important to maintain dialogue with Moscow because Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky are not talking directly, said Le Drian, adding that France needs to play the mediator role.

He also reiterated the need to impose a ceasefire as a precondition for peace negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv, explaining that the European Union imposed its package of sanctions in the hope of bringing about a ceasefire.

The French Foreign Ministry released a statement Thursday advising its citizens to leave Russia. 

“It is strongly recommended that French citizens, whose presence and that of their families is not essential in Russia, make arrangements to leave the country by the still existing connections,” the statement said.

The Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv, Chernihiv and Mariupol “remain in Ukrainian hands,” despite heavy shelling by Russian forces, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) said Thursday.

“Some Russian forces have entered the city of Kherson, but the military situation remains unclear,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update. 

However, city mayor Ihor Kolykhaiev said the Ukrainian military is no longer present in Kherson in a statement posted Wednesday on Facebook.

Residents must now carry out the instructions of “armed people who came to the city’s administration,” said Kolykhaiev, indicating that the city has now fallen under Russian control.  

According to the MoD’s update, the main body of a large Russian column advancing on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, remains more than 30 kilometers (about 18 miles) from the center of the city.

It has made “little discernible progress in over three days” having been “delayed by staunch Ukrainian resistance, mechanical breakdown and congestion," said the MoD.

“The Russian defence ministry has been forced to admit that 498 Russian soldiers have already been killed and 1,597 wounded in Putin’s war,” continued the update.

“The actual number of those killed and wounded will almost certainly be considerably higher and will continue to rise.” 

An NFT of Ukraine's flag has raised over $6.7 million for the country's defenses as cryptocurrency donations continue to flood in following the Russian invasion.

Organized by UkraineDAO, an initiative backed by a member of the Russian activist group and feminist punk band Pussy Riot, the sale saw thousands of users bid for a share of the digital image.

The fundraiser comes just days after Ukraine's government announced via Twitter that it is now accepting cryptocurrency donations. The country's vice prime minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, has also called for online contributions while urging cryptocurrency exchanges to block Russian users.

NFTs, or non-fungible tokens, allow buyers to prove ownership of a virtual asset -- in this case, a digital version of Ukraine's blue and yellow flag. Although the NFT was produced as a single edition on the Ethereum blockchain, bidders were able to take shared ownership of the item, with contributions ranging from 0.00001 ether (under $0.03) to 44 ether ($128,000), according to a listing on NFT sale platform PartyBid.

The sale attracted more than 3,200 individual contributions in 72 hours, amounting to just over 2,258 ether (equivalent to about $6.7 million at the time the auction concluded on Wednesday). Organizers said all the funds would go towards "Come Back Alive," a campaign supporting Ukraine's military.

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NFT backed by Pussy Riot member raises $6.7 million for Ukraine

Oscar Holland, CNN

An oil depot in the city of Chernihiv, northern Ukraine was hit by shelling during an airstrike on Thursday morning, according to the State Service of Ukraine for Emergencies.

Photos from Chernihiv show clouds of thick black smoke from what appear to be oil tanks, with firefighters and emergency workers on the scene.

Pakistan's United Nations ambassador said Wednesday the country is "deeply concerned" by the war in Ukraine, despite abstaining from a UN General Assembly vote condemning Russia's invasion.

“Pakistan remains deeply concerned at the recent turn of events,” which “reflects a failure of diplomacy," Ambassador Munir Akram said in a statement.

Some context: Earlier this week, the heads of various foreign missions in Pakistan — including the EU, the US, the UK, Norway and Japan — issued a joint letter urging Islamabad to condemn Russia's invasion in the special session of the UN General Assembly.

On Wednesday, the General Assembly voted overwhelmingly to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with 141 nations voting in favor, five nations against and 35 countries abstaining, including Pakistan, India and China. 

Investment service provider MSCI is booting Russia from its emerging markets indices and is now calling the country a "standalone" market.

The firm said Wednesday that Russian stocks were "uninvestable," based on feedback from "an overwhelming majority" of investors and asset managers following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Starting next Wednesday, all Russian indices will be reclassified, MSCI added.

The move speaks to how isolated Moscow is becoming as it continues to grapple with new waves of punishing sanctions.

The view is gaining traction. On Wednesday, FTSE Russell, another index provider under the London Stock Exchange, also said it would cut Russia from all its widely tracked stock indices from next week.

As more than a million people fled Ukraine this week, some Ukrainian volunteers were traveling in the opposite direction — returning to the country to join the ranks of those defending it.

One volunteer, Valery, left his home in France last week, determined to see his aging parents in Kyiv before war broke out. The next morning, he awoke to air raid sirens marking the beginning of Russia's invasion.

Within a day of Russia's initial attack, he had joined the Ukrainian armed forces. CNN is identifying him only by his first name for his safety.

"What can I do when Russian aircraft are throwing bombs on the capital city? I just couldn't stay inside, indoors, in four walls doing nothing. So I came, and I joined," he told CNN on Wednesday.

Like tens of thousands of volunteers, he received weapons from the government as he joined the defense effort.

At a Ukrainian cathedral in Paris, the parish has been gathering donations and compiling a database of hosts for Ukrainian refugees. One man, Andre, told CNN he was collecting funds to buy body armor for his two best friends before they head to join the fight in Ukraine.

Videos from the embattled city of Kherson show residents defiantly waving the Ukrainian flag in front of what appear to be Russian troops and tanks.

This comes after the city's mayor, Ihor Kolykhaiev, indicated on Wednesday that Kherson had fallen under Russian control following several days of heavy fighting.

The videos, posted online on Wednesday, show what appear to be Russian troops and tanks in front of the Kherson Regional Administration building, with one of the soldiers holding Ukrainian flags.

Shouting is heard, but it's unclear who is speaking.

"They are f***ing walking away with our flag," a man is heard saying in the video. "A**holes!" 

The video then shows a group of civilians begin walking toward the soldiers outside the Regional Administration building.  "They went to get the flag," the man says.

As the soldier returns to the line of tanks, the civilians raise the Ukrainian flags to jubilant cheers from onlookers.

CNN has geolocated and verified the videos’ authenticity.

Battle for Kherson: The strategically important port city of nearly 300,000 residents is located on an inlet from the Black Sea in southern Ukraine.

The mayor said Wednesday on Facebook that the Ukrainian military is no longer in Kherson, and its inhabitants must now carry out the instructions of “armed people who came to the city’s administration” — indicating that the city has fallen under Russian control. 

The announcement on his Facebook page follows several days of pressure on Kherson by Russian forces who had surrounded the city.  

As police in Russia clamp down on anti-war protests emerging around the country, many citizens do not fully know what is happening in Ukraine.

State-controlled television shows almost no reports of Russian bombing and shelling in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. Instead, it focuses on so-called Ukrainian "nationalists" and "neo-fascists."

But Russian young people like 25-year-old Arina, who lives in Moscow, aren't watching TV. She's on the internet, reading blogs and listening to vloggers. She, too, is having difficulty comprehending why this war is happening and what it will mean for her own life as a young Russian.

But Arina's mother sees it completely differently, believing the war is a "necessary measure" against Western threat, Arina said. She checked out a guide suggesting how young Russians can talk with their parents and others about the war in Ukraine — and read it just in time before it was removed online.

Arina and her mother "had a very fierce argument," she said. "We have very different sources of information: I learn everything from the independent media, which have mostly long been blocked in Russia, and she watches TV."

Divided reaction: As Arina and her friends follow news about Ukraine on social media, Russians have had contradictory reactions, she said.

"The first one is, everyone says, 'Yes, we should be ashamed.' The second one is, 'No, let's not be ashamed of ourselves and let's not pin decisions on ourselves that were not made by us.'"

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