March 14, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The US has conveyed directly to China the potential negative outcomes of assisting Russia in its war with Ukraine, a senior Biden administration official said after the US national security adviser met his Chinese counterpart in Rome on Monday.

In their conversation about Ukraine, Sullivan laid out "where we are, how we got here and what the risks are lying ahead," the official said. In particular, he described unity among the United States and its allies, including those in Europe and Asia, in punishing Russia for its actions. 

“We are communicating directly and privately to China about our concerns about the kinds of support that other countries might be providing to Russia," said the official.

Sullivan and Yang also discussed crisis management and North Korea in their meeting, the official said.

More context: The US has information suggesting China has expressed some openness to providing Russia with requested military and financial assistance, a Western official and a US diplomat told CNN. But it is not yet clear whether China intends to provide Russia with military or financial assistance as part of its war on Ukraine, US officials familiar with the intelligence tell CNN.

The consideration was detailed in a diplomatic cable relayed to allies in Europe and Asia, according to the sources.

The cable did not state definitively that assistance had been provided. One official also said the US warned in the cable that China would likely deny it was willing to provide assistance. 

Officials are also monitoring whether China provides some economic and diplomatic relief for Russia in other forms, like abstention votes at the United Nations.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin will travel to Brussels, Belgium, to participate in the NATO Defense Ministerial this week. He will then travel to Slovakia and Bulgaria, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said at a briefing on Monday.

Austin’s trip to Brussels and Slovakia had already been announced, but he added a stop to Bulgaria for a day, Kirby said. Austin leaves for Europe on March 15. 

In Bulgaria, Austin will meet with “senior civilian and military leaders,” Kirby said.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged for peace in Ukraine on Monday.

"Ukraine is on fire. The country is being decimated before the eyes of the world. The impact on civilians is reaching terrifying proportions. Countless innocent people — including women and children — have been killed," he said addressing reporters.

Guterres said he has spoken to several world leaders who have been in contact with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. He said they are working on mediation efforts.

Guterres has not spoken with Putin since the conflict in Ukraine began in late February.

Asked about his opinion of a no-fly zone, Guterres was cautious in responding, telling reporters “consider that possibility as a risk of escalation that could create a global conflict. It is based on that analysis that I think we need to be prudent, even if I understand the dramatic appeal of Ukrainian government.”

CNN’s Senior UN Correspondent Richard Roth contributed to this report.

Fox News correspondent Benjamin Hall, who had been deployed in recent weeks to cover the war in Ukraine, has been hospitalized after being injured while reporting near Kyiv, the network said on Monday.

"The safety of our entire our entire team of journalists in Ukraine and the surrounding regions is our top priority and of the utmost importance," Scott added. "This is a stark reminder for all journalists who are putting their lives on the line every day to deliver the news from a war zone."

Scott said Fox would provide further updates when the network knows more.

Hall's injury comes one day after Brent Renaud, an award-winning American journalist, was killed in the Ukrainian city of Irpin.

Andriy Nebitov, the head of the Kyiv region police, said that Russian forces shot Renaud, adding that "the occupants cynically kill even journalists of international media, who've been trying to tell the truth about atrocities of Russian military in Ukraine."

Another journalist, Juan Arredondo, was also wounded in Ukraine on Sunday.

Press freedom groups have denounced the violence journalists are facing while covering the war. The Committee to Protect Journalists, after the death of Renaud, called on Russian forces to "stop all violence against journalists and other civilians at once."

The US has information suggesting China has expressed some openness to providing Russia with requested military and financial assistance, a Western official and a US diplomat told CNN. But it is not yet clear whether China intends to provide Russia with military or financial assistance as part of its war on Ukraine, US officials familiar with the intelligence tell CNN.

The consideration was detailed in a diplomatic cable relayed to allies in Europe and Asia, according to the sources.

The cable did not state definitively that assistance had been provided. One official also said the US warned in the cable that China would likely deny it was willing to provide assistance.

The Chinese Community Party leadership is not all in agreement regarding how to respond to Russia’s request for assistance, said one of the sources. Two officials said that China's desire to avoid economic consequences may limit its appetite to help Russia.

“There is real concern by some that their involvement could hurt economic relationships with the West, on which China relies," said one of the sources. 

Officials are also monitoring whether China provides some economic and diplomatic relief for Russia in other forms, like the abstention vote at the UN. 

Chinese President Xi Jinping is “unsettled” by the Russian invasion of Ukraine in part because “his own intelligence doesn’t appear to have told him what was going to happen,” and because of how Putin “has driven Americans and Europeans more closely together,” CIA Director Bill Burns told the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday. 

Officials separately told CNN that Xi has been unnerved by how the war in Ukraine has reinvigorated the NATO alliance.

Chinese leadership is also concerned because of “the reputational damage that China suffers by association with the ugliness of Russia’s aggression in Ukraine” and “the economic consequences at a time when growth rates in China are lower than they’ve been in 30 years,” according to Burns.

The US is “watching very closely the extent to which" China or any other country "provides any form of support, whether that's material support, whether that's economic support, whether that's financial support to Russia,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said. “Any such support from anywhere in the world would be of great concern to us."

He declined to comment specifically on reports of a diplomatic cable that the US had sent to NATO allies about China’s willingness to support Russia’s war in Ukraine.

China and Russia have denied allegations that Moscow requested military assistance from Beijing.

There have been heavy explosions in Kyiv on Monday and an apartment block in one of the city's suburbs was hit with a deadly strike. Russia has now launched more than 900 missiles against Ukraine since the beginning of the invasion, an increase of around 200 missiles since Wednesday, according to a senior US defense official.

Meanwhile, a fourth round of talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are on "pause" until Tuesday, according to Ukraine's negotiator who noted that "negotiations continue."

Here's a catch up of other major developments in Russia's invasion of Ukraine:

The large Ukrainian flag in Russian-occupied Melitopol's Victory Square, the site of many protests in recent days, has been taken down.

CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the photos posted to social media.

Local news outlet RIA-Melitopol posted one of the photos, saying the flag was taken down by public works employees.

Russian troops gained control of Melitopol on Feb. 26. On Friday, armed men detained the elected mayor Ivan Fedorov and later that day the prosecutor's office for the Russian-backed separatist Luhansk region accused him of terrorism.

Since then, newly installed mayor Galina Danilchenko has ordered the broadcasting of Russian television channels and attempted to dissolve the city council in favor of creating a People's Committee.

Ukraine's prosecutor general opened a treason investigation into Danilchenko on Sunday.

With more than 2.8 million people having fled Ukraine for neighboring countries since the start of the Russian invasion in late February, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), CNN data tracks where refugees are headed with the most recent available numbers. 

More than 1.7 million people had fled Ukraine for neighboring Poland as of Sunday, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The number of Ukrainians or Ukrainian residents seeking temporary refuge in Poland is considerably lower, with many of those fleeing the conflict continuing their journey to other European countries.  

The number of refugees registered as crossing into Poland includes most of the nearly 150,000 people who have arrived in Germany, according to the German Ministry of the Interior. However, due to the absence of border checks between Poland and Germany, the actual number of incoming refugees could be significantly higher, an interior spokesperson told CNN.

Hungary has had 255,291 refugees arrive from Ukraine according to the UNHCR on Sunday, with 2,212 formally seeking asylum, according to the Hungarian National Directorate-General of Immigration.

Neighboring Romania by Monday had registered 80,000 Ukrainians who remain in the country, according to State Secretary at the Romanian Ministry of Internal Affairs Raed Arafat.

The number of Ukrainian refugees entering Romania has declined significantly, with daily arrivals down by more than 50% compared to last week, according to Romanian Border Police. The number of new arrivals dropped from on average around 30,000 per day last week to 14,000 on Sunday.

Nearly 205,000 refugees have entered Slovakia according to the UNHCR on Sunday. It remains unclear how many remain in the country.

More than 101,000 Ukrainian refugees are currently in Moldova, Foreign Affairs Minister Nicu Popescu said Sunday.

Lithuania's Ministry of the Interior has said that by Sunday, 12,039 people had entered the country from Ukraine.

More than 6,000 Ukrainians have been registered in Belgium, the Federal Agency For The Reception of Asylum Seekers said Monday.

About 5,500 Ukrainian refugees have arrived in Ireland since Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the country's Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Micheál Martin said Sunday.

In Denmark, 1,575 Ukrainians had applied for refugee status as of Sunday, according to the Danish Immigration Service.

On Thursday, the French Citizenship Minister Marlene Schiappa said that 7,251 Ukrainian refugees had arrived in France, with authorities preparing accommodations for 10,000 people.

Italy by last Wednesday had seen the arrival of over 24,000 Ukrainians, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Austria's Ministry of the Interior on Tuesday said that 56,000 people have arrived in the country from Ukraine, with 70% of refugees immediately continuing to another country.

As of last Tuesday, Estonia, according to its Police and Border Guard Board, had registered 10,478 Ukrainian refugees.

By Wednesday, 3,849 Ukrainian refugees had come to Croatia, according to the Ministry of the Interior.

Cyprus has taken in 2,935 Ukrainian refugees, the Ministry of the Interior said Thursday.

By Wednesday, Portugal had seen 4,039 arrivals, according to the Immigration and Border Service.

In Sweden, 3,520 Ukrainian refugees have applied for asylum status, the Swedish Migration Agency said Wednesday.

The Netherlands by Thursday had taken in more than 2,600 refugees, according to the Immigration and Naturalisation Service.

In Spain, 1,000 Ukrainian refugees have requested government assistance, Spain's Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration told CNN Friday.

The United Russia Party is proposing to hold companies that abide by the sanctions imposed on Russia by Western countries criminally liable, Russian state run news agency Tass reports, citing Andrey Turchak, secretary of the general council of the party.

Turchak said the ruling party will prepare relevant amendments for the Russian Parliament in the near future.

The party proposes "to establish harsh, including criminal liability for such [business] entities and their managers for abiding by and implementing Western sanctions," according to Turchak.

Turchak went on to say that against the background of "western sanctions hysteria, there are recorded cases when Russian companies, including companies with state participation, refuse to work with sanctioned banks and enterprises under the pretext that they themselves risk being targeted with sanctions. Dishonest competitors also take advantage of the situation, actively spreading calls to end cooperation with companies hit by sanctions."