March 18, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

US President Joe Biden told CNN that his call with Chinese President Xi Jinping Friday "went well."

"The President underscored his support for a diplomatic resolution to the crisis," the White House said.

The White House added that the two leaders "also agreed on the importance of maintaining open lines of communication."

A senior administration official, meanwhile, said that Biden's phone call was "direct," "substantive" and "detailed."

The bulk of their discussion centered on the war in Ukraine, and the implications the crisis would have both on US-China relations and the "international order," the official said.

Biden provided an assessment of Russian President Vladimir Putin's actions in his conflict with Ukraine, the official said, and "made clear" the implications and consequences of potentially assisting Russia in its war.

More on the call: The secure video call between Biden and Xi began at 9:03 a.m. ET on Friday. It lasted one hour and 50 minutes, and concluded at 10:53 a.m EDT, the White House said.

According to Chinese state media CCTV, Xi told Biden, "conflict and confrontation are not in the interests of anyone," and "China and the US have a responsibility to work for peace."

Here's a full readout of the call from the White House:

CNN's David Chalian breaks down the call in today's episode of the CNN Political Briefing podcast. Listen here.

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Friday said that the US has "seen a number of missteps" by Russia in its invasion of Ukraine.

In offering an assessment of Russia's troops, Austin told CNN's Don Lemon in an exclusive interview that the Russians "have not progressed as far as quickly as they would have liked."

Austin told CNN that the Russians have "struggled with logistics" and that he has not seen evidence of "good employment of tactical intelligence" nor "integration of air capability with a ground maneuver." 

Since the invasion Ukraine began nearly a month ago, Russian troops have bombarded and destroyed large parts of cities including Mariupol and Kharkiv, but Ukraine has been able to prevent Russia taking large swaths of the country, including the capital of Kyiv.

"I think (Russia) envisioned that they would move rapidly and very quickly seize the capital city, they've not been able to do that," the Pentagon chief said.

In the face of fierce Ukrainian resistance to its invasion, Russia is also coping with low troop morale and struggling to resupply the thousands of troops in the country, US and NATO officials told CNN this week.

Lemon's full interview with Austin will air at 10 p.m. ET tonight on CNN.

French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday told Russian President Vladimir Putin that he was very concerned about the situation in Mariupol, the Ukrainian city that has been hit by constant shelling over recent days, according to the Elysée Palace.

According to a statement from the Elysée, Macron “shared his extreme concern with President Putin regarding the situation in Mariupol and once again demanded an immediate ceasefire.”

“The [French] President again brought up the deterioration of the situation in Ukraine, the continued strikes hitting civilians and failure to respect humanitarian law while negotiations between the Russian and Ukrainian delegation have for now not led to any progress,” according to Macron's office.

In response to a journalist’s question about whether Putin had accused Ukraine of war crimes on the call with Macron, the Elysée said: "As he has done publicly, President Putin again placed responsibility for the conflict on Ukraine." 

The call lasted just over one hour, according to the Elysée. 

At least three cruise missiles were shot down by air defenses in the central Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia on Friday morning, the head of Vinnytsia war and civil administration reported.

Vinnytsia has faced increasing rocket fire from Russian forces; the city’s TV tower and airport have both been hit by airstrikes in the past two weeks, according to Ukrainian authorities.

Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have expelled 10 Russian diplomats, according to statements from their foreign ministries on Friday.

In a tweet on Friday, Latvian Foreign Minister Edgars Rinkēvičs confirmed that the decision “has been coordinated with #Lithuania and #Estonia.”

Lithuania declared four employees of the Russian Embassy to be persona non grata, while Latvia and Estonia have each done the same for three Russian Embassy staff. 

“Current activities of those persons under diplomatic cover are incompatible with their diplomatic status and are causing detriment to the Republic of Latvia,” Latvia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement on Friday.

“The persons subject to expulsion must leave the Republic of Latvia by 23:59 on 23 March,” the statement continued.

Lithuania also ordered the four diplomatic staff to leave the country within five days, according to its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs added that all three Russian Embassy staff members “have directly and actively undermined Estonia’s security and spread propaganda justifying Russia’s military action”.

“The activity of the persons in question has been in violation of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, and therefore they must leave Estonia within 72 hours,” the Estonian ministry added.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE)’s investigation into human rights abuses and atrocities committed in the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine is now underway.

The fact-finding mission, which comes after 45 countries invoked a rare OSCE mechanism that is used to investigate human rights concerns, is being led by three experts chosen by Ukraine from an OSCE list of experts.

An email inbox has been established for people to send information relevant to the fact-finding mission. Andrusz said the inbox has been receiving a lot of information from a variety of sources, and it will be open for the entirety of the investigation.

The OSCE does not have the authority to legally punish Russia if it finds evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity, but their facts can be given to other bodies that do have that authority.

The Moscow Mechanism is a serious step, and according to the OSCE, it has been triggered only nine other times since its establishment in 1991. It was most recently used in 2020 to investigate human rights abuses in Belarus.

Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are all members of the OSCE.

The Armed Forces of Ukraine have issued an upbeat assessment of their defense of Kyiv, saying Russia’s two main routes for attacking the capital city have been blocked. 

In the face of a campaign to apparently encircle the capital ahead of a possible attempt to take it, Russian forces on both sides of the Dnipro river — which divides the city north to south — have been stopped, according to Oleksandr Hruzevych, deputy chief of staff.

Russian forces had abandoned offensive actions around Brovary to the northeast of Kyiv, and Boryspil to the southeast, Hruzevych said. After creating two lines of defense to protect the capital, Hruzevych said Ukraine’s army was now “working on strengthening a third, distant line of defense.” 

Addressing the threat posed by cruise missiles, the brigadier general said an air defense system was still in operation around Kyiv, but admitted missiles intercepted over the city still posed a threat. One person was killed in such an incident Friday morning in the northwestern district of Podilskyi, the city council said earlier. 

On Friday morning, four cruise missiles fired from warplanes over the Black Sea had smashed into an aircraft parts plant in the western city of Lviv. Two further missiles had been intercepted by air defense systems before they could hit their target.  

"The Black Sea and Belarus are two difficult directions from which the enemy launches missile strikes,” Hruzevych acknowledged. But, he continued: “An effective system has been developed where the missiles are to be destroyed on approach. We are now working on a system that will minimize the impact of missiles for civilians." 

He also said a campaign to remove the threat of saboteurs in the capital had already resulted in the elimination of more than 100 people. 

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin met with US and NATO troops in Bulgaria on Friday, where he told the troops that they are creating “trust” by training alongside one another.

“You can’t surge trust at the eleventh hour; trust is something you have to work on every day. And from what I’ve heard, it’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re building trust with, amongst, with our allies, and you’re learning more about each other, and I think that’s just fantastic,” Austin said.

The US troops that are in Bulgaria are part of the US troop deployment to reinforce the United States' commitment to the NATO alliance and to reinforce the Eastern flank. 

Reporters traveling with Austin conducted a brief interview with an Army major who is on deployment in Bulgaria from his home base in Rosenberg, Germany. 

The focus of the US troop deployment there is to partner with Bulgarian land forces, Mannina said. The US troops are there to be a part of “NATO’s effort to stand up a multinational battle group here in Bulgaria,” he added.

Mannina said the soldiers there are “anxious” but “understand the strategic relevance of our mission.”

“We're very, we're very aware and attuned to the fact that there's a war going on only a few hundred miles from us and, and we, but I think the soldiers are also excited to be a part of something really important here and to understand the strategic relevance of our mission and assuring our allies and building combat credible forces on behalf of NATO,” Mannina said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that 130 people have been rescued from the bombed theater in the city of Mariupol so far.

Hundreds of people were taking shelter at the theater when it was bombed on Wednesday.

Speaking on Ukrainian TV, Zelensky said that rescue operations are continuing at the site despite the difficulties.

However, hundreds of people are still under the rubble in Mariupol, Zelensky added.

Earlier on Friday, officials from the Donetsk region and Kyiv said they had no further update on how many people had survived the attack. On Thursday, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner Liudmyla Denisova said there was no update on figures released, which reported 130 people rescued from a total of 1,300 people believed to have been sheltering in the building.

Zelensky also warned that it will be Western leaders’ moral defeat if Ukraine does not receive advanced weapons.

“We still have no missile defense. We do not have enough fighter planes,” Zelensky said.

“Russian missiles are not going to be defeated by certain hunting guns that they are trying to sell us sometimes,” he said.

On Ukraine’s bid to become a member of the European Union, Zelensky said, “We will become a full member of the EU and every civil servant is working towards this 24/7.”