March 23, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The mayor of Chernihiv said the northern Ukrainian city's cemetery cannot handle all the dead as the Russian onslaught takes its toll on the civilian population.

Badly damaged buildings line rubble-strewn streets, while still-burning fires fill the air with heavy smoke, as seen in a new video from Mayor Vladyslav Atroshenko.

The video, geolocated and verified by CNN, offers an extensive look from the ground at the city that has seen some of the most intense shelling since Russia invaded Ukraine four weeks ago.

When the person recording the video asked how many people have died so far, the mayor said the city is not keeping statistics but all cases will be handled by the prosecutor's office.

"There was a direct strike here. There is a tractor over there burning," he said. "We are located right now in the zone of combat."

Driving on Shevchenka street, located in the eastern part of the city, the mayor looks out at tattered billboards and homes with their roofs blown off or caved in.  

Watch: Video shows destroyed buildings, smoke and debris-filled streets in Chernihiv

The leaders of Western powers are making the same mistakes with Russian President Vladimir Putin that their predecessors did with Hitler, says former Russian oil tycoon and Kremlin critic Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Khodorkovsky — once Russia's richest man — spent more than a decade in prison for tax evasion and fraud following a prosecution he said was part of a Kremlin campaign to destroy him. He now lives in exile overseas.

Speaking to CNN's Erin Burnett on Wednesday, Khodorkovsky said he sees parallels between the situation in Ukraine today and the lead up to World War II.

Some context: NATO is unwilling to get directly involved in the war beyond supporting Ukraine’s resistance as it could escalate the conflict.

On the ground, Ukraine's forces are being helped by Russia's corruption, Khodorkovsky said, adding: "the level of (Russia's) unpreparedness has come as a great surprise to me."

It comes after US officials said the Russian military is suffering shortages of food and fuel and is plagued with logistics and sustainment problems. One official said there are indications some Russian soldiers have gotten frost bite because they lack the appropriate cold-weather gear.

Going after the oligarchs: Asked whether Russian oligarchs deserved to be sanctioned by the West, Khodorkovsky replied that even though it was "preposterous" to think the tycoons had any real influence over Putin, those who continued to back the Russian leader were "dangerous."

"Oligarchs are not true oligarchs in the sense that they actually do not influence Putin," he said.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Thursday he has raised concerns about the possibility of Russian President Vladimir Putin attending the G20 summit in Indonesia in November.

Russia’s ambassador in Jakarta said Wednesday that Putin “wants to go” to the G20 summit, in response to unconfirmed reports the US and its Western allies are assessing whether Moscow should remain within the group.

 Indonesia currently holds the rotating G20 chair.

Izyum, an eastern Ukrainian city about 72 miles (116 kilometers) southeast of Kharkiv, has been cut off from nearly all communications since intense battles between Russian and Ukrainian forces broke out there last week.

Now, the first videos and images have emerged from the city.

They show widespread destruction, charred and bombed-out buildings, and bodies left lying in the streets.

CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the videos, which were uploaded to social media on Tuesday. The population of Izyum was around 54,000 people.

Some context: A senior US defense official told CNN earlier Tuesday that Ukrainian armed forces were fighting to knock the Russian military out of the town after the Russians moved in from Ukraine's eastern Donbas region.

The first set of videos was uploaded to Instagram by a man walking around the town's central park. CNN is not naming or showing the individual out of concern for the person's safety.  

The park: Many of the trees that once lined the park's paths are splintered, their branches lying on the ground. 

"Take a look," the man said. "This is our park." 

The camera pans over to a charred building that once housed businesses and a restaurant.  

Then, an explosion is heard in the video. The war may have moved out of central Izyum, but its brutality is evident in the destruction it has left behind.  

As he walks deeper into the park, a dead body is seen in the street.

"Look, over there is another corpse," he said, pointing off the path. "And another one, and another one."  

The medical college: A second video clip from the man shows him near the Izyum Medical College dormitory. He walks by the burnt remains of a cafe.

Back near the park, another burnt building — which used to house a number of shops — is seen. Just across the street from it is a large crater.

"There is a three-meter crater here," the man said, as he pans the camera back toward the park where more splintered trees are seen.  

The playground: In northern Izyum, another video shows the effect military strikes have had on more residential areas. It is filmed from a playground, and begins with a view northeast toward an apartment building that has been destroyed in the middle — it has been reduced to rubble. 

As the camera pans to the east, the center section of another apartment complex is seen completely destroyed.  

"Well look, here is the entrance to my building," someone is heard saying in the video. 

The camera pans toward the southwest, to a church and another building.

A top Russian diplomat issued a warning to NATO countries Wednesday, saying they are dealing with a nuclear power and should not threaten Moscow.

When asked if that was a "legitimate thing" to say, Polyanskiy replied: "I don't think it's the right thing to be saying but it's not a right thing to threaten Russia and to try to interfere. So when you're dealing with a nuclear power of course you have to calculate all the possible outcomes of your behavior."

Some context: In an interview with CNN, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief spokesman previously refused to rule out that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons against what Moscow saw as an "existential threat."

War crimes: On Wednesday, the US government formally declared that members of the Russian armed forces have committed war crimes in Ukraine. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken cited “credible reports” of the deliberate targeting of civilians and indiscriminate attacks, including the destruction of apartment buildings, schools and hospitals.

But Russian diplomat Polyanskiy denied that Russia was committing war crimes in Ukraine.

Fact Check: The US State Department specifically cited Russian attacks on a maternity hospital and a theater in Mariupol. The theater was marked with the Russian word for “children” in letters visible from the sky, the State Department said. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensksy has also repeatedly accused Russia of war crimes.

When shown photos of wrecked apartment buildings on fire in Mariupol, Polyanskiy asked "how do you know it's Russian missiles?"

Fact Check: Russia has repeatedly denied it is targeting civilian areas and infrastructure and has blamed Ukrainian forces for much of the destruction. But Ukrainian forces on the ground, journalists, and people who have fled Mariupol have described a city under constant bombardment from Russian strikes. Civilians still in the city have been without water, power and food, and describe bodies left in the street because it is too dangerous to collect them. Zelensky has said the sustained Russian attack on Mariupol is an "act of terror" that will be "remembered for centuries."

In a video message posted to Facebook Wednesday night, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed Russians and told them, "save your sons from the war."

Zelensky said Ukraine had never threatened the security of Russia, adding that Russian propagandists "lie about the war, which is paid for by your taxes."

Ukrainians, he said, are doing everything they can to bring peace back to their land.

The Ukrainian President said Russia's original plan "already failed" in the first two days of the invasion but Russia is still "getting manpower from everywhere." 

Key talks: Zelensky referred to three upcoming meetings with world leaders — the NATO Summit, EU Summit and G7 Summit — and said politicians need to support freedom for Ukraine.

The President repeated his requests for a no-fly zone over Ukraine, saying the Ukrainian sky has not been made safe from Russian bombs and Kyiv has not received aircraft, modern anti-missile weapons or tanks. 

A Russian journalist working for the independent news site The Insider was killed in a shelling incident in Kyiv, the outlet said in a statement on Wednesday.

Baulina went to Ukraine as a correspondent and filed “several reports” from Lviv and Kyiv, The Insider said.

“The Insider expresses its deepest condolences to Oksana’s family and friends,” the outlet said in the statement. “We will continue to cover the war in Ukraine, including such Russian war crimes as indiscriminate shelling of residential areas where civilians and journalists are killed.”

The Insider’s statement did not say when Baulina was killed. But soon after it was released, colleagues took to Twitter to mourn her death.

Read more here.

President Volodymyr Zelensky is calling for worldwide demonstrations in support of Ukraine as the Russian invasion reaches the one-month mark.

The Ukrainian President made the remarks in a speech posted to Facebook Wednesday evening, with the goal of seeing demonstrations begin Thursday.

Zelensky said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a war against freedom and that Russia aims to defeat the freedom of all of Europe and the world.

“To support freedom, to support life. Come to your squares, your streets, make yourselves visible and heard. Say that people matter, freedom matters, peace matters, Ukraine matters,” Zelensky said. 

Zelensky urged the world to unite against Russia’s invasion, saying, “the war of Russia is not only the war against Ukraine, its meaning is much wider.” 

Watch Zelensky's speech below:

CNN teams on the ground witnessed a barrage of outgoing fire late Wednesday evening that occurred in northwest Kyiv.

Earlier on Wednesday, a senior US defense official told reporters that Ukrainian forces have pushed Russian forces back on the frontlines east of Kyiv.

Russian forces are about 55 kilometers (roughly 34 miles) away from Kyiv’s city center to the east, an increase of between 25 and 35 kilometers (roughly 15 to 22 miles) as compared to the same location yesterday, the official said.

To the northwest of Kyiv’s city center, Russian forces are “digging in, and they are establishing defensive positions,” the official said. They have not gotten any closer to Kyiv’s city center along this line, the official added. They remain 15-20 kilometers (9-12 miles) away from Kyiv’s city center to the northwest.

Here's more of the most recent headlines from the Ukraine-Russia conflict: