April 5, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The US will announce new sanctions on Russia Wednesday in coordination with Group of 7 nations and the European Union, according to an administration official.

The official said the sweeping package "will impose significant costs on Russia and send it further down the road of economic, financial, and technological isolation."

The new sanctions package will:

The new sanctions package will mark the latest escalation in efforts by the US and its allies to impose costs on Russia for its invasion and, over time, cut off critical economic sectors the country utilizes to wage the ongoing war.

They also follow new revelations of further atrocities committed by Russian forces in northern Ukraine, with the images of the atrocities committed in Bucha serving as an accelerator to ongoing discussions between the US and its European allies to ramp up the economic costs, officials said.

The official added, "We had already concluded that Russia committed war crimes in Ukraine, and the information from Bucha appears to show further evidence of war crimes. And as the President said, we will work with the world to ensure there is full accountability for these crimes. One of those tools is sanctions — and we have been working intensively with our European allies on further sanctions."

More context: The expected sanctions come after the US Treasury announced it will no longer allow Russia to pay down its debt using dollars stockpiled at American banks. While Washington had imposed sanctions on the Russian Central Bank freezing their foreign currency at US banks, the Treasury Department had previously allowed Russia to use those reserves to repay its debt.

It's a move that officials say will substantially raise the risk of default and undercut urgent efforts by the central bank to stanch the economic bleeding that immediately arrested the Russian economy in the wake of the Western response to the invasion.

Read more about the sanctions here and watch CNN's reporting below:

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky questioned the effectiveness of the UN Security Council in a taped address on Tuesday, repeating his comments from his virtual speech at the UN earlier on Tuesday. 

“I’m sure the world will see this and make conclusions,” he said. 

Zelensky also repeated his call for Russia to be removed from the UN Security Council. 

“I suggest to the UN Security Council, and all other countries who honor international law, some specific actions that can change the situation. In particular, we are talking about a general conference in Kyiv to see how we can reform the global architecture in light of the Russian Federation still holding permanent seat in the United Nations,” he said.  

Zelensky addressed his conversation with French President Emmanuel Macron in which they spoke about the humanitarian situation in the temporary occupied regions of Ukraine.  

“We also agreed that France will provide necessary technical support and aid to investigate crimes of Russian occupiers in Ukraine,” he said.  

Zelensky also pushed for new sanctions after the massacre of civilians in Bucha. 

“This is not just about how our people are going to assess those sanctions but in fact how western societies are going to evaluate these sanctions after what the world has seen in Bucha,” he said, “Sanctions have to really respond to the severity of the crimes committed in Ukraine.”

He noted that the “hardest battles” are still being fought in Donbas and Kharkiv. 

Zelensky also said that he is preparing to meet with the president of the European commission, Ursula von der Leyen.

“Together will be working in Kyiv, this will be appreciated by many people in the world because now Kyiv is the capital of the global democracy and fight for freedom for everyone on the European continent,” Zelensky said.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in Brussels Tuesday ahead of this week’s high-stakes NATO foreign ministerial as US officials warn that Russia's war in Ukraine could be entering a protracted new phase.

Speaking to reporters en route to the Belgian capital, the top US diplomat said it was "an important moment" to coordinate with allies and partners "on a number of fronts."

"We of course have the horrific atrocities that have been revealed for all the world to see in Bucha. I suspect, alas, we will see more of that where Russian forces pull out," he said. "As I said, it's like a receding tide and we're seeing in very stark terms the death and destruction that's being left in its wake. So, there's obviously a lot of focus on that." 

Blinken said the ministerial, which comes just weeks after NATO leaders gathered in Brussels, will also focus on "the work we've been doing together to support the Ukrainians and we'll be looking at ways to sustain that and build on that, the work we are doing to put pressure on Russia and Putin, and we'll be looking on ways to not only sustain that but build on that."

"And of course work to strengthen and shore up the NATO alliance," Blinken added.

US Ambassador to NATO Julie Smith told reporters earlier Tuesday that there would be a separate session at the NATO ministerial with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, saying "it’s important for us to hear directly from the Ukrainians firsthand what their assessment is of these fast-moving developments on the ground, and what more we can all do to help the Ukrainians in this moment."

While in Brussels, Blinken will meet not only with his NATO counterparts at the ministerial, but also with the "Quint" — Italy, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom — and the "Quad" — France, Germany and the UK. He will also meet with his Australian and Japanese counterparts.

Oksana Kostychenko walks down a narrow pathway, leading to her back garden in Borodianka. The flower beds on one side are surprisingly well arranged, contrasting with the wanton destruction all around.

Near her garden shed is the body of a man laying face-down with a bag over his head and hands tied behind his back. His trousers are pulled down. There are large bruises on his left leg and a large wound on his head.

Next to his body is a single bullet casing.

The body is one of many recently found in cities to the east of Kyiv that were occupied by Russian forces.

Borodianka was home to 13,000 people before the war, but most fled after Russia’s invasion. What was left of the town, after intense shelling and devastating airstrikes, was then occupied by Russian forces, which moved in on Feb. 28.

Read the rest of this story here.

A total of 3,846 people were evacuated through Ukrainian evacuation corridors on Tuesday, according to a statement posted on Telegram by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk. 

Vereshchuk previously stated that a total of seven evacuation corridors had been planned for Tuesday. 

According to the official, 2,216 people went to Zaporizhzhia through evacuation corridors from Mariupol and Berdiansk in their own vehicles. This included 1,496 people from Mariupol and 720 people from Polohy, Vasylivka, Berdiansk and Melitopol.

Seventeen minibuses, which were sent to Berdiansk early Tuesday, also came back to Zaporizhzhia. They evacuated 150 people from the cities of Lysychansk, Severodonetsk, Rubizhne and Kreminna. Another 1,080 people were evacuated from the Luhansk region.

The International Committee of the Red Cross accompanied a convoy of seven buses and more than 40 private cars sent to evacuate civilians from Mariupol. The convoy was forced to return after a blockade in Manhush, a Russian-held town about 20 km (about 12 miles) from Mariupol. 

According to Ukrainian officials, Russian forces continue to block the passage of humanitarian goods to the besieged city.

Ukrainians fleeing Russia's invasion of their country have arrived at the Mexican border city of Tijuana to seek US asylum and more are expected to come, a Tijuana city official and a volunteer told CNN on Saturday.

Tijuana city officials said Monday that they had opened a sports complex to house the overflow of Ukrainian migrants, according to Enrique Lucero Vazquez, the director of Tijuana’s immigration services.

Vazquez said that about 2,000 Ukrainians are currently in Tijuana, both near the border crossing with the United States and at the sports complex called “Unidad Deportiva Benito Juarez.”

Last month, a senior administration official announced that the United States will welcome up to 100,000 Ukrainians and others fleeing Russia's aggression.

More than 4 million refugees have now fled Ukraine, according to data from the UN refugee agency, with the vast majority of those refugees having fled to Ukraine's western neighbors across Europe.

Here's a look at some images from the ground in Tijuana:

CNN's Rosalina Nieves, Rosa Flores, Sharif Paget and Karol Suarez contributed reporting to this post.

The city of Lviv, in western Ukraine, is home to the Football Club Karpaty Lviv, a minor league soccer team. But as the Russian invasion continues, it’s now also home to Ukrainian refugees, fleeing violence and seeking safety.

Oleg Smaliychuk, the owner of the team, has opened the club’s offices as a resting place for hundreds of Ukrainian refugees.

“We left because of our children. We left our town because we were afraid of their psychological state. We have a war there, and we were very scared,” said Katia, a woman currently living at the soccer club with her sister-in-law and their four kids, via translator.

CNN’s Jake Tapper visited with Katia and her family, who fled Donetsk, heading west in hopes of avoiding the violence that plagues their city.

“I miss my grandmother and I would like to be back in my town. Because here everything looks very unfamiliar to me,” says 11-year-old Yegor, the eldest of the children.

Smaliychuk, the team's owner, told CNN he's been so impacted by the violence and terror, that he is contemplating a new career path.

As he was interviewed by Tapper, Smaliychuk didn't pause as he heard the air raid siren, an all-too-familiar reminder of the state of affairs in his country. Instead, he continued loading ammunition into his firearm, focused on his new calling. 

“I definitely want to go where I can avenge our children,” he said.

Watch CNN's reporting from the ground:

Estonian Foreign Minister Eva-Maria Liimets told CNN on Tuesday that it was "absolutely appropriate" for Estonia to reduce the number of Russian diplomatic staff in the country and urged other nations to step up sanctions and pressure on Russia.

Earlier on Tuesday, Estonia announced it will shut down both Russian consulates in the country and expel 14 staff in light of the atrocities revealed to have been committed by Russian forces against Ukrainian civilians.

Liimets added, "This is not enough to pressure Russia to stop the war, and therefore we also work with sanctions with the fifth package of sanctions within the European Union."

The foreign minister also noted that Estonia would like to see reforms to the United Nations Security Council, of which Russia is a permanent member. Liimets said permanent members should not have veto rights when it comes to matters related to atrocities. 

"It is very unfortunate to see that among those permanent member states, there is also an aggressor and the aggressor has sabotaged the whole work of the United Nations Security Council," she said.

The foreign minister also urged other UN member states to support Ukraine with military assistance, and to "continue to politically and economically isolate Russia."

"Estonia started to provide defensive equipment to Ukraine already before the war started," Liimets told CNN. "It is very important that all the countries who have this opportunity to provide military assistance to Ukraine do it now."

"We must continue to put additional pressure to Russia to stop this unjustified and unprovoked war in Ukraine," she said. "And here definitely, Ukraine needs the support of every member state of the United Nations."

Yevheniya Kravhuck, a Ukrainian parliament member, said that the only way to win the war against Russia is on the battlefield, because there is no other way to reach Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Kravchuk went on to describe the devastated city of Mariupol as a "mass graveyard" where officials are having a hard time getting into to assess civilian casualties.

"We can't even get there. You showed these numbers that United Nations say, they killed civilians, but it's much, much more. Only in Mariupol, local consulate say it's more than 5,000 of civilians dead, and we can't get there to count, to find out what's going on there," she said.

Kravchuk, whose husband is the head of a police department in Kyiv, described efforts by Ukrainian police to document war crimes using forensics. She also said that officials are running out of places to put bodies of the dead and that they are in need of more refrigerators.

"Right now a lot police men from other districts, that were not affected, they are taken to these northern parts, and they work there. They ask to have their forensic experts to put every documentation on these war crimes. Because we need international tribunal afterwards to make sure that everyone who killed people will be punished. Because this evil cannot just go unpunished," she said.

Watch the interview: