Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Three ships carrying 132,050 metric tons of corn left Ukraine’s ports of Chornomorsk and Odesa.

The ships are destined for China, Egypt and Libya and travel by way of the U.N.-backed Black Sea Grain Initiative, a humanitarian sea corridor.

Since the sea corridor was established in July, more than 900 ships carrying nearly 29 million metric tons of agricultural products have departed from Ukraine’s war-weary ports.

Russia has previously said that it would not recognize an extension of the deal, which could expire in mid-May.

— Amanda Macias

Detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who is currently facing allegations of espionage in Russia, released a new statement through his legal representation.

“I am humbled and deeply touched by all the letters I received. I’ve read each one carefully, with gratitude,” Gershkovich wrote, according to a statement shared by the Wall Street Journal.

Gershkovich was arrested last month by Russian authorities and is currently detained at Lefortovo prison in Moscow. Earlier this week, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations called for Gershkovich’s immediate release.

— Amanda Macias

Russia fired more than 20 cruise missiles and two drones at Ukraine early Friday, killing at least 19 people, according to an Associated Press report citing officials. Three children were among the dead.

Seventeen people died from strikes on a nine-story residential building in Uman, a city located around 215 kilometers (134 miles) south of Kyiv, the capital region’s governor, Ihor Taburets, said in an AP report.

The Ukrainian national police said 17 people were wounded and three children were rescued from the rubble. Nine were hospitalized, the AP reported.

The Russian Defense Ministry has said the long-range air-launched cruise missiles launched overnight were aimed at places where Ukrainian military reserve units were staying before their deployment to the battlefield, according to the AP.

— Melodie Warner

The torture, rape and killing of civilians, as well as the forcible transfer of Ukrainian children to Russia, were among the list of “grave” human rights abuses committed by Russia and about which it was deeply concerned, a United Nations committee said Friday.

In a report, which also cited enforced disappearances and arbitrary detentions, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Russian authorities to investigate the allegations against its forces and private military companies in Ukraine.

“The Committee was deeply concerned about the grave human rights violations committed during the ongoing conflict by the Russian Federation’s military forces and private military companies,” it said in a statement, according to Reuters.

The committee also said that Russia has refused to provide it with information on the conflict.

There was no immediate comment from the Russian permanent mission to the United Nations in Geneva. However, Russia has consistently denied committing human rights abuses and deliberately targeting civilians despite evidence to the contrary.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin signed a law Friday which would strip naturalized Russian citizens of their citizenship if they are deemed to “threaten national security,” according to reports from Russian state-owned news agency RIA reported.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russia’s defense ministry said Friday that its forces had launched long-range high-precision strikes on Ukrainian army reserve units overnight, according to state-owned RIA news agency.

At least 17 people have so far been reported dead as a result of the strikes — the first such attack in nearly two months — Ukrainian officials said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russia’s Central Bank left its key interest rate unchanged at 7.5% at a policy meeting Friday.

It marks the fifth consecutive time the bank has held rates steady. However, policymakers hinted that they may raise rates should inflation continue to move higher.

The Russian ruble jumped 2% to hit a three-week high against the dollar shortly after the decision was announced.

Russia’s annual inflation rate slowed to 2.55% in April, but it is expected to rise to between 5% and 7% later this year, the bank said.

“Given gradually rising inflationary pressures, the Bank of Russia’s forthcoming board meetings will consider the necessity of a key rate increase to stabilize inflation close to 4% in 2024 and further on,” the central bank said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Russia’s sanctioned Deputy Defense Minister, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev, has been fired, according to Reuters, which cited reports from a military blogger and a leading news website.

Mizintsev, dubbed the “Butcher of Mariupol,” was sanctioned by the West in June 2022 for orchestrating the siege of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol near the beginning of the war last year.

He was later appointed as Russia’s deputy defense minister in charge of logistics and supplies in September 2022.

His sacking was reported by a Russian military blogger, Alexander Sladkov, and by the RBC news site. Neither outlets offered a reason or explanation for his removal, according to Reuters.

Russia’s defense ministry did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.

— Karen Gilchrist

Ukraine is finalizing plans for a counteroffensive against Russian forces, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov said Friday, noting that it could be launched imminently.

“As soon as there is God’s will, the weather and a decision by commanders, we will do it,” Reznikov told an online news briefing, according to Reuters, without providing a specific timeline.

– Karen Gilchrist

Russian missile attacks on residential buildings in cities across Ukraine killed at least 12 people on Friday, according to regional officials, with many others injured.

The airstrikes killed 10 people and injured 17 civilians in the central city of Uman, the Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported. The airstrikes affected 10 residential buildings.

In the city of Dnipro, a residential building was hit by Russian missiles, killing a woman and child and injuring three civilians, according to the city mayor.

Kyiv’s regional military administration reported 11 missiles and two unmanned aerial vehicles were shot down in its airspace, with the debris hitting a residential building in the town of Ukrainka.

— Sam Meredith

Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told CNBC that the country should use China as leverage to help bring an end to the conflict with Russia.

His comments come shortly after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first phone call since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February last year.

“I am not fully convinced that we can emphasize something particular after this conversation but what I truly can tell you is that it is important to continue dialogue between our countries,” Marchenko told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“We really understand the importance of China and we really understand the importance for us to create our own relationship with China and to prevent China to [fully] support Russia.”

Asked whether China could be seen as Ukraine’s best friend in the bid to find a compromise for peace, Marchenko replied, “Of course not. Our best friend is the United States, the G-7 nations and all our partners which is supporting Ukraine.”

He added that Kyiv “should use China as leverage to win this war,” saying the country must use every opportunity “to convince Russia to stop this bloody war in Ukraine.”

— Sam Meredith

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflected on what he described as another night of Russian terror, saying 10 residential buildings were damaged by missile attacks in the central Ukrainian city of Uman.

He said at the time of sharing his message via Twitter that seven people were killed, while others were injured in the attacks.

“Evil can be stopped by weapons – our defenders are doing it. And it can be stopped by sanctions – global sanctions must be enhanced,” Zelenskyy said.

— Sam Meredith

A wave of Russian missile attacks early on Friday hit several cities across Ukraine, killing at least five people and injuring others, according to Ukrainian officials.

The barrage comes at a time when analysts see the potential for an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive, with the Eastern European country bolstered by billions of dollars worth of Western military and economic support.

In Uman, in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy Oblast, a rescue mission is underway after two cruise missiles hit residential and warehouse buildings, killing three people and injuring eight others, Ihor Taburets, the head of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration, said via Telegram.

In the central city of Dnipro, the city’s mayor said a Russian missile attack killed a young woman and child.

Air raid sirens were heard in Kyiv after a Russian airstrike hit the capital for the first time in 51 days, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. No casualties were reported among the civilian population; a local power line was said to have been cut off because of falling debris.

— Sam Meredith

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday said the real aim of the West in Ukraine is to strategically defeat Russia, to pose a threat to China, and to maintain its own monopoly position, state-owned news agency RIA reported.

RIA cited him as adding that “almost all” NATO countries had deployed their military capabilities against Russia.

— Reuters

Curators at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv display a variety of items left by Russian soldiers when they occupied areas around Kyiv during the first part of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russia ultimately retreated from the capital area, concentrating its land war in the east. 

The Biden administration announced a first round of sanctions targeting Russia and Iran for engaging in hostage-taking and the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens abroad.

The U.S. sanctions take aim at Russia’s Federal Security Service, often known as the FSB, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization, or IRGC IO.

“Our action is a warning to those around the world who would wrongfully detain U.S. nationals, the potential consequences of their actions,” a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on a call with reporters.

The administration has identified at least two American citizens wrongfully detained in Russia and three in Iran along with one legal permanent U.S. resident.

During opening remarks before Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke directly to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and called for the immediate release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, both detained in Russia.

Thomas-Greenfield invited Elizabeth Whelan, the sister of Paul Whelan, to attend a U.N. Security Council meeting.

“I want minister Lavrov to look into her eyes and see her suffering. I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years. To know he is locked up, in a Russian penal colony, simply because you want to use him for your own ends,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Whelan was arrested on espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in a Russian penal colony in 2020.

Read the full story here.

— Amanda Macias