Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen called for Ukraine’s allies to step up financial support for the country on Tuesday, saying that funds that have been announced so far would not be sufficient for the country’s short-term needs as Russia’s invasion continues, Reuters reported.

“Ukraine’s financing needs are significant,” Yellen said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Brussels Economic Forum, adding that Ukraine’s government continued to function due to the courage and resourcefulness of its officials.

“In the months until tax collection can resume at pace, Ukraine needs budget funding to pay soldiers, employees and pensioners, as well as to operate an economy that meets its citizens’ basic needs,” Yellen said.

“In short order, it will need to turn to repairing and restoring critical utilities and services.” 

While Ukraine would eventually need “massive support” for reconstruction and recovery on the scale of the post-World War Two Marshall Plan for Europe, the country would have to take this “one step at a time.”

— Reuters

Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has played down Finland and Sweden’s bids to join NATO, saying it makes “no big difference” if they join as they’ve long-participated in military drills anyway.

The comments come after military analysts said Russia had little room to retaliate against the move, given that it wants to avoid a direct confrontation with NATO, and the fact that its forces are fully tied-up in Ukraine.

On Monday, Putin initially said the expansion of NATO “is a problem,” but later stated that there was no threat to Russia if Sweden and Finland joined. However, Moscow has warned that will respond to any military build-up in the Nordic countries if they are admitted to the alliance.

There are several unknowns when it comes to the status of the southern port city of Mariupol after hundreds more Ukrainian soldiers were evacuated from the city’s Azovstal steelworks complex.

The steelworks was the last stronghold of Ukrainian fighters trying to resist Russian occupying forces in the southern port city.

It’s uncertain whether the evacuation has been completed and if not, how many Ukrainian soldiers could still be in the plant. It’s also uncertain whether the evacuation means that Ukraine has conceded full control of the city to Russian forces.

Control of the city was a key strategic goal for Russia, which is widely seen as wanting to create a land bridge from Russia to Crimea, via Mariupol.

Remarking on the evacuation of Ukrainian soldiers in the plant, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last night that “Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes alive. This is our principle. I think that every normal person will understand these words.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces is intensifying in the Donetsk area of the eastern Donbas region, Ukraine’s armed forces and officials have said.

Russian enemy aircraft have destroyed civilian and military infrastructure in the region, the armed forces said in an update on Telegram Tuesday morning, while the head of Luhansk’s regional administration Serhiy Hayday said on social media this morning that the shelling of settlements in the Severodonetsk area of the Donbas had intensified, with a hospital and residential buildings hit.

He said there were at least ten dead and three wounded during the strikes and posted images of shell-damaged buildings on his Facebook page.

In his nightly address on Monday, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s armed forces are “holding back constant attacks in those areas where Russia is still trying to advance,” with Severodonetsk and other cities in the Donbas region being principal targets for Russia.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin is now directly involved in the daily running of the war in Ukraine, according to Western military sources reported in the British media on Tuesday.

The BBC and other British news agencies have said Putin, together with his chief of staff, are “taking decisions normally made by more junior officers,” citing unnamed military sources.

One of the sources told the BBC this was further evidence that Moscow’s campaign is not going according to plan, and Putin is becoming increasingly frustrated by its setbacks

The Guardian newspaper reported Tuesday that Putin has become involved to the extent that he is making operational and tactical decisions “at the level of a colonel or brigadier.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has reiterated Ankara’s objections to Sweden and Finland joining NATO, saying Turkey will not approve the bids.

He claims the countries have harbored people linked to groups Turkey deems to be terrorist organizations.

Finland and Sweden have said they will send delegations to Ankara to try to convince Turkey to accept their bids; Erdogan, however, has said they “should not bother.”

“Neither of these countries have a clear, open attitude toward terrorist organizations,” Erdogan said at a news conference Monday. “How can we trust them?”

Enlargement of NATO requires the unanimous agreement of the 30 current members.

Turkey accuses Finland and Sweden of harboring members of the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party. The PKK has clashed with Turkish security forces for years but says its aims are greater cultural and political rights for Kurds and the eventual establishment an independent Kurdish state.

CNBC has reached out to the Swedish and Finnish foreign ministries for comment.

Erdogan also said Turkey could not accept the Finnish and Swedish bids because of an arms embargo the countries imposed on Turkey after its incursion into Syria in 2019.

“First of all, we cannot say ‘yes’ to those who impose sanctions on Turkey, on joining NATO which is a security organization,” Erdogan said.

— Holly Ellyatt

The war in Ukraine, along with other global shocks to food security, is creating conditions for a significant increase in life-threatening malnutrition for children, according to UNICEF.

The United Nations agency said in a statement that soaring food prices caused by the war is set to drive up the cost of “life-saving” therapeutic food treatment. It added that severe malnutrition in children could go to “catastrophic levels.”

Around 13.6 million children under five suffer from severe wasting — a condition where children are too thin for their height, leading to weak immune systems, the UN agency said in a press release.

The most effective treatment is a ready-to-use therapeutic food, but the price of that is expected to increase by up to 16% in the next six months due to a sharp rise in the cost of ingredients.

“For millions of children every year, these sachets of therapeutic paste are the difference between life and death,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.

Around 10 million severely wasted children do not have access to the treatment, and another 600,000 children may lose access at current spending levels, Unicef added.

Before the war in Ukraine began, conflict, climate change and Covid were already making it difficult for families to feed their children, said Russell.

“The world is rapidly becoming a virtual tinderbox of preventable child deaths and child suffering,” she said.

“There is precious little time to reignite a global effort to prevent, detect and treat malnutrition before a bad situation gets much, much worse,” she added.

— Abigail Ng

Russia will likely continue relying heavily on massed artillery strikes as it tries to regain momentum in its advance on the eastern Donbas region, said the U.K.’s Defence Ministry in its daily intelligence update.

The update added that Russia had proven it was willing to use strikes against inhabited areas.

Around 3,500 buildings were estimated to have been destroyed or damaged in the Chernihiv region north of Kyiv, during Russia’s abandoned advance towards the Ukrainian capital, the ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter. As much as 80% of the damage was caused to residential buildings.

“The scale of this damage indicates Russia’s preparedness to use artillery against inhabited areas, with minimal regard to discrimination or proportionality,” the ministry said in its update, posted on Twitter.

Russia has possibly relied more heavily on such “indiscriminate” shelling because of its “unwillingness to risk flying combat aircraft routinely beyond its own frontlines,” the ministry said.

— Weizhen Tan

More than 260 Ukrainian fighters, including some who are badly wounded, were evacuated Monday from a steel plant in the ruined city of Mariupol and taken to areas under Russia’s control, the Ukrainian military said.

Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 53 seriously wounded fighters were taken to a hospital in Novoazovsk, east of Mariupol. An additional 211 fighters were evacuated to Olenivka through a humanitarian corridor. An exchange would be worked out for their return home, she said.

Malyar said missions are underway to rescue the remaining fighters inside the plant, the last stronghold of resistance in the devastated southern port city.

“Thanks to the defenders of Mariupol, Ukraine gained critically important time to form reserves and regroup forces and receive help from partners,” she said. “And they fulfilled all their tasks. But it is impossible to unblock Azovstal by military means.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the evacuation of the fighters from Azovstal to separatist-controlled territory was to save their lives. He said the “heavily wounded” were getting medical help.

“Ukraine needs Ukrainian heroes to be alive. It’s our principle,” he said. “The work continues to bring the guys home, and it requires delicacy and time.”

—Associated Press

Moscow has wasted no time in making its feelings known about the likely expansion of the Western military alliance NATO, with President Putin saying Monday that it “is a problem.”

Putin claimed that the move was in the interests of the U.S., in comments reported by Reuters, and said Russia would react to the expansion of military infrastructure to Sweden and Finland, although he insisted Moscow had “no problems” with the countries.

Putin’s comments come after other top Kremlin officials deplored the future expansion of NATO, with one describing it is a “grave mistake” with global consequences.

— Holly Ellyatt

McDonald’s said Monday that it will sell its business in Russia, a little more than two months after it paused operations in the country due to its invasion of Ukraine.

“The humanitarian crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, and the precipitating unpredictable operating environment, have led McDonald’s to conclude that continued ownership of the business in Russia is no longer tenable, nor is it consistent with McDonald’s values,” the company said in a news release.

Russian forces, directed by President Vladimir Putin, have been accused of an array of war crimes during their assault on Ukraine.

McDonald’s exit from Russia is a bitter end to an era that once promised hope. The company, among the most recognizable symbols of American capitalism, opened its first restaurant in Russia more than 32 years ago as the communist Soviet regime was falling apart.

— Mike Calia