Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

German lender Deutsche Bank has offered its roughly 1,500 employees at a tech center it ran in Russia the opportunity to relocate to Berlin with their families, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Roughly half accepted, the Journal reported. The bank has not specified what will happen to the Russian center, where staff were tasked with developing corporate and trading software.

The move follows similar decisions by several major firms to relocate their Russia-based staff — either permanently or temporarily — elsewhere as a result of Western sanctions on the country and its invasion of Ukraine. Several companies including international consulting firms have chosen the United Arab Emirates as their relocation spot.

Deutsche Bank’s move reflects its desire to make Berlin the hub for its tech operations, as well as to avoid the cybersecurity risk of having major staff operations in Russia.

— Natasha Turak

Russia’s parliament, called the Duma, passed bills ending its membership in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and terminating the court’s jurisdiction over Russia. The bills passed established the deadline for its jurisdiction as March 16, meaning any cases or rulings beyond that point would be void.

The ECHR is part of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which expelled Russia as a member on March 15 over its invasion of Ukraine. Previously, the ECHR provided a means of pursuing legal and human rights cases against Russia that had either been rejected or ignored by Russian courts, or that were too dangerous to pursue in Russia itself.

Russia in March also left the Council of Europe, Europe’s largest inter-governmental organization, whose parliamentary assembly unanimously voted to expel it. Moscow says it independently decided to leave the organization.

— Natasha Turak

Ukraine cannot be pressured by other countries into accepting a bad peace deal with Russia, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a meeting with his cabinet.

Johnson “said it was vital that President Zelenskyy was not pressured into accepting a bad peace, noting that bad peace deals do not last,” a spokesperson for the prime minister told reporters.

Johnson also “said the world must avoid any outcome where Putin’s unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off,” the representative added.

Some officials and former political players, including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, have suggested that Ukraine should cede some of its territory to Russia in order to end the war.

Ukrainian officials have responded by accusing those people of not living in reality, pointing out Russia’s continued effort to seize and annex Ukrainian land over the years, and arguing that giving up territory will only encourage Moscow to try to eventually take more.

Ukrainian officials say they will not give up on diplomacy, but that at the moment, peace negotiations are going nowhere.

— Natasha Turak

Speaking to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s cabinet, British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said new sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are in the pipeline.

The U.K. has already levied several rounds of sanctions on Moscow targeting individual oligarchs and contacts of Russian President Vladimir Putin, trade with Russia, Russian financial institutions and state media outlets. It also aims to phase out its purchasing of Russian oil by the end of 2022.

Johnson said his government would “remain at the forefront” of support for Ukraine. The prime minister visited Kyiv in April in a show of support, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of a surprise trip.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried what he called Ukraine’s “dead cities,” once centers of life now almost entirely destroyed by Russian bombardment.

He was referring to Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, crucial remaining holdouts in the country’s east that Russian forces have almost entirely captured and that are key in Moscow’s aims to take the entirety of Ukraine’s Donbas region.

Fierce fighting continues in both cities, with most civilian areas and infrastructure completely demolished.

Zelenskyy visited Lysychansk on Sunday, in a surprise and risky move that put him on the frontlines of the fighting.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian forces have managed to retake some parts of the embattled city of Severodonetsk in the eastern Donbas, where Russia has captured significant territory in recent weeks.

The city is seen as a last Ukrainian holdout in the Luhansk region and has been the scene of brutal street fighting and severe Ukrainian personnel losses.

“Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces have recaptured parts of Sieverodonetsk although Russian forces likely continue to occupy eastern districts,” the U.K.’s Ministry of Defence said in its latest daily intelligence update on Twitter. “Russia’s broader plan likely continues to be to cut off the Sieverodonetsk area from both the north and the south.”

“Russia made gains on the southern, Popasna axis through May but its progress in the area has stalled over the last week,” the ministry wrote, adding that Russia is likely preparing to make a renewed push in the north of the territory.

“Russia will almost certainly need to achieve a breakthrough on at least one of these axes to translate tactical gains to operational level success and progress towards its political objective of controlling all of Donetsk Oblast,” the ministry added.

Ukrainian officials have said that Russia controls more than 90% of the eastern Luhansk oblast.

— Natasha Turak

Russia’s blockade of key Ukrainian ports, which has stalled critical grain exports, has hurt people around the world, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

“The Kremlin needs to realize that it is exporting starvation and suffering well beyond Ukraine’s borders,” he said during a roundtable on food insecurity with business leaders and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Blinken noted that African countries are “experiencing an outsized share of the pain.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought a corridor to export grains held up in Ukrainian ports. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has held talks to try to free up the grain supply.

— Jacob Pramuk