Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

National security council spokesman John Kirby said the Biden administration is “working as diligently as we can” to secure the release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.

Gershkovich was arrested last week by Russian authorities on espionage allegations.

“We have been pushing hard since the moment we found out,” Kirby said, adding that the Russian charges are “ridiculous.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Thursday said the U.S. State Department is seeking immediate consular access to Gershkovich.

— Amanda Macias

The head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine said Monday that his units had technically captured the town.

CNBC was unable to verify the claims but Ukraine’s military has not conceded defeat in Bakhmut, a town that has been fought over for over seven months now.

Russian state media reported that Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, suspected of espionage, has appealed his arrest.

“The court received a complaint from Gershkovich defense against the election of a preventive measure in the form of detention,” the Russian court said, according to TASS. The Moscow City Court did not set the date for the consideration of this appeal yet.

 On Thursday, a Russian court decided that Gershkovich will remain in detention until May 29.

— Amanda Macias

German Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck and Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine, leave after meeting witnesses of alleged war crimes. The village of Yahidne in the Chernihiv region gained notoriety after the Russian invasion last year.

In early March, Russian troops captured the village and forced the remaining 300 or so residents to hold out in the basement of the local school, according to the Associated Press. More than a dozen other villagers are alleged to have been murdered by the Russian occupiers. 

Four ships carrying 83,900 metric tons of agricultural products left Ukraine’s ports of Odesa, Yuzhny-Pivdennyi and Chornomorsk over the weekend.

The vessels, destined for Egypt, Italy and Portugal, are carrying corn, wheat and sunflower oil.

The Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal brokered in July among Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations, eased Russia’s naval blockade and saw three key Ukrainian ports reopen. The deal was extended last month for 120 days.

So far, more than 700 ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports since the deal began.

— Amanda Macias

The United Nations has confirmed more than 8,451 civilian deaths and 14,156 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor more than a year ago.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll in Ukraine is likely higher because the armed conflict can delay fatality reports.

“These figures are just the tip of the iceberg. Most of the casualties resulted from the Russian forces’ use of wide-impact explosive weaponry in residential neighborhoods,” U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said last week during a speech before the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva.

— Amanda Macias

Russia’s Interior Ministry released a video Monday in which a suspect in the death of pro-war Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky is seen admitting that she brought a figurine to the cafe in St. Petersburg that later exploded, killing Tatarsky.

The video, which could have been recorded under duress, shows Daria Trepova responding to questions during her detention.

“I carried a figurine in there, which exploded,” she said, according to comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass. 

When asked why she was held, Trepova said: “Detained, I would say, for being at the scene of the murder of Vladlen Tatarsky.”

When asked about who gave her the statuette, she refused to answer, Tass noted, saying: “May I tell you about it later?”

Earlier on Monday, Russia’s National Anti-Terrorism Committee said the killing was a “terrorist act” that had been planned by Ukraine’s intelligence services, and that it involved “agents” linked to jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny’s anti-corruption foundation, without providing evidence.

— Holly Ellyatt

Finland will formally become a member of the NATO defense alliance on Tuesday, the Finnish president’s office said in a Monday statement.

President Sauli Niinisto will travel to the NATO headquarters in Brussels on the occasion.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg confirmed the timeline of Finland’s official accession, in comments reported by Reuters. Turkey, the last holdout on Helsinki’s adhesion to the military coalition, gave its approval on Finland’s membership bid on March 30.

Sweden, which applied for NATO membership at the same time as Finland, still pends approvals.

— Ruxandra Iordache

Military mobility continues as Ukrainian servicemen fire artillery near the frontline area in Bakhmut.

-Muhammed Enes Yildirim | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

The Kremlin said on Monday that the assassination of prominent war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in St Petersburg was a “terrorist act” and cited Russia’s Anti-Terrorism Committee in saying that there was evidence linking Ukraine to the bombing.

In a call with reporters, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov referred to a statement by the Committee, adding: “This is a terrorist act.”

“The active phase of the investigation is now under way,” he said. “We see quite vigorous steps to detain suspects. Let’s be patient and wait for the next announcements from our special services, which are working on this.”

Separately on Monday, the interior ministry announced it had detained Darya Trepova, whom it had previously named as a suspect in the attack.

Peskov also said said security measures would be tightened for Russia’s Victory Day holiday in May.

— Reuters

Russia’s National Anti-terrorism Committee accused Ukraine’s intelligence services of playing a role in the killing of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky who was killed in an explosion in St. Petersburg on Sunday.

The NAC released a statement Monday in which it claimed that the “terrorist act against the famous journalist Vladlen Tatarsky was planned by the special services of Ukraine,” according to an NBC News translation of the statement.

It also claimed that the alleged plot involved what it described as “agents from among those cooperating” with the Anti-Corruption Foundation, a campaign group set up by jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny that has since been banned by Russia.

The NAC said a woman detained on suspicion of involvement in the explosion at the cafe, Daria Trepova, was “an active supporter” of the campaign group.

The NAC presented no evidence to support its allegations.

Ukraine has not officially commented on the incident although one presidential advisor, Mikhailo Podolyak, said that “spiders are eating each other in a jar” in Russia and that it had been a matter of time for Russia as to when “domestic terrorism would become an instrument of internal political fight.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia assumed the presidency of the United Nations Security Council over the weekend, even as its own invasion of Ukraine continues to escalate.

Russian ambassador to the U.N., Vasily Nebenzya, will once again take over the rotating presidency for the month of April, a situation Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba on Thursday called “a bad joke.”

The last time Moscow presided over the body tasked with the “maintenance of international peace and security” was February 2022, the month it invaded Ukraine.

The presidency rotates each month among 15 members, with the five permanent members being Russia, China, France, the U.K. and the U.S., along with 10 non-permanent members elected to two-year terms by the U.N. General Assembly.

Read the full story here.

— Elliot Smith

Ukrainian officials have rebuffed a claim made by the head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, that the town of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine has technically been captured.

Prigozhin appeared in a video posted on his Telegram channel Sunday in which he said his mercenary units were about to hoist the Russian flag on the town hall and that “legally” the town was now theirs. The flag, he said, bore a tribute to the pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky who was killed in an explosion in St. Petersburg Sunday.

Prigozhin conceded that Ukrainian units were still concentrated in western parts of the town.

Ukrainian government officials denied that Bakhmut had been captured, with the head of the President’s Office Andrii Yermak tweeting “Bakhmut is Ukraine. Don’t pay attention on “victory” fake inventors. Not even close to the reality.”

Serhiy Cherevatiy, spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Reuters that “Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that to put it mildly.”

CNBC has requested further detail on the status of Bakhmut from Ukraine’s Defense Ministry.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s Investigative Committee said Monday morning that it has detained a suspect in the killing of pro-war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky.

The committee said on its Telegram channel that Daria Trepova had been detained “on suspicion of involvement in the explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg.”

Prominent pro-Kremlin blogger Tatarsky was killed in the explosion on Sunday, with reports suggesting a woman had given him a figurine in a box as a gift before the explosion that killed the blogger and injured 30 other people.

Earlier Monday, the Interfax news agency reported that Trepova had been put on the interior ministry’s wanted list, although no link to Tatarsky’s death had been stated.

On Sunday night, law enforcement officers searched Trepova’s place of residence in St. Petersburg and her mother and sister were interviewed, Russian state news agency Tass reported Monday, adding that “according to preliminary data, it was Trepova who handed the figurine to Tatarsky, which contained explosives.”

— Holly Ellyatt

The visit will take place on Wednesday, with Zelenskyy set to hold talks with Polish President Andrzej Duda about security issues and economic cooperation, as well as agriculture and the transport of Ukrainian grain via Poland.

Zelenskyy will also meet Ukrainian refugees living in Poland, where over one million Ukrainian refugees are estimated to be living as the war drags on. Millions of others have traveled on to other European countries.

Poland has been one of Ukraine’s staunchest allies since Russia’s invasion began over a year ago, donating much of its own military equipment to Kyiv and calling on other European nations to donate battle tanks to Ukraine and fighter jets.

Zelenskyy has made few trips abroad since the war started, with security concerns high on the list of challenges presented by foreign visits. He last met his Polish counterpart last December when he traveled back from his high-profile trip to the U.S.

— Holly Ellyatt

Alcohol continues to be a blight on Russia’s armed forces, with Britain’s Defense Ministry suggesting a significant minority of non-combat related deaths have been caused by drink.

“While Russia has suffered up to 200,000 casualties since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a significant minority of these have been due to non-combat causes,” the U.K. said Sunday, noting that a Russian Telegram news channel recently reported there have been “‘extremely high” numbers of incidents, crimes, and deaths linked to alcohol consumption among the deployed Russian forces. 

“Other leading causes of non-combat casualties likely include poor weapon handing drills, road traffic accidents and climatic injuries such as hypothermia,” the ministry said.

While it’s likely that Russian commanders identify pervasive alcohol abuse as “particularly detrimental to combat effectiveness,” the ministry noted it’s difficult for Russia’s military leaders to curb drinking among their units.

“With heavy drinking pervasive across much of Russian society, it has long been seen as a tacitly accepted part of military life, even on combat operations.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s interior ministry on Monday placed a woman Russian media have described as a suspect in the killing of war blogger Vladlen Tatarsky on its wanted list, the Interfax news agency reported.

Vladlen Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, was killed in a bomb blast at a cafe in St Petersburg on Sunday.

A woman called Darya Trepova was identified by some Russian media as a suspect online, though the interior ministry made no reference to the Tatarsky killing on its site which showed she had been put on its wanted list.

Fomin, who had 560,000 followers on the messaging app Telegram, was one of the most prominent of Russia’s war bloggers – a mixed group of war veterans and correspondents who have championed Russia’s campaign in Ukraine, while also offering stinging criticism of the Russian military leadership.

— Reuters

The death of Russian pro-war military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky in an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg on Sunday evening is being investigated as a “high-profile murder,” Russia’s investigative committee said Sunday.

Russia’s Health Ministry said 30 people had been injured as a result of the blast, with 24 people sent to hospital, news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Tatarsky was a prominent pro-war blogger and, unlike most others, he had also fought in Ukraine and had commented extensively on the war and Russia’s military strategy. He had been a guest speaker at the cafe in St. Petersburg when the explosion took place. Unconfirmed reports suggest that Tatarsky, whose real name was Maxim Fomin, had been given a statue in a box that had later exploded.

It’s unclear who was responsible for the attack on Sunday.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova slammed the West for not condemning the attack, stating on Telegram that when it came to any case relating to the “violent death of a Russian journalist … not only did they not conduct investigations, but they did not even show elementary human sympathy.”

— Holly Ellyatt

The head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine said Monday that his units had technically captured the town that has been the epicenter of fighting in Donetsk for months.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, posted a video on his Telegram channel saying the flag had a tribute on it to the Russian military blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who died in an explosion at a St. Petersburg cafe on Sunday evening.

“We hoisted the Russian flag with the inscription “Good memory to Vladlen Tatarsky” and the flag of PMC “Wagner” on the city administration of Bakhmut. Legally, Bakhmut is taken,” Prigozhin said in comments posted on Telegram Sunday evening. He noted, however, that Ukrainian units remained in western districts of the town.

CNBC was unable to verify the claims but Ukraine’s military has not conceded defeat in Bakhmut, a town that has been fought over for over seven months now.

On Monday, the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said Russian units were relentlessly assaulting Bakhmut “trying to take it under complete control,” but that its soldiers had “repelled more than 20 enemy attacks.”

Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Defense Hanna Maliar posted on Facebook Sunday evening that the “the situation in Bakhmut remains very tense,” adding that “our defenders have to stop the advance of the enemy in difficult conditions.”

Maliar said “excessively high losses of personnel” wasn’t deterring Russian forces. Both Ukraine and Russia claim to have inflicted significant losses upon each other during months of fighting around Bakhmut, leaving much of the town in ruins.

— Holly Ellyatt