By This was CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine on April 4, 2023. See here for the latest updates.
Russian investigators said Monday that they had detained a suspect over the killing of pro-war Russian blogger Vladlen Tatarsky, who was killed in an explosion in a cafe in St. Petersburg yesterday.
A woman named Daria Trepova — who has previously been detained for taking part in antiwar rallies, according to media reports — was detained “on suspicion of involvement in the explosion.” Russian authorities later released a video in which she was seen being questioned about the incident.
More than 30 people were injured as a result of the explosion, which occurred after Tatarsky, a guest speaker at the cafe, was allegedly presented with a figurine by Trepova. In the video, which could have been recorded under duress, Trepova said she had carried the figurine into the cafe but refused to say who gave it to her to do so.
Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich has appealed his arrest on espionage charges, Russian state media reported.
In Ukraine, officials have denied a claim made by the head of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting in Bakhmut that the group’s units had technically captured the town.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the founder of the Wagner private military company, claimed Sunday that his units were about to hoist the Russian flag on the town’s administration building and that “legally” his forces had captured Bakhmut.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on his official Telegram channel that he met with House Republican lawmakers in Kyiv.
“Bicameral and bipartisan support from the United States, president Biden, and the entire American people has played a critical role in our country’s ability to stand up to Russia in the war for our freedom and democratic values,” Zelenskyy wrote, according to an NBC News translation.
The delegation was led by the Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, who is also the Chairman of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
“I hope that the high level of support and interaction between our states will be maintained. This is the key to joint victory over the Russian aggressor,” Zelenskyy added.
— Amanda Macias
The executive director of the United Nations Children’s Fund, or UNICEF, said Ukraine’s children are “paying the highest price for this brutal war.”
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said Ukraine surpassed another tragic milestone as more than 500 children have died due to Russia’s war.
“Since the escalation of the war in February 2022, at least 501 children have been killed. This is just the UN-verified number. The real figure is likely far higher, and the toll on families affected is unimaginable,” Russell said in a statement.
Russell added that nearly 1,000 children have been injured, “leaving them with wounds and scars, both visible and invisible, that could last for life.” She said that UNICEF is providing children and families with psychosocial care and other forms of critical assistance.
“Every child, no matter where they live, deserves to grow up in a peaceful environment. No child should experience a childhood scarred by violence and fear,” Russell said.
— Amanda Macias
Ukraine received its first tranche of $2.7 billion from the International Monetary Fund’s new extended financing program
“We thank our partners for their quick help and are already actively working to successfully pass the first review of the program and receive the next tranche from the IMF,” Andriy Pyshnyi, head of the National Bank of Ukraine, wrote in an update on Facebook.
The Board of Directors of the IMF approved the decision on the immediate allocation of the tranche last week.
— Amanda Macias
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said she has no plans to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov when he visits the U.N. headquarters in New York City.
Russia assumed the presidency of the U.N. Security Council on Saturday and will hold the position for one month. As a permanent member, Russia holds veto authority on any measure proposed before the international forum.
“Look, I’m not surprised that they have asked the foreign minister to come. We haven’t decided yet on what our attendance levels will be, but we intend to carry out the business of the Security Council during this month,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters at the United Nations.
“We work on many issues, and we again expect that Russia will carry their presidency in a professional way, but when they don’t we will stand ready to call them out,” she added.
— Amanda Macias
Each year since April 3rd, 1990, a ceremony is held to mark the date when deputies at a session of the Lviv City Council decided to raise the Ukrainian flag, which was banned by the Soviet authorities as Ukraine was still a part of the USSR.
More than a year into the war with Russia, the 33rd anniversary of the ceremony carries a renewed meaning.
— Getty Images
Ukraine scorned Russian claims to have captured the eastern city of Bakhmut on Monday, saying its foes had raised a victory flag over “some kind of toilet” while combat was raging.
The battle for Bakhmut, a mining city and logistics hub, has been one of the bloodiest of the conflict, now in its second year, with many casualties on both sides and the city largely destroyed by bombardments.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner mercenary force spearheading the siege, said on Sunday his troops had raised a Russian flag on the city-center administrative building even though Ukrainian soldiers still held some positions.
“From a legal point of view, Bakhmut has been taken,” he said in a video on Telegram. “The enemy is concentrated in the western parts.”
Prigozhin has previously made premature claims.
Ukraine’s military said fighting was still raging around Bakhmut’s city council building, as well as in several other nearby towns.
“Bakhmut is Ukrainian and they have not captured anything and are very far from doing that,” Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command, told Reuters.
“They raised the flag over some kind of toilet. They attached it to the side of who knows what, hung their rag and said they had captured the city. Well good, let them think they’ve taken it,” Cherevatyi added by telephone.
— Reuters
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 for Russia 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 more than seven months now.
— Getty Images
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 Zelenskyy, 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.
— Getty Images
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. Ukraine and the UN pushed for a 120-day extension of the deal in March but Russia agreed to only 60 days, which would expire in May.
So far, more than 700 ships have sailed from Ukrainian ports since the deal began.
Correction: This post has been updated to correct the extension terms of the Black Sea Grain Initiative.
— 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
— Getty Images
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, is still waiting for approvals.
— Ruxandra Iordache
Military mobility continues as Ukrainian servicemen fire artillery near the front line area in Bakhmut.
— Muhammed Enes Yildirim | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
The Kremlin said 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 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
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to visit Poland this week, the Polish president’s office said Monday, announcing the visit on Twitter.
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
