By This was CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine. See here for the latest updates.
Regional officials in both Russia and Ukraine have reported a series of attempted drone attacks against their territories overnight.
Russian authorities reported early Tuesday that air defense systems shot down 21 Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk, Kaluga and Tula regions, as well as over the sea area in the Sevastopol area in Russian-occupied Crimea, Russian news agencies said, citing officials.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said air defense systems destroyed 15 out of 35 Russian drones that had been launched at Ukrainian energy and military infrastructure within the Mykolaiv, Sumy, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Kyiv regions. Two missiles were also launched by Russian forces in the Donetsk region.
In other news, China Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong met with Ukrainian ambassador to China Pavlo Riabikin on Tuesday, with the officials exchanging views on issues of common concern, including the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is reportedly preparing to replace army chief Valeriy Zaluzhnyi in what would be the biggest shake-up of the country’s military command since Russia’s full-scale invasion nearly two years ago.
Zaluzhnyi on Monday refused Zelenskyy’s offer of a new role, the Financial Times reported Tuesday, citing four unnamed people familiar with the discussions. They said that Ukraine’s president may not oust Zaluzhnyi for some time.
It follows repeated reports of tensions and comes shortly after Ukrainian media said that lawmakers and anonymous Telegram channels had speculated about the possible resignation of Zaluzhnyi.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry on Monday appeared to reject speculation about the army chief’s position, saying in Google-translated remarks via Telegram: “Dear journalists, we immediately answer everyone: No, this is not true.” It did not provide any further context.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment.
— Sam Meredith
Russian nationalist politician Sergey Baburin on Tuesday announced that he is withdrawing his candidacy in Russian presidential elections due to take place on March 15-17 and called on voters to endorse the incumbent, President Vladimir Putin.
Baburin, the leader of the conservative Russian All-People’s Union party, pulled out of the race on Tuesday, despite collecting enough public signatures to endorse his candidacy.
“I am glad that after our own verification of signature sheets, 102, 670 voter signatures are ready to be submitted to the Central Election Commission.” He added that, in the context of the war against Russia, he accepts “perhaps the most difficult decision in my life,” according to Google-translated comments published by Russian state news agency Tass.
“In a difficult hour for the Motherland, this is not the time to fragment the forces of the people. All national patriotic organizations of Russia, all nationally oriented citizens of Russia need to unite around the candidacy of Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, who is today the national leader,” Baburin was quoted as saying.
Putin has already collected enough signatures — at least 300,000 collected from 40 regions of Russia — in order to stand as an independent candidate in the election. He’s expected to win easily, with non-systemic opposition figures routinely harassed and silenced.
So far, there are four candidates registered for the polls, including Putin. An anti-war candidate, Boris Nadezhdin, must submit signatures to the electoral commission by the deadline on Wednesday. It’s uncertain whether he has met the bar.
The Kremlin said last week that it did not consider Nadezhdin as a serious rival to Putin.
— Holly Ellyatt
The Kremlin, asked on Tuesday about potential U.S. strikes on Iranian interests, said tensions in the Middle East were high and that steps were needed to de-escalate rather than destabilise the wider region.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday vowed the U.S. would take “all necessary actions” to defend its troops after a deadly drone attack in Jordan by Iran-backed militants, even as President Joe Biden’s administration stressed it was not seeking a war with Iran.
“We do not welcome any actions that lead to destabilisation in the region and increase tensions, especially against the backdrop of the excessive potential for conflict,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“We will not welcome the continuation of such actions, regardless of who they come from. The level of tension is high now and we need to take steps to de-escalate. This is what will prevent the conflict from spreading.”
Russia enjoys increasingly close ties with Iran at a time when its ties with the United States are at their lowest level since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis over what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine.
— Reuters
Ukrainian forces claim to have destroyed a Russian Su-34 fighter jet in the partially occupied eastern Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine.
Andrii Kovaliov, spokesperson for the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said this on Ukrainian television, Ukrainian news outlet Ukrinform reported Tuesday.
Kovaliov was cited as saying that a Russian Su-34 fighter bomber aircraft was shot down. CNBC was unable to immediately verify the report but if accurate, the loss of a modern Su-34 aircraft, estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars, would be a significant loss for Russia’s air force.
— Holly Ellyatt
The West’s belief that Russia could invade the Baltic nations, Sweden and Finland after Moscow’s so-styled “special military operation” in Ukraine, is absurd, Russia’s foreign minister said Tuesday.
Discussing the situation in Ukraine with the heads of diplomatic missions, Sergei Lavrov ridiculed Western concerns that Russia could go on to invade other former Soviet states, like the Baltic countries of Latvia, Lithuania or Estonia, or its neighbor Finland or Sweden. The latter two countries have either joined NATO or are expecting to gain membership.
“The mentality is [that] everything related to Ukraine must be used to inflict, as they say, a strategic defeat on Russia,” he said, according to Google-translated comments reported by Russian state news agency Tass.
“They directly say: ‘If Russia wins and defends its interests in this war, then the Baltic states, Sweden, Finland will be next’,” Lavrov added.
“The absurdity of such statements is clear to everyone, to anyone who understands history in the slightest degree and understands the goals that we openly, without hiding, announced regarding the special military operation in Ukraine.”
Lavrov repeated claims made by Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials that Ukraine was a historical part of Russia, and that Ukrainians and Russians are “one people.” He also reiterated that NATO intended to threaten the security of Russia.
NATO denies such accusations.
“We are eliminating historical injustice,” Lavrov said, adding that “we are eliminating attempts not only to rewrite the history of the peoples of our country … [but to] turn the modern territories on which Russians and other peoples of Russia have lived for centuries into a springboard that NATO, led by the United States, would use to threaten the security of the Russian Federation.”
Kyiv rebuffs Russia’s historical claims, as it looks to restore its territorial integrity and independence following Russia’s invasion.
— Holly Ellyatt
Senior Russian security official Dmitry Medvedev said on Tuesday that Moscow will deploy new weapons on the Kuril Islands which are at the centre of a territorial dispute with Japan, the TASS state news agency TASS reported.
Russia and Japan have never signed a peace treaty formally ending the conflict between them that dates back to World War Two, with the Kuril Islands – which Japan calls the Northern Territories – remaining the primary stumbling block between the two sides.
TASS cited Medvedev as saying that Russia was not against signing a peace treaty with Japan, but only if Tokyo no longer disputed the islands’ status.
— Reuters
ata from the flight recorders of the Il-76 aircraft that Russia says was shot down by Ukrainian armed forces last week confirms the external impact on it, law enforcement agencies reportedly told Tass news agency.
Black boxes from the Russian military transport plane were retrieved last week after the plane crashed over the Belgorod region, killing 65 Ukrainian prisoners of war on board, as well as nine Russians. Moscow accused Ukraine of shooting down the plane with Western missiles; Ukraine has neither accepted nor denied responsibility for the incident.
“The black box data … confirms that the plane was subjected to external influence, that is, it was shot down in the air. Everything is obvious,” the law enforcement agency’s interlocutor reportedly told Tass.
Analysis of the black box data is ongoing. “This work is nearing completion. There is no rush here,” a representative of the security forces was cited as saying.
CNBC was unable to verify the information in the media report.
— Holly Ellyatt
China Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong met with Ukrainian ambassador to China Pavlo Riabikin and exchanged views on issues of shared concern, including the Ukraine crisis, the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.
Sun, in their meeting, said both China and Ukraine should respect each other and treat each other sincerely, so as to promote the steady and long-term development of bilateral relations.
— Reuters
Regional officials of both Russia and Ukraine reported a series of attempted drone attacks against territories in their countries overnight.
Russian authorities reported early Tuesday that air defense systems shot down Ukrainian drones over the regions of Bryansk, Kaluga and Tula, as well as over the sea area in the Sevastopol area in Russian-occupied Crimea, Russian news agency Interfax reported, citing officials in each of the regions.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said air defense forces destroyed and intercepted 21 Ukrainian drones over those territories.
“Over the past night, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using an aircraft-type UAV on targets on the territory of the Russian Federation was stopped,” the department said, news agency RIA Novosti reported.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said air defense systems destroyed 15 out of 35 Russian drones that were launched at Ukrainian energy and military infrastructure within the Mykolaiv, Sumy, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Kherson and Kyiv regions. Two missiles were also launched by Russian forces in the Donetsk region.
“The enemy directed part of the attack UAVs on the front-line territories, trying to hit the infrastructure of the fuel and energy sector, civilian and military facilities near the front line and the state border with the Russian Federation,” the air force said on Telegram.
It was not immediately clear what happened to the drones that were not destroyed, or the two missiles that Ukraine reported.
— Holly Ellyatt
Hungary accused the European Union of blackmail after a leaked document reportedly suggested that the bloc plans to sabotage Budapest’s economy if it vetoes fresh aid for Ukraine at a summit later this week.
Hungary’s minister for EU affairs took to social media to lambast the paper drawn up by EU officials and cited Sunday by the Financial Times, which said that Brussels has developed a strategy to target Hungary’s economic weak spots and undermine investor confidence over its blockade of funds to Kyiv.
“Hungary does not give in to blackmail,” Bóka János wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
— Karen Gilchrist
A Ukrainian rocket strike in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on Monday killed at least three civilians and wounded one more, Russian-installed Mayor Alexei Kulemzin announced on Telegram.
Multiple unverified pictures and videos had earlier emerged on social media showing a vehicle on fire and several bodies lying in the street.
CNBC was not able to independently verify Kulemzin’s claims.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó arrived in Uzhhorod, Ukraine, on Monday for talks with senior officials ahead of Thursday’s EU summit, at which the bloc hopes Budapest will sign off on a 50 billion euro ($54 billion) aid package to Ukraine.
Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, shared a photograph on X of the two men sitting opposite one another.
“For a better relationship, a frank dialogue is needed. We are ready,” Yermak said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday published his income over a two-year period, as he looks to promote transparency as part of Kyiv’s push for European Union membership.
According to the declaration, the president and his family members received 10.8 million hryvnias ($286,168) in 2021, the year before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, down almost 12 million hryvnias from the previous year. The 2021 figure included income from the sale of around $142,000 in government bonds.
In 2022, the Zelenskyy family’s income fell to 3.7 million hryvnias due to the “temporary termination of lease agreements on the territory of Ukraine as a result of the beginning of Russia’s full-scale aggression.”
The family’s cash balance at the end of 2022 dropped by almost 1.8 million, while there were no other changes across the two years relating to assets, real estate, vehicles etc.
Ukraine formally started the screening process to begin talks over its future membership of the EU on Thursday, and faces stringent conditions to increase transparency and root out corruption.
Zelenskyy has called for all public officials to disclose their incomes, while the U.S. and other allies supporting Ukraine’s war effort, including the International Monetary Fund, have sought assurances about the country’s efforts to eradicate corruption.
— Elliot Smith
Zelenskyy publishes income as part of EU transparency push; Hungarian foreign minister arrives in Ukraine
