By This was CNBC’s live blog tracking developments on the war in Ukraine on April 14, 2023. See here for the latest updates.
The U.S. government and its allies are reeling from the discovery that the suspected source of a major intelligence breach is a 21-year-old National Guardsman who leaked highly classified Pentagon documents on an online gaming platform. The suspect, Jack Teixeira, appeared in court Friday to face charges under the Espionage Act of unauthorized removal and retention of classified and national defense information.
Ukrainian forces are withdrawing from some positions in the eastern city of Bakhmut under heavy Russian fire, Britain’s Ministry of Defense reported. Ukraine has for months refused to give up on its defense of Bakhmut, despite both sides suffering heavy casualties and the city being entirely destroyed. Kyiv says that conceding Bakhmut would give Russia a major access route to much more of eastern Ukraine.
Meanwhile, International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi reiterated calls for relevant parties to establish a security perimeter around Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, warning “we are living on borrowed time when it comes to nuclear safety and security at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.”
Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Wally Adeyemo met with several representatives of financial institutions on the sidelines of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings to discuss additional ways to counter Russian sanctions evasion.
“The officials shared information about the most critical goods sought by the Russian military and emphasized that the Kremlin has directed its intelligence services to find ways around sanctions in order to replenish badly depleted supplies,” according to a Treasury Department readout of the meeting.
Deputy Director of the CIA David Cohen and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Morgan Muir also joined the meeting with Adeyemo, government officials and bank representatives.
— Amanda Macias
Seven Russian S-300 Russian missiles hit the eastern Ukrainian city of Sloviansk on Friday, killing at least eight people and wounding 21, the governor of Donetsk region said.
Pavlo Kyrylenko told on national television that there were “no fewer than seven spots hit” in Sloviansk, west of the city Bakhmut, site of the heaviest fighting on the Ukrainian frontlineline people.
Kyrylenko said rescue workers at the site had pulled a woman in her seventies from the rubble and warned that others could be buried.
A senior official in President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s office had earlier said a child pulled alive from the site of the attack had died on the way to a hospital.
Rescue teams were combing through the affected area.
—Reuters
-Ihor Tkachov | AFP | Getty Images
Ukraine’s military said that Russia has fired approximately 850 missiles since the fall, according to an NBC News translation.
The spokesman of the Air Force of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Yuriy Ihnat, said Russian forces have fired a range of missiles, including high-precision and long-range Kalibr, Kh-101 and Iskander.
He added that Kyiv suspects Moscow will start mass production of strategic air-launched cruise missiles of the X-50 type to intensify its attacks across Ukraine.
— Amanda Macias
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reiterated Kyiv’s goals of joining the NATO military alliance in a televised evening address.
“It is obvious that Ukraine’s place is in NATO, a legal place. And we do not want the outdated illusions, which until now held back our joining the alliance, to continue taking time away from Ukraine and its partners. We are developing the appropriate step,” Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine applied for NATO membership in September 2022 on the heels of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s announcement that Moscow will annex four Ukrainian territories following a series of referendums.
— Amanda Macias
Federal authorities used billing records from social media platform Discord to identify the individual suspected of leaking highly classified military documents, the Associated Press reports.
On Thursday, FBI agents arrested Massachusetts Air National Guardsman Jack Teixeira in connection with the leak, according to court records unsealed on Friday. Teixeira, 21, appeared in court to face charges under the Espionage Act of unauthorized removal and retention of classified and national defense information.
The classified Pentagon documents that were leaked online revealed details of U.S. intelligence on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, among other national security matters.
President Joe Biden said in a statement that the U.S. is still determining the validity of the classified documents that were circulated online.
“I have directed our military and intelligence community to take steps to further secure and limit distribution of sensitive information and our national security team is closely coordinating with our partners and allies,” Biden wrote in a statement.
— Amanda Macias
The parents and sister of Evan Gershkovich, a U.S. journalist detained in Russia, spoke for the first time in an exclusive interview with The Wall Street Journal.
“I know that he felt like it was his duty to report,” Ella Milman, his mother, said in an interview, referencing Gershkovich’s dispatches from Russia amid the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
Gershkovich was arrested on March 29 on espionage allegations and if convicted, the 31-year-old journalist could face a 20-year prison sentence under Russian law.
The Biden administration and The Wall Street Journal have denied allegations that Gershkovich has ever worked on behalf of the U.S. government as a spy.
Watch the full Wall Street Journal interview here.
— Amanda Macias
More than five million refugees from Ukraine have applied for temporary resident status in neighboring Western European countries, the U.N. Refugee Agency estimates.
The agency estimates that more than 8.1 million people have left Ukraine and have become refugees since Russia’s full-scale invasion in late February of last year. The majority of the refugees have relocated to Poland, according to the data collected by the agency.
“The escalation of the international armed conflict in Ukraine has caused civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure, forcing people to flee their homes seeking safety, protection and assistance,” the U.N. Refugee Agency wrote.
— Amanda Macias
Belarusian pilots have completed their training in Russia for operating Su-25 fighter jets, Reuters reported, citing Belarus’ defense ministry.
“The acquired knowledge and skills will serve to ensure the military security of the Union State,” the Belarusian defense ministry said, in reference to the political union it has with Russia.
Russia has used Belarus as a staging ground for a large proportion of its troops since a few months prior to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. While Minsk has not officially sent any of its own troops into Ukraine to fight alongside Russian forces, it is one of Moscow’s closest allies.
— Natasha Turak
Ukraine is forbidding its national teams from competing in Olympic, non-Olympic and Paralympic events in which Russian and Belarusian athletes will be taking part, its sports ministry said.
Kyiv previously lobbied the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from the games, but failed, as the IOC is allowing those nationals to compete as long as they do so as neutrals and not under their countries’ flags.
Europe’s governing body for soccer, UEFA, banned Russia due to the country’s invasion of Ukraine, but is still allowing Belarusian athletes, who are in a different qualifying group from Ukraine.
Some Ukrainian sports figures have criticized the ban.
“If Ukrainian representatives are not present at competitions, then we completely vacate the international sports grounds and give the Russian/Belarusian representatives the opportunity to promote their narratives and propaganda,” Olympian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych wrote on Twitter.
— Natasha Turak
“It’s hard to trust us with your secrets if we can’t protect them,” Bill Lynn, a former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense under President Barack Obama, told CNBC in response to the Pentagon leaks.
The trove of classified documents, which first appeared on the Discord social media site last month, revealed stunning details about U.S. spying on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, and secret information about Ukraine’s combat power, according to NBC News reporting.
“It gives the Russians insight into how we’re gathering that information, which puts those sources at risk,” Lynn said. The breach also contained intelligence-gathering on American allies, including South Korea and Israel.
“It’s devastating to our allies to see that kind of information being promulgated,” he added. “It was shared too widely … but that’s 20-20 hindsight and easy to say now.”
— Dan Murphy
Ukraine has retrieved the bodies of 82 of its soldiers from its Russia-occupied territories, the Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories said on Telegram on Friday.
Russia and Ukraine have carried out exchanges of prisoners of war over the course of the 14-month-long conflict. It was not immediately clear if the latest retrieval of Ukraine’s fallen was the result of such a swap.
“It should be noted that the transfer of the bodies of the fallen defenders is carried out in accordance with the norms of the Geneva Convention,” the ministry said, according to a Google translation.
— Ruxandra Iordache
Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu will visit Russia from April 16-19 for talks with military leaders at the invitation of his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu, the Chinese Defense Ministry said Friday.
Russia and China have tightened their military cooperation in recent years, conducting joint drills and exercises.
The meeting comes as Ukraine’s Western allies have boosted their calls for China to exert its influence on Russia in its conflict with Kyiv. Beijing submitted a 12-point peace plan on the one-year anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but it has yet to gain traction.
— Ruxandra Iordache
Russian revenues from oil exports recovered by $1 billion on the month to $12.7 billion in March, but fell 43% year on year, the International Energy Agency found in the latest issue of its monthly Oil Market Report.
The agency assessed that Russian oil exports last month hit their highest since April 2020, with total oil shipments rising by 600,000 barrels per day to 8.1 million barrels per day.
Russia, whose economy relies heavily on hydrocarbon revenues, suffered twin blows after losing the EU buyer base of its seaborne crude oil and oil product exports in December and February, respectively.
A Group of Seven initiative allows nations outside of the G-7 alliance access to Western insurance and financing to continue purchases of Russian oil and oil products, provided they are acquired under a predetermined price cap.
— Ruxandra Iordache
The European Union announced sanctions on Wagner Group, the Russian private military contractor — often called a mercenary group — known for its brutality and more recently for its significant role in Russian combat operations in Ukraine, particularly in Bakhmut.
Wagner already features on an EU sanctions list for what the bloc describes as violating human rights and “destabilizing” countries in Africa.
The addition of Wagner to the latest list “completes” the previous sanctions listing, the European Council said in a statement. This inclusion was “for actions undermining or threatening the territorial integrity, sovereignty and independence of Ukraine” and “actively participating in the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine,” it said.
Wagner’s double listing “underscores the international dimension and gravity of the group’s activities, as well as its destabilizing impact on the countries where it is active,” the council added.
— Natasha Turak
Ukrainian forces have made “orderly withdrawals” from positions they have conceded in the eastern city of Bakhmut under heavy Russian bombardment, Britain’s Ministry of Defense wrote in its daily intelligence update.
“Russia has re-energised its assault on the Donetsk Oblast town of Bakhmut as forces of the Russian MoD and Wagner Group have improved co-operation,” the ministry wrote in its update on Twitter.
“The Ukrainian defence still holds the western districts of the town but has been subjected to particularly intense Russian artillery fire over the previous 48 hours,” it said, adding that Russia’s Wagner group has been leading the main advance through the center of the city.
“Ukrainian forces face significant resupply issues but have made orderly withdrawals from the positions they have been forced to concede.”
Ukraine has for months refused to give up on its defense of Bakhmut, despite both sides suffering heavy casualties and the city being entirely destroyed. Kyiv said conceding Bakhmut would give Russia a major access route to much more of eastern Ukraine.
— Natasha Turak
Twenty-one-year-old Jack Teixeira, a cyber transport systems journeyman for the Massachusetts Air National Guard, will appear in a Massachusetts court Friday as the prime suspect in the leak of highly classified Pentagon documents, the United States’ largest security breach in more than a decade.
The U.S. Department of Justice arrested Teixeira at his home in a small town about an hour outside of Boston on Thursday.
The arrest was made “in connection with an investigation into an alleged unauthorized removal, retention and transmission of classified national defense information,” U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a statement.
The leak of classified materials was a “deliberate, criminal act,” Pentagon spokesperson Patrick Ryder said, adding that the Pentagon was reviewing and restricting access to sensitive information among its ranks.
— Natasha Turak
The Pentagon provided a military service record of the suspect behind the leak of highly classified U.S. intelligence documents.
Jack Douglas Teixeira is a current member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard and was stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base, according to the service record, obtained by NBC News.
Teixeira holds the rank of Airman 1st Class and entered service on Sept. 26, 2019. His latest job title, according to the service record, is cyber transport systems journeyman.
U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland said during a press conference that the FBI took Teixeira into custody and that the 21-year-old will have an initial appearance at the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts.
The classified Pentagon documents that were leaked online revealed details of U.S. intelligence on Russia’s war efforts in Ukraine, among other national security matters.
— Amanda Macias
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency reiterated calls for relevant parties to establish a security perimeter around Ukraine’s embattled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
“We are living on borrowed time when it comes to nuclear safety and security at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Unless we take action to protect the plant, our luck will sooner or later run out, with potentially severe consequences for human health and the environment,” IAEA director general Rafael Grossi said in a statement.
Grossi said that IAEA experts present at the facility continue to regularly hear shelling in the area. He added that the experts also reported that two landmine explosions occurred near the nuclear power plant earlier this month.
Russian forces seized Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, in the days following the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
— Amanda Macias
Leaker of secret documents reportedly worked on U.S. military base; Pentagon moves to ‘restrict access’
