Ukraine war live updates: Russia stirs outrage with plan for tactical nukes in Belarus; Ukrainian town now ‘post-apocalyptic’

The United Nations has confirmed 8,401 civilian deaths and 14,023 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor more than a year ago.

The Office of 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.

The international organization said most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missiles and airstrikes.

— Amanda Macias

The city of Sloviansk in Donetsk has been shelled by Russian forces, leaving at least one person dead and 25 injured, Ukrainian officials said Monday.

Administrative and office buildings, five high-rise buildings and seven private houses were destroyed in Monday’s shelling, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, the head of the Donetsk Regional State Administration. He said Russian missiles had hit the city center this morning and that the rescue operation was ongoing. The post was accompanies by images showing emergency services in the aftermath of the strikes.

Kyrylenko said in his post on Telegram that another Donetsk town, Druzhkivka, had also been targeted with an orphanage in the town completely destroyed. He said preliminary information suggested there were no victims in the attack.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy commented on the latest assaults Monday, saying they were another instance of Russian “terrorism.”

“Another day that began with terrorism by the Russian Federation. The aggressor state shelled our Sloviansk. Unfortunately, there is a dead person and victims [with injuries] of various degrees of severity. All services are working on the ground. Help is being provided. Debris clearance is ongoing,” Zelenskky said on Telegram.

Russia has repeatedly said that it does not intentionally target civilian infrastructure.

Zelenskyy said Russia should know that Ukraine “will not forgive these deaths and wounds.”

— Holly Ellyatt

The Kremlin said Monday that the West’s critical reaction to Moscow’s decision to station tactical nuclear weapons on Belarusian territory won’t change its plans.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that “such a reaction [of the West], of course, cannot affect Russia’s plans,” Russian state news agency TASS reported.

He added that Russian head of state Vladimir Putin “explained everything in his statements, which he made in an interview on Saturday.” “There is nothing to add to this,” Peskov told reporters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said at the weekend that Russia would deploy its tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus, saying that the U.S. had long done the same thing, stationing tactical nuclear weapons (used on the battlefield rather than for mass destruction) on its allies’ territory.

Putin said the move had come after his Belarusian ally President Alexander Lukashenko raised the issue of deploying Russian tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus. He also said the agreement with Belarus did not violate international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.

NATO members have reacted critically to the move, however, with the military alliance calling Russia’s nuclear rhetoric “dangerous and irresponsible.” The EU signaled Belarus could be subjected to more sanctions.

— Holly Ellyatt

Moscow may seek compensation for the damage to the Nord Stream gas pipelines from two explosions last September, but the future of the projects is unclear, according to a Russian diplomat cited by the news agency RIA Novosti.

The pipelines, which connect Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea, were ruptured by unexplained blasts that Moscow called an act of international terrorism.

“We do not rule out later raising the issue of compensation for damage as a result of the explosion,” Dmitry Birichevsky, head of the Foreign Ministry’s department for economic cooperation, said in an interview with RIA. He did not say who Russia would seek damages from.

The two pipelines had a combined capacity of 110 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year, more than the 101 bcm that Russia exported outside the former Soviet Union in 2022. Birichevsky said the future of the pipelines was not clear.

“At the moment, it’s very difficult to speak about the future of the Nord Stream pipeline system. On the whole, according to experts, the damaged lines could be restored,” he said.

The Kremlin has said it is for all shareholders to decide whether the two pipelines, each consisting of two pipes, should be mothballed. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia would establish who was behind the blasts before claiming any compensation.

— Reuters

Poland has detained a foreign citizen on charges of spying for Russia, prosecutors said on Monday, as the largest country on NATO’s eastern flank finds itself increasingly targeted by Moscow’s intelligence services.

The war in Ukraine has plunged what were already strained relations between Poland and Russia to new lows, with Warsaw saying it is frequently the subject of Russian espionage and disinformation.

Prosecutors in the northern Polish city of Gdansk said in a statement that the suspect had been detained on March 21.

“The findings made in the case show that the suspect acted for the benefit of Russian intelligence by obtaining and collecting information… on critical infrastructure in the Pomeranian and Kuyavian-Pomeranian Regions and on the activities of services and bodies responsible for security,” they said.

“The information obtained was passed on to the Russian intelligence service,” the statement added.

The arrest comes after Poland dismantled a Russian espionage network that had been preparing acts of sabotage and monitoring rail routes to Ukraine. If found guilty the suspect could face up to 10 years in prison.

— Reuters

Ukrainian officials have reported separate explosions in the Russian-occupied port cities of Melitopol and Mariupol in southern Ukraine this morning.

The explosion in Mariupol, occupied by Russian forces since last May, occurred by the Bakhchyvandzhy market this morning, according to the Telegram channel of Mariupol’s de jure City Council, with preliminary information suggesting a Russian commander’s car was blown up.

The post quoted Mayor Vadym Boychenko as saying “the Mariupol resistance struck in occupied Mariupol, blowing up the car of one of the top military officers. Details later.”

Explosions were also reported near Russian barracks in the occupied city of Melitopol in Zaporizhzhia Monday morning. Melitopol’s de jure Mayor Ivan Fedorov wryly noted on Telegram that “‘Nothing is happening’ to the occupiers in Melitopol. Several explosions have already been heard in the city. We are checking what is on fire this time,” he said, adding that he was “looking forward to good news from the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”

CNBC was unable to immediately verify the reports.

— Holly Ellyatt

The secretary of Russia’s Security Council, Nikolai Patrushev, said that NATO countries are a party to the conflict in Ukraine, according to excerpts from an interview with Russian government newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on Monday.

Rossiyskaya Gazeta cited Patrushev as saying: “In fact, NATO countries are a party to the conflict. They made Ukraine one big military camp. They send weapons and ammunition to the Ukrainian troops, provide them with intelligence”.

Patrushev, a former chief of the FSB internal security service, is widely seen as one of the most hawkish members of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s inner circle.

— Reuters

The operations of Russia’s prized Black Sea Fleet, which is based in Sevastopol in occupied Crimea, are likely to be constrained after several attempted attacks, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Monday.

The ministry noted in its latest intelligence update that, on March 22, at least three uncrewed surface vessels (USV) and one uncrewed aerial vehicle reportedly attempted to strike the Russian naval base in Sevastopol.

It noted that even though the latest attacks had likely failed to damage any military assets, “the USV threat likely continues to constrain operations of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.”

The attempted attacks last week were the latest targeting the Black Sea Fleet in Crimea, a peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.

The U.K. said open source reports suggest that one USV was stopped by defensive booms, while two were destroyed in the harbor. Russian officials said that no Russian vessels had been damaged.

The ministry noted that a previous USV attack on Sevastopol last October was believed to have damaged the minesweeper Ivan Golubets and the frigate Admiral Makarov.

— Holly Ellyatt

Intense attacks on the eastern Donetsk town of Avdiivka and the damage they’ve caused prompted a Ukrainian official to liken the destruction to what you would see in a “post-apocalyptic” movie.

Utility workers were evacuated from Avdiivka, a town just over 50 miles southwest of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, as fighting intensified at the weekend.

“Avdiivka is becoming more and more like a site from post-apocalyptic movies … Therefore, a difficult decision was made to evacuate the rest of our heroes — utility workers who at least tried to keep the city clean and livable,” Vitaliy Barabash, head of the Avdiivka City Military Administration, said on Telegram Sunday.

Barabash told any remaining residents to leave the town while they were still able to, saying: “so now I do not ask, I strongly recommend leaving Avdiivka, because Russian rockets and projectiles do not spare anyone or anything, no matter what views you hold,” he said.

Ukrainian military officials have already warned that the town could be a “second Bakhmut,” where there has been heavy fighting for over seven months.

On Monday, Ukraine’s general staff said Russia was concentrating its offensives around Lyman, Bakhmut and Avdiivka and two other settlements, and added that its forces had repelled more than 60 attacks in the past 24 hours along the eastern front.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia and China are strengthening their cooperation in a variety of areas, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday, but insisted his country isn’t creating a military alliance with the Asian nation.

“This is absolutely untrue,” Putin said when asked in a televised interview Sunday whether cooperation between Moscow and Beijing poses a threat to the West.

“We are not creating any military alliance with China. Yes, we also cooperate on the track of military-technical cooperation, we do not hide it, but it is transparent, there is nothing secret there,” Putin told the Rossiya-24 TV channel, according to remarks published on the state news agency Tass.

Nonetheless, Putin said Moscow is developing its military cooperation with Beijing, including joint exercises.

“By the way, not only with China, but with other countries as well. We even continue it now, despite the developments in Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson,” he said, referring to territories in Ukraine that Russia has declared to be annexed, a move not recognised by most of the international community.

“We still continue; it’s all transparent, but it’s not a military alliance,” Putin added.

Chinese President Xi Jinping made a high-profile state visit to Moscow last week where both leaders reaffirmed their strategic partnership. Beijing is seen as the senior partner in the relationship.

There have been concerns that China could help Russia with lethal military aid, but Western nations have warned that such a move would lead to sanctions on Beijing.

— Holly Ellyatt

NATO criticized Russia’s nuclear rhetoric after Moscow’s announcement at the weekend that it will station a supply of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

“Russia’s nuclear rhetoric is dangerous and irresponsible,” a spokesperson told NBC News.

“NATO is vigilant, and we are closely monitoring the situation. We have not seen any changes in Russia’s nuclear posture that would lead us to adjust our own. We are committed to protect and defend all NATO allies,” the spokesperson added.

Over the weekend, Russian President Vladimir Putin said the plan to station tactical nukes within Belarusian territory do not violate non-proliferation agreements as the weapons would be under Russian control.

“There is nothing unusual here either: firstly, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries,” Putin said.

“We agreed that we will do the same — without violating our obligations, I emphasize, without violating our international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons,” he added.

NATO said “Russia’s reference to NATO’s nuclear sharing is totally misleading,” however, adding that “NATO allies act with full respect of their international commitments.”

“Russia has consistently broken its arms control commitments, most recently suspending its participation in the New START Treaty.”

“Russia must return to compliance and act in good faith,” the spokesperson added.

— Holly Ellyatt

NATO and Ukraine’s Western allies have expressed dismay at Russia’s announcement at the weekend that it will station tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced the move on Saturday, saying a deal had been struck with his ally Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a leader who is seen as subservient to Moscow.

Putin claimed Lukashenko had long asked for the weapons to be stationed in Belarus, a country that borders NATO member Poland.

The Russian president said 10 aircraft that are capable of carrying tactical nuclear weapons had already been moved to Belarus and that the construction of storage facilities for the weapons in Belarus would be completed by July 1.

A spokesperson for the Western military alliance NATO responded to the move by branding “Russia’s nuclear rhetoric” as “dangerous and irresponsible,” while the EU’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell urged Belarus not to host Russian nuclear weapons, commenting on Twitter that “Belarus hosting Russian nuclear weapons would mean an irresponsible escalation and threat to European security.” Borrell also warned of sanctions against Minsk.

A senior Ukrainian official, meanwhile, said the Kremlin had taken “Belarus as a nuclear hostage” and is looking to destabilize Belarus with the deal.

Defense experts and academics argue over the term, but “tactical” nuclear weapons generally refer to weapons designed to be used on the battlefield for specific tactical gains, rather than for the all-out destruction of larger targets like cities.

In announcing the move, Putin insisted the plan did not violate non-proliferation agreements as the weapons would be under Russian control.

“There is nothing unusual here either: firstly, the United States has been doing this for decades. They have long deployed their tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of their allied countries,” Putin said.

“We agreed that we will do the same — without violating our obligations, I emphasize, without violating our international obligations on the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons.”

— Holly Ellyatt