March 9, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

The importance of Ukraine holding on to the eastern city of Bakhmut is "constantly growing," as every day of sustained resistance allows Kyiv's forces to chip away at Russia's offensive capabilities, one of Ukraine's top military leaders said Thursday.

"The importance of holding Bakhmut is constantly growing. Every day of the city's defense allows us to gain time to prepare reserves and to prepare for future offensive operations," Col. Gen. Oleksandr Syrskyi, commander of Ukraine's land forces, said in a statement.

According to the Ukrainian commander, Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin has said if Bakhmut is captured by his fighters, Russia will be able to launch a "large-scale offensive" using army and airborne units.

"This once again proves the very important role of Bakhmut in the overall defense system of our grouping," Syrskyi said. "Thousands of enemies who died during the assault on the town are a vivid confirmation of this."

The latest from the front: Russian forces have kept up their assaults near the invasion's eastern front in Kupyansk, Lyman, Bakhmut, Avdiivka and Shakhtarsk, the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Thursday.

Ukraine's military said its forces had recently repelled attacks in the villages of Orikhovo-Vasylivka and Dubovo-Vasylivka to the northwest of Bakhmut, in Ivanivske to the west of the city and in Oleksandro-Shultine to the southwest.

"The enemy continues to violate the norms of International Humanitarian Law, continues to carry out strikes, shell civilian objects and civilian homes, and tries to destroy the critical infrastructure of our country," the General Staff said. 

The US and its allies have blocked or seized more than $58 billion worth of assets owned or controlled by sanctioned Russians in the past year as Western governments continue to dial up the pressure over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine, according to a joint statement from a multinational sanctions enforcement task force. 

The Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs (REPO) Task Force held its sixth multilateral deputies meeting Thursday morning to discuss the group's continued work and pledge to "redouble" their efforts to punish Russian President Vladimir Putin and his associates. The task force is a joint effort between the US, Australia, Canada, Germany, Italy, France, Japan, the UK and the European Commission.

"REPO will continue to identify, locate, and freeze the assets of sanctioned Russians, with the aim of depriving the Kremlin of the funds it needs to fight its illegal war," it continued. 

Identifying sanctions evasion: The task force, which was formed last March, is also taking further steps to crack down on sanctions evasion as the US and its allies work to seal the cracks in a sanctions regime that has weakened but not crippled the Russian economy. 

Following Thursday's meeting, REPO also issued a joint global advisory to help the private sector spot and prevent common sanctions evasion methods, like using family members to maintain access to sanctioned assets, creating complex ownership structures and using third-party jurisdictions and false trade information to ship controlled goods, including those that support the Kremlin's war machine. 

The task force has blocked financial assets and seized luxury yachts, high-end real estate and even priceless art, with US officials recovering a possible Fabergé egg from one Russian oligarch's seized yacht last summer.

A US Treasury official told CNN that REPO also provides the governments involved a valuable and streamlined mechanism to apply many of the same tools and best practices for the broader effort to crack down on sanctions evasion.    

Over one year into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden administration officials are focusing on how to plug the gaps on sanctions evasion — a problem that runs the gamut of adversaries like China and allies like Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates. 

When Russia launched a total of 81 missiles at major cities across Ukraine on Thursday morning, it included six Kinzhal ballistic missiles that eluded Kyiv's air defenses, the Ukrainian military said.

"The attack is really large-scale and for the first time using such different types of missiles. We see that this time as many as six Kinzhal were used. This is an attack like I don't remember seeing before," Yurii Ihnat, spokesperson for the Air Force Command of Ukraine, said on Ukrainian television Thursday.

Russia used the nuclear-capable Kinzhal missile, which it has described as a hypersonic weapon, on a few occasions in the first weeks of its invasion last year. But the powerful weapon has rarely been seen over the country's skies. Its first known use was last March, and then in May, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

The use of such a wide and unpredictable array of weaponry seemingly marks a shift in the Kremlin's strategy.

About the Kinzhal: It is an air-launched variant of the Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) which has also, more frequently, been used in Ukraine, and was unveiled by Putin in 2018 as a cornerstone of a modernized Russian arsenal.

Like virtually all ballistic missiles it is hypersonic, which means they travel at least five times the speed of sound, but it is also particularly difficult to detect because it can be launched from MiG-31 fighter jets, giving it a longer range and the ability to attack from multiple directions.

CNN's Svitlana Vlasova and Radina Gigova contributed reporting.

Correction: This post has been updated to clarify that virtually all ballistic missiles — not missiles in general — are hypersonic.

The power supply to the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) has been restored, Ukraine's national energy company Ukrenergo said in a statement Thursday.

"Ukrenergo specialists have restored the power supply to Zaporizhzhia NPP, which was interrupted by today's missile strikes," the company said. "ZNPP is switching from diesel generators to getting electricity for its own needs from the Integrated Power System of Ukraine."

The plant has been under Russian control since March last year, but is still mostly operated by Ukrainian workers.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky invited House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to visit Ukraine during an exclusive interview with CNN.

“Mr. McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here, what war caused us, which people are fighting now, who are fighting now. And then after that, make your assumptions,” Zelensky told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer.

But the California Republican told CNN on Tuesday he had no plans to visit.

“Let’s be very clear about what I said: no blank checks, OK? So, from that perspective, I don’t have to go to Ukraine to understand where there’s a blank check or not,” McCarthy told CNN. “I will continue to get my briefings and others, but I don’t have to go to Ukraine or Kyiv to see it.”

Almost every Western leader who matters, and many who don’t, have now made the daring trip to visit Zelensky, a hero of democracy, in Kyiv.

Yet McCarthy, who has a reputation for loving a photo-op with famous people, rebuffed the invitation to visit the Ukrainian leader.

His bridging of two adamant strands of opinion in the House GOP on Ukraine is just about holding. Moderate Republicans who helped the GOP win the majority last November are just as important to the party’s hopes of retaining control of the chamber next year as pro-Trump extremists. But their priorities risk being constantly compromised by the speaker’s repeated plays to Trump’s base and the ex-president’s most devoted followers in the House.

Making the trip is effectively a political impossibility for McCarthy as Trump accused Biden of caring more about Ukraine’s borders than America’s.

McCarthy hasn’t fully adopted demands of his most radical subordinates, like Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Matt Gaetz of Florida, for audits or an end to Ukraine aid. His line about a blank check could be interpreted as a holding position between his extremist colleagues and hawkish internationalist Republicans who want to do more.

But with Russia only escalating its assault and the GOP presidential primary likely to drag the party toward the anti-aid faction, it’s a position that may crumble before much longer.

At least 11 people have been killed by a wave of Russian missile strikes across Ukraine overnight Thursday, sparking calls for more weapons shipments and sanctions against Russia.

Elsewhere, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is operating in emergency mode after damage caused by Russian shelling disconnected it from the power grid.

Here are the latest headlines:

Russia’s overnight strikes have killed at least 11 people and left 22 injured, according to local officials. 

As the assault continued into the early hours of Thursday morning, 81 missiles were fired into multiple Ukrainian regions including the nation’s capital, Kyiv, injuring three.

In the Western Ukrainian city of Lviv, there were further strikes, as three residential buildings were destroyed. Reports indicate at least five have been killed as rescuers continue to search for additional victims. 

There were more fatalities in the Kherson region where at least three people died and three others were wounded after shelling hit residential areas and apartment buildings.

In the Kharkiv district a missile injured two elderly women, while the rest of the region is currently without power, regional authorities have said. 

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, one person was killed and two were injured, according to preliminary information.

Other regions hit by Russian strikes include Luhansk, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Ivano-Frankivsk, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhya, Kirovohrad and Vinnytsia.

Russian shells also hit a hospital and at least 9 residential buildings in Donetsk, killing two civilians.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned the attacks in a Facebook message on Thursday claiming Russia "won’t avoid responsibility for everything they have done.”

Air raid alarms are in place Thursday for the entire territory of Ukraine, the country's emergency air alarms map shows. 

The move comes after at least 11 people were killed and more than 20 injured in missile strikes across Ukraine overnight Thursday.

Russia targeted critical infrastructure with more than 80 missiles.

The overnight strikes constitute "an attack like I don't remember seeing before," said a spokesman for the Ukrainian air force on Thursday.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal called on Western allies to supply more weapons to Ukraine and impose more sanctions on Russia, following overnight Russian attacks that killed at least 11 people and over 20 injured across the country.

"Residential buildings have been hit. There are casualties. We need more weapons and more sanctions to stop the aggressor," he said in a series of Twitter posts.

Noting that the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant (ZNPP) was also impacted by the strikes — the sixth time since Russia launched its invasion — Shmyhal urged the UN nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to "take decisive action" to stop Russia's "nuclear terrorism."