March 29, 2023 - Russia-Ukraine news

Some Ukrainians have reacted with disbelief and frustration to an order for clergy from the pro-Russian Ukrainian Orthodox Church to leave a historic cave monastery complex in Kyiv.

The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra is home to the UOC, a branch of Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine that has been traditionally loyal to Patriarch Kirill, the leader of the Russian church.

Kirill is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a supporter of his war on Ukraine. In May 2022, the UOC cut ties with Moscow and declared “full independence.” The agreement that permitted the UOC to occupy the historic cave monastery complex was terminated on March 10, and the UOC was instructed to leave the premises by March 29. 

Here's what some Ukrainians told CNN about the news:

Oksana, a resident of Odesa, cried as believers sang prayer songs while waiting to touch an icon in one of the complex's churches.  

Domnika, a resident of Kyiv, first went on a school trip to the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra when she was young. She is now 85 years old.

Natalia Drozd moved to Kyiv from Luhansk in 2015. She attended the Lavra with her 10-month-old daughter on Wednesday. 

Heorhii, a protodeacon in the Lavra, told CNN that the Orthodox Church is being persecuted.

Klyment, bishop of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, told CNN that services will continue to be held. 

Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on Wednesday slammed the International Olympic Committee’s guidelines that allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals, calling it a “wrong and bad decision.”

Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from most international competitions in February 2022 over Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, following the IOC executive board recommendations. On Tuesday, IOC President Thomas Bach outlined new guidelines that would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals, paving the way for their return to international competitions. 

“We certainly will not withdraw our athletes on our own, but we will try to build a coalition of countries. And that's what I instructed [Sports] Minister [Kamil] Bortniczuk to demand together with a strong voice from the IOC to withdraw this very wrong and bad decision,” the Polish prime minister added. 

The Kremlin earlier on Wednesday said the guidelines have “elements of discrimination.”

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov suggested that Ukrainian offensive action involving Western tanks may begin in April or May in an interview with Estonian television.

Reznikov said that German Leopard tanks, which have begun arriving in Ukraine, will be part of “the counteroffensive campaign under the decision of our General Staff. … They are planning that in different directions.”

“I think that we will see [the tanks] during these two months. I mean April and May,” Reznikov said.

Last week, Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukraine’s land forces, said on his Telegram channel that the Russians are "losing significant forces [in Bakhmut] and are running out of energy."

“Very soon, we will take advantage of this opportunity, as we did in the past near Kyiv, Kharkiv, Balakliya and Kupyansk,” he said.

Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that all types of notifications between Russia and the United States under the nuclear New START treaty have been suspended.

Russian state media said that Ryabkov’s statement included suspending notifications on test missile launches, although Ryabkov himself was not specific on that point. Such notifications are covered by the original 1988 treaty, which remains in force.

Ryabkov did say that "there will be no notifications at all. All formats are suspended.”

On Tuesday, CNN reported that senior US officials had disclosed that Russia will not provide the United States with data on its nuclear forces that is normally shared semi-annually – and in response, the US said it will not do so either.

Moscow’s move not to provide the information comes after President Vladimir Putin in February suspended Russia’s participation in the New START treaty, the only bilateral agreement left between the world’s two largest nuclear powers. 

On Tuesday, Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy John Plumb said that the US had pressed Russia about the exchange of information, due at the end of this month.  

“Russia responded that they will not be providing that information,” he said. “And so as a diplomatic countermeasure, the United States will not be providing that information back.”

Notices about missile tests and other events involving nuclear weapons have been an important part of preserving strategic stability for decades. They ensure that neither Russia and the United States misinterpret each other’s moves.

What to know about New START: The treaty puts limits on the number of deployed intercontinental-range nuclear weapons that both the US and Russia can have. It was last extended in early 2021 for five years, meaning the two sides would soon need to begin negotiating on another arms control agreement. Under the key nuclear arms control treaty, both the United States and Russia are permitted to conduct inspections of each other's weapons sites, though inspections had been halted since 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

CNN's Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler contributed previous reporting to this post.

A member of the Russian feminist punk group Pussy Riot is now on Russia’s federal wanted list, according to an interior ministry database.

Nadezhda Tolokonnikova is wanted under a criminal article, according to the interior ministry list published by the independent Russian outlet Mediazona. At the beginning of this month, a case was introduced against Tolokonnikova for “insulting the religious feelings of believers," as outlined in Russia's Criminal Code.

Tolokonnikova is no longer in Russia. She was recently in the United States.

She was declared a foreign agent in December. In that same month, Pussy Riot issued an anti-war statement and video, “Mama, Don’t Watch TV,” condemning Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The chorus of the song was inspired by the words of a captured Russian conscript soldier who, in a telephone conversation with his mother, said "Mom, there are no Nazis here, don't watch TV." 

“This is the music of our anger, indignation, disagreement, a reproachful desperate cry against Putin's bloodthirsty puppets, led by a real cannibal monster, whose place is in the infinity of fierce hellish flames on the bones of the victims of this terrible war,” Pussy Riot said in a statement shared with CNN.

In 2012, Tolokonnikova and two other members of Pussy Riot, Maria Alyokhina and Ekaterina Samutsevich, were sentenced to two years in prison after performing a "punk prayer" in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. 

The 13-year-old daughter of a Russian man sentenced to two years in prison for anti-war posts online has written him a letter from the orphanage where she has been sent, telling him that "we will win."

“Know that we will win, that victory will be ours, no matter what happens, we are together, we are a team, you are the best,” according to the letter from Masha Moskalyova to her father Alexey Moskalyov. The letter was released at Moskalyov's request, according to his lawyer Dmitry Zakhvatov.

In April 2022, Masha drew a picture of Russian missiles being fired at a Ukrainian family and wrote “No to war” and “Glory to Ukraine” during her art class. Her school subsequently called the police, who later visited the family home. 

A court in the Tula region, south of Moscow, sentenced Moskalyov to two years in jail on Tuesday for a series of anti-war online postings. But he had escaped his house arrest, which began earlier this month, the night before the hearing, according to a court spokesperson.

Masha was sent to an orphanage when her father began his house arrest. 

Masha told her father in the letter that “everything is fine with me, I love you very much and know that you are not guilty of anything, I am always for you and everything you do is right.” 

“I don’t want to write about my health and mood, I don’t want to upset you, but I understood that the bitter truth is better than the sweet lie,” she added.

She ends the letter with a peace sign. Describing her father as her hero, she said, “I will give this pendant to you as the bravest person in the world!”

What the Kremlin says: Asked about the case, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday he could not comment as it was the court’s decision.

“The matter of the story with the child is completely different," he claimed. "Indeed, the state of things with the fulfillment of parental duties and with ensuring the child's living is very deplorable.”

“Everything is much more complicated there, everything is not so straightforward,” Peskov said.

Correction: An earlier version of this post gave an incorrect age for Masha Moskalyova.

The International Olympic Committee’s guidelines that allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutral participants at international competitions have “elements of discrimination,” according to the Kremlin.

Russian and Belarusian athletes were banned from most international competitions in February 2022 after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, following IOC executive board recommendations. 

On Tuesday, IOC President Thomas Bach outlined new guidelines that would allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals, paving the way for their return to international competitions. 

“Such recommendations (by the IOC) were characterized as containing elements of discrimination, which is unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call. 

According to the recommendations, athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport must compete only as individual neutral athletes and meet all anti-doping requirements, while those who support the war or are contracted to military or national cannot compete. 

The IOC also said that a decision about the participation of athletes with a Russian or Belarusian passport at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games would be made at a later stage. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency is working out a new concept for securing the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, its head Rafael Grossi said Wednesday, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti. 

“We are developing a concept that is aimed at protecting the station more locally," Grossi told reporters during his visit to the plant, RIA Novosti reported.

Grossi reiterated that the situation at the nuclear facility is not improving and hostilities around it are intensifying. Measures must be taken to protect the station from any attacks, he added, according to RIA Novosti.

The UN nuclear watchdog chief arrived at the power plant Wednesday and inspected the territory together with Renat Karchaa, the adviser to the general director of Russia’s nuclear power operator Rosenergoatom, according to RIA Novosti.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is not planning to meet with Grossi during his visit to Zaporizhzhia, but Grossi remains in contact with Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy giant Rosatom, the Kremlin said earlier Wednesday.

The Kremlin continued to dig into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, with spokesperson Dmitry Peskov saying that the country sees a long-term “war in a broad context.”

“If you mean war in a broad context — a confrontation with hostile states and with unfriendly countries, a hybrid war that they unleashed against Russia — this is for long,” Peskov told reporters Wednesday.

“Here we need firmness, self-confidence, purposefulness, unity around President [Vladimir Putin],” he added.

Peskov was asked when Russia’s “special military operation” — the country's euphemism for its full-scale invasion of Ukraine — could end and if the Russian population was tired of it after over a year of battles.

In response, he said:

Remember: In the fall, Russian President Vladimir Putin's "partial mobilization" sparked rare protests and an exodus of men from the country.