May 18, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Amnesty International has said that Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered at the Azovstal plant in Mariupol must not be ill-treated and should get immediate access to the International Red Cross.

“Ukraine’s soldiers deployed in Mariupol area have been dehumanized by Russian media and portrayed in Putin’s propaganda as ‘neo-Nazis’ throughout Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine," said Denis Krivosheev, Amnesty’s deputy director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

"This characterization raises serious concerns over their fate as prisoners of war," he said. “Prisoners of war must not be subjected to any form of torture or ill-treatment, and should be given immediate access to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The relevant authorities must fully respect the rights of prisoners of war in accordance with the Geneva conventions.”

Amnesty had documented summary killings of captives by Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine as well as extra-judicial executions of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces, Krivosheev said.

“The soldiers who surrendered today must not meet the same fate," Amnesty said.

The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson said, "no one should doubt" that the fighters will be treated in accordance with international law.

Humanitarian laws "are sacred for the Russian side," Maria Zakharova said at a Foreign Ministry briefing underway in Moscow. 

Russian personnel are providing medical help to the injured Ukrainian soldiers, Zakharova said, adding "this is not for show" and will continue. 

The leader of the self-declared Donetsk People's Republic, Denis Pushilin, said that Ukrainian commanders inside the Azovstal plant in Mariupol are not among those who have so far surrendered.

Both the DPR and the Russian defense ministry said that about 960 of the Azovstal defenders have surrendered. Some have been taken to hospitals but most were taken on buses to a detention center at Olenivka inside the DPR, according to video Tuesday. 

Donetsk's news agency quoted Pushilin as saying that “at the moment, there are no top-ranking commanders — they have not left (the Azovstal plant). But this is for now."

CNN is unable to verify Pushilin's comments, and it's not known how many Ukrainian soldiers remain inside the plant.

The Ukrainian side has not given an update on the number who have left Azovstal or on the status of negotiations for their exchange for Russian prisoners.

Ukraine’s military announced late Monday that its forces had completed their “combat mission” at the sprawling Azovstal steelworks plant, which was for weeks the last major holdout in a city otherwise occupied by Russian troops.

Finland’s main gas company, Gasum, is warning that Russian gas supplies could be cut off this weekend.

In a statement, the firm said: “Gasum considers there to be a real risk of the natural gas supplies under the company’s gas supply contract ending and that it is likely that imports of natural gas from Russia to Finland will cease either late on Friday, May 20 or on Saturday, May 21, 2022. Gasum has not received any information about the matter from Gazprom Export or from the Russian transmission operator.”

Gasum said it is preparing for this situation with customers and the government, and it is working on other sources for supplies.

On Tuesday, Gasum said it would not pay for Russian gas in rubles or use Gazprom’s proposed payment scheme for gas. In a statement, the company said negotiations over a long-term gas contract with Gazprom were in dispute, and it was taking Gazprom to arbitration to try and resolve the matter. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed on Wednesday new macro-financial assistance to Ukraine of up to 9 billion euros ($9.5 billion) this year.

"We will continue to be by their side throughout this war and when they will rebuild their country," von der Leyen said during a broadcast statement.

"Of course we need to think about the day after and the wider reconstruction efforts," she said, adding that the EU has "a strategic interest in leading this reconstruction effort."

The European Union Commission announced a 210 billion euro plan ($221 billion) on Wednesday to boost the bloc’s target for renewable energy from 40% to 45% by 2030, as part of efforts to move away from Russian hydrocarbons. 

The Commission’s proposals would see the EU’s total renewable energy generation capacities increase to 1236 GW by 2030, with greater reliance on solar and bio methane energy, as well as accelerated electrification of European heavy industry.

As part of the plan, Von der Leyen also promised to speed up permits for renewable energy infrastructure, from as long as six to nine years currently to obtain permits for a wind turbine park down to one year. 

The so-called REPowerEU plan proposes a near doubling in the EU’s current solar photovoltaic capacity by 2025, to more than 320 GW of supply, with a total of 600 GW installed by 2030, the bloc said. Proposed measures will also see a “gradual obligation to install solar rooftop panels in certain buildings,” according to the Commission. 

These additional solar energy capacities could replace the consumption of 9 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas annually by 2027, per the Commission’s press release. The EU imported 358 bcm of natural gas in 2019, according to the bloc.

Reliance on Russia makes the EU "vulnerable," and ending the "dependency" is imperative," she added. "I am deeply convinced we can," said von der Leyen.

Russia said Wednesday that nearly 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers have surrendered at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol since Monday. It comes the day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that evacuations at the plant -- a powerful symbol of Ukrainian resistance in the otherwise Russian-occupied city -- were still ongoing.

Meanwhile, Finland and Sweden have formally handed in their applications to join NATO, the military alliance's Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday, in defiance of Russian warnings.

Here are the latest developments on the war in Ukraine:

Here's a look at the latest situation on the ground:

Ukrainian officials in the Donetsk region said the whole front line is being "shelled day and night" by Russian forces.

Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of Donetsk region military administration, said that settlements — namely Bakhmut, Kostiantynivka and Soledar — more than 20 kilometers (about 12 miles) from the front line were also being attacked with air strikes.

CNN geolocated a large fire Tuesday at an industrial plant near Soledar, which belongs to a German company that makes building materials.

The Russian defense ministry said Wednesday that warehouses of missile, artillery weapons and ammunition had been attacked in Soledar and Bakhmut.

Kyrylenko confirmed that the Russians had tried to break through Ukrainian lines northeast of the city of Sloviansk.

"This was the large-scale offensive in Donbas region, which started from the north of the region, from the Dolyna settlement," he said. The village is about 20 kilometers (12 miles) north of Sloviansk. 

On a different front close to the city of Donetsk, Kyrylenko said that "the enemy outnumbers [us] with its equipment and troops but we have been eliminating them."

Russian forces also focused around the town of Avdiivka, where "there were attempts at a breakthrough," he said.

Russia has declared 34 French diplomats “persona non grata” in the country in response to a decision by France to expel 41 Russian diplomats in April, Russia's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. 

French Ambassador to Moscow Pierre Levy was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on Wednesday, and "strong protest was expressed in connection with the provocative and unjustified decision" of French authorities to declare 41 Russian diplomats in France “persona non grata,” the ministry said. 

"It was emphasized that this act inflicts serious damage to Russian-French relations and constructive bilateral cooperation," the Russian Foreign Ministry said. 

"As a response, 34 French diplomats have been declared 'persona non grata'," the ministry added. "They were ordered to leave the territory of Russia within two weeks from the date of delivery of the relevant note to the Ambassador."

France issued a statement and said it "strongly condemns" this move.

“The work of these diplomats and the staff of our embassy in Russia, whose courage and great professionalism France salutes, is fully within the framework of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic and consular relations. The decision of the Russian authorities has no legitimate basis. We can only condemn it.”

In a similar fashion, Russia also expelled 27 Spanish diplomats in Russia in response to a decision by Spain to expel 27 Russian diplomats from the country in April, Russia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement Wednesday.

The Russian foreign ministry has been expelling employees of many embassies in similar retaliatory moves. Some of the most recent countries that received a similar response from Moscow include Finland, Germany, Bulgaria, Poland, Denmark and Norway among others.

A long line of journalists has formed outside a Kyiv courthouse, despite the morning drizzle, to hear from Vadim Shishimarin, the first Russian soldier to be tried for war crimes since the war began.

Shishimarin is expected to take the stand for the first time after a preliminary hearing that was held last Friday.

His lawyer told CNN that Shishimarin, who is accused of shooting an unarmed civilian in the Sumy region four days after the war began, will be entering a plea.

It is the first war crimes trial held since Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24. The prosecutor expects there to be many more.

So far, more than 12,000 war crimes have been recorded by Ukrainian authorities.