May 23, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Denmark has agreed to provide Ukraine with a Harpoon launcher and missiles to “help Ukraine defend its coast,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said at the conclusion of the second Ukraine Contact Group meeting hosted by Austin on Monday. The second contact group meeting was held virtually. 

The Czech Republic also agreed to send “substantial support” to Ukraine including “a recent donation of attack helicopters, tanks and rocket systems,” Austin said at a press conference at the conclusion of the meeting.

Overall, 20 countries “announced new security assistance packages,” after the meeting, Austin said, including “donating critically needed artillery ammunition, coastal defense systems and tanks and other armored vehicles.”

“Others came forward with new commitments for training Ukraine’s forces and sustaining its military systems,” Austin added.

A total of 47 countries participated in the contact group’s second meeting, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley said.

Secretary Austin will host the third meeting of the Ukraine Contact Group in person in Brussels on June 15, Austin said at the conclusion of the second virtual meeting of the contact group Monday. 

“I will convene the Contact Group for our third meeting next month and will gather in person this time, on June 15, in the margins of the NATO defense ministerial in Brussels,” Austin said. “Of course, it won't be a NATO event, but we want to keep up the, up, keep up the tempo of these meetings and I wanted to use my travel to Europe to ensure that we're building on our momentum.”

Ukrainian refugees in Germany will be able to exchange banknotes of their currency — the Ukrainian hryvnia — into euros from Tuesday without exchange rates, as agreed by the German finance ministry, German Federal Bank, the German banking industry and the National Bank of Ukraine.

"Refugees can exchange a total amount of up to 10,000 hryvnia into euros at participating German banks and savings banks,“ the German finance ministry said Monday in a press release.

Germany will cover for exchange losses, it noted.

At least one person has been killed in a Russian missile attack on Malyn, in the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, according to the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s Air Command Center said Russian forces fired "naval-based cruise missiles" from the southeastern direction at infrastructure facilities in Zhytomyr on Sunday.

Bunechko's comments were reported in a Telegram post by Ukraine's Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security.

The center added that its air defense units had destroyed four Russian cruise missiles.

Three missiles were destroyed by aircraft, and one by an anti-aircraft missile unit of the Ukrainian air force, they added.

See moment missiles flew over Zhytomyr during a CNN interview:

Coffee giant Starbucks says it has exited Russia and will no longer have a brand presence there, according to a press release on Monday. 

The coffee company says it has been operating in Russia for 15 years and has now closed its 130 licensed cafes in the country. Starbucks joins other companies like McDonald’s and Exxon Mobil in taking its business completely out of Russia. 

Starbucks says it will “support” its nearly 2,000 workers in Russia, including pay for six months and assistance for partners to transition to new opportunities outside of Starbucks. 

This comes after Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson said in March that it had suspended all business activity in Russia, including shipment of all Starbucks products. 

The Biden Administration is in the early stages of potentially sending special operations forces (SOF) into Ukraine for the very limited mission of helping guard the US Embassy in Kyiv, according to several US officials. The idea of using SOF is in very preliminary stages and has not yet been presented to President Joe Biden for a decision, the sources said.

The embassy was re-opened last week after being closed for about three months.

For now, the embassy and its limited number of personnel are protected by State Department diplomatic security officials. The discussion centers around whether an increase in security is needed if the number of personnel increase, and whether SOF is best equipped to fulfill those requirements. 

US Marines typically guard US embassies around the world but in Kyiv, for now, there is a general agreement that the typical Marine Corps embassy guard personnel may not be suited to the uncertain security picture in Ukraine without additional forces, officials say.

The US doesn’t believe Russia would overtly attack the Embassy. But the concern is that Russia air defenses or missiles could inadvertently target the compound and the situation could dramatically escalate the officials say. US officials say Russia has a thorough understanding on an official basis that the US uses military personnel to guard its embassies around the world and any presence should not be viewed as escalatory. Still an introduction of US forces into Ukraine could raise concerns that it could lead to a perception of US escalation since President Biden has been adamant that US ground troops will not fight in Ukraine. 

The concern is if special operations forces go into Ukraine then the US must be able to provide a rapid means of getting them and embassy personnel out of Ukraine in a crisis. Currently the only options are vehicle or rail transport to the border.

For now, there is no appetite at the Pentagon to provide air support such as helicopters or fixed wing transport. If that was done, it could rapidly escalate the US military footprint because of the need to then provide potential rescue and reconnaissance forces if a US pilot was to go down.

The WSJ first reported that special operations forces are being considered for embassy security.

Dmytro Orlov, the mayor of the southeastern Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, claimed Monday that a column of vehicles leaving Russian-held territory had been blocked by Russian forces. 

CNN could not immediately verify Orlov's statement. Orlov said the vehicles were heading on the route from Zaporizhzhia, a Ukrainian government-held city that has been a destination for civilians fleeing Russian-held parts of southeastern Ukraine.

The Russian economy is "withstanding the impact of sanctions," President Vladimir Putin said Monday, despite a gloomy economic outlook for the country following the Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine.

"Despite all the difficulties, the Russian economy is withstanding the impact of the sanctions, and withstanding it quite well," Putin said in a meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi. "This is according to all the main macroeconomic indicators."

"Yes, it's not easy. Everything that happens requires special attention from the economic bloc of the government. On the whole, these efforts are having a positive effect," he added.

Russia's Central Bank said in late April the Russian economy is expected to shrink by 8 to 10% in 2022, noting a decline in economic activity in March after the imposition of international sanctions on Russia. Earlier the same month, the World Bank predicted that Russian GDP would shrink by 11.2% in 2022.

US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin welcomed more than 40 countries to the second Ukraine Contact Group meeting, held virtually, on May 23, almost three months to the day since the war in Ukraine began.

Austin thanked the defense ministers from the other 40 nations for attending and highlighted the progress made since the first contact group meeting at Ramstein Air Base in Germany last month, spotlighting Australia, Canada and the UK for military equipment they have provided to Ukraine since that meeting.

Since last month’s contact group meeting, Australia and Canada “committed to providing M777 Howitzers, and in just four weeks, all those systems have been delivered to the Ukrainians,” Austin said. The UK also “delivered brimstone missiles and a new short-range defense system,” and “many countries have pushed hard to stand up important new training missions, and we’ve watched these efforts make a real difference in real time,” he added. 

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, the deputy commander in chief of Ukraine’s armed forces and Ukraine’s defense intelligence representative joined the virtual meeting. Four new countries also joined the meeting who were not in attendance at Ramstein last month: Austria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Colombia, Ireland and Kosovo. 

Austin said he knows the other defense ministers on the call “understand the threat that Russian aggression poses to European security and to the rules-based international order that keeps us all secure.”

Today’s contact group meeting will “begin with presentations by Ukraine and US military leadership on the situation on the ground,” Laura Cooper, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine, Eurasia, said. Session one will “begin with a battlefield update on the current fight, how Ukraine is leveraging international donations, and Ukraine’s immediate combat requirements,” she added. 

Session two of the meeting will focus on “participating ministers” who “will announce progress made on donations,” to Ukraine, and session three will focus “on capabilities and coordination with a review of how we are meeting Ukraine’s priority requirements and overview of the international deconfliction and coordination cell and updates by ministers,” Cooper added.

The world faces a “perfect storm within a perfect storm” when it comes to the food crisis, according to the head of the UN World Food Programme, David Beasley.

There are 49 million people in 43 countries who are “knocking on famine’s door” and the world would face famine, destabilization and mass migration if we don’t get ahead of the problem, he said while speaking on a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

Beasley stressed that “there are enough leaders in Davos this week to end world hunger.”