October 14, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Russian government has announced plans to complete repairs to the Crimea bridge by July 1, 2023, according to a decree published on the government's portal.

The road and rail bridge was badly damaged in an explosion last weekend. Russia has blamed Ukraine's security services for the attack, allegedly carried out with a bomb concealed inside a truck.

The decree, signed by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, states that the Nizhneangarsktransstroy Company has been appointed as the sole contractor for the restoration and reconstruction of the Crimean bridge.

The decree said "the deadline for concluding state contracts for the performance of work specified [is] July 1, 2023,"

Russian forces have launched hundreds of missile strikes in Ukraine over the past week, most of them at civilian targets, a senior US military official said Friday.

The official said Russians are mainly targeting civilians, especially civilian infrastructure including “electricity or bridges or otherwise.”

“They have been used at civilian targets either indiscriminately or certainly in a deliberate way as it relates to infrastructure targets like electricity or bridges or otherwise,” the official said.

Putin's deadly onslaught: Viewed as retaliation for the bridge blast, the wave of deadly missile attacks began Monday and caused major damage to power systems across Ukraine, forcing people to reduce consumption to avoid blackouts.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that there is no need for more “massive” strikes against Ukraine “at least for now.” He also said he had no regrets for his actions.

Russia continues to face international backlash for the war and global outrage at its targeting of civilians. European lawmakers voted overwhelmingly Thursday to declare Russia a “terrorist” regime.

Russia is desperately searching for ways around Western sanctions in order to resupply its military, a top US official said in an exclusive CNN interview on Friday. Meanwhile, Russia's stockpiles of advanced weapons are rapidly dwindling in Ukraine and it can’t secure the parts to replace them.

Here's what Wally Adeyemo, the deputy secretary of the US Treasury, told CNN’s Kevin Liptak:

More background: CNN reported earlier Friday that Western sanctions have sharply curtailed Russia’s ability to replenish the munitions it is using in Ukraine, according to a new analysis from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.

The details of the analysis were shared in a presentation with senior finance officials from nearly 30 nations Friday, who gathered at the Treasury Department for an update from Adeyemo, among other US officials.

The battlefield is "complicated but controlled" as Ukrainian forces push ahead with their counteroffensive to take back parts of the country seized by Russia in the early days of Moscow's invasion, Commander-in-Chief of Ukraine's Armed Forces Valerii Zaluzhnyi said Thursday.

Take a look at where the state of control stands in Ukraine:

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Moscow would shut down corridors established for the export of Ukrainian grain if they are used to carry out “terrorist attacks.”

"If it turns out that humanitarian corridors are used for terrorist attacks, this will put the grain agreement into question," Putin told reporters in the Kazakh capital of Astana. 

Putin on Friday suggested a link between the safe corridors and the recent attack on the Kerch bridge in Crimea, claiming that it’s possible the explosives for the attack were sent by sea from Odesa.

Some background on the grain deal: Since July, ships carrying grain from Ukrainian ports in Odesa have been allowed to navigate a safe corridor through the Black Sea as part of a UN-brokered agreement between Kyiv and Moscow after five months of Russian blockade.

The deal is set to expire in November.

Putin's remarks come as a Russian diplomat Gennady Gatilov suggested on Thursday that his country could potentially leave the deal. “If we see nothing is happening on the Russian side of the deal – export of Russian grains and fertilizers – then excuse us, we will have to look at it in a different way,” he said, according to Reuters. "We are not against deliveries of grains but this deal should be equal, it should be fair and fairly implemented by all sides." 

Ukraine says it's developing new technology to combat the waves of attacks by Iranian-made drones that Russia has bought.

Oleksii Reznikov, the Ukrainian defense minister, said Friday that he believed Russia currently had some 300 Iranian-made attack drones, "and they are trying to purchase a few thousand more such drones. We will see whether it happens or not, but we have to be prepared."

The Russians were using Iranian "kamikaze" drones in groups, partly to detect the disposition of Ukrainian air defenses, Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military in the south, said on Thursday. "Now they are starting to use them almost all over the territory of Ukraine, they are using them from the northern directions, not only from the south."

In the southern region, Ukrainian air defenses shot down 109 drones and 33 had hit targets, Humeniuk added, saying most had been aimed at civilian infrastructure.

"The fact that they are trying to use these drones on critical infrastructure facilities, to deprive us of water, heat, electricity, corresponds to the tactical and technical characteristics and purpose of these kamikaze drones, because they work like matches. [The drone] sets fire to the object and disables it not with an explosion, but more with a fire," she explained.

Russian leader Vladimir Putin said on Friday that there is no need for more “massive” strikes against Ukraine “at least for now.”  

His comments come after a week of deadly strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine, including in the Kyiv region.

When asked if he had regrets about his actions in Ukraine, Putin said: "I have no regrets. I want to make it clear that what is happening now is unpleasant.” 

He went on to stress that Russia actions in Ukraine are right and timely.   

Read more here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said that there are no plans to expand the military mobilization and that the drive will be over within two weeks.

Some 222,000 out of the planned 300,000 Russians have already been drafted into the army so far, the Russian leader added.

Some background: Last month, Putin called for “partial mobilization” of Russia’s population to support the war in Ukraine. It came at a time when a sudden counteroffensive from Kyiv recaptured thousands of square miles of territory and put Moscow on the backfoot. Experts have said Russia’s forces have been significantly depleted.

Western sanctions have sharply curtailed Russia's ability to replenish the munitions it is using in Ukraine, according to a new analysis from the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence, forcing Moscow to task its intelligence services with finding ways to evade restrictions and procure the critical technology and parts to sustain its war effort.

Russia has lost more than 6,000 pieces of equipment since the war began nearly eight months ago, the analysis obtained by CNN shows, with the country's military struggling to acquire the microchips, engines and thermal imaging technology required to make new weapons.

Sweeping Western restrictions on exports to Russia have forced the country's defense industrial facilities to periodically go idle. Two of the country's largest domestic microelectronics manufacturers were forced to temporarily halt production because they weren't able to secure necessary foreign components. And a shortage of bearings — a low-tech component — has undermined the production of tanks, aircraft, submarines and other military systems.

Even as early as May, only a few months into the war, the Russian defense industry found itself short of supplies and components for marine diesel engines, helicopter and aircraft parts and fire control systems, according to the analysis. And Russia has turned to Soviet-era tanks, removing them from storage to use in Ukraine.

The details were shared in a presentation with senior finance officials from nearly 30 nations Friday, who gathered at the Treasury Department for an update from Deputy US Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo, Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves and Deputy Director of National Intelligence Morgan Muir on the sanctions' effectiveness in choking off Russia's military industrial complex.

Read more here.