February 23, 2023 - Town hall on Russia's war in Ukraine

The Biden administration is expecting China to put a peace plan on the table Friday with their ideas for resolving Russia's war in Ukraine, a US State Department official said Thursday. 

“We await to see what the Chinese put on the table, this is supposedly to be announced tomorrow,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department under secretary of political affairs, said during a conversation with the Washington Post. 

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi had previewed the forthcoming plan during remarks at the Munich Security Conference last weekend. After Wang traveled to Moscow later this week, however, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said he had not discussed the reported plan with China’s top diplomat. 

Nuland did not say how the Chinese will present the plan. There is a meeting tomorrow of the UN Security Council where China could plausibly make this presentation. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be at the meeting.

Nuland said it is important any agreement to end the war brings about a just and durable peace.

“It can’t simply be a cynical ceasefire that allows the Russians the time to go home, rest, refit and return,” Nuland said. “But listen if Xi Jinping can get Putin and his army out of Ukraine, I think we’d all applaud and give a peace price.”

Nuland said all parties are considering what can be done to support and help a peace plan. 

More background: In recent days, State Department officials have cast doubt on the idea that a Chinese peace plan would be effective. This comes as US officials have also cited concerns that China is considering providing lethal support to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. 

“China is trying to have it both ways. China is trying to broadcast and disguise itself in this veneer of neutrality, even as it deepens its engagement with Russia in key ways – politically, diplomatically, economically, and potentially in the security realm as well,” State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Wednesday. 

The G7 group of nations have committed $39 billion towards Ukraine’s financial and economic support for 2023, Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki said on Thursday. 

Speaking at a news conference after G7 finance ministers met in India, Suzuki said that the bloc had also asked the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to “accelerate their work to put together a support programme by March.” 

The G7 consists of the United States, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan.

On Monday, Ukraine’s Finance Minister Sergii Marchenko met with the managing director of the IMF, Kristalina Georgieva, in Kyiv, in a meeting he called very productive.  

Marchenko told CNN’s Julia Chatterley that "now we see our relationship is quite stable and we are moving in the direction of a fully-fledged program with the IMF." 

European Union ambassadors meeting in Brussels on Thursday have almost agreed on an entire 10th sanctions package against Russia albeit “with the exception of one element that still needs to be clarified,” an EU diplomat told CNN.

The diplomat spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity due to the confidentiality of the negotiations between the 27 EU ambassadors.

To ensure the “effectiveness of the sanctions,” the diplomat did not elaborate on which element of the package ambassadors were still discussing. 

Coinciding with the one-year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the ambassadors from the 27 EU countries “will meet again tomorrow at 10 a.m. (4 a.m. ET) for the final validation of the 10th sanctions package,” the diplomat added.

It could take more than a year for the US Army to deliver M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth said Thursday, and plans are still being drawn up on how they will be delivered — and when.

“I think it’s still to be determined as to whether tanks could get there by the end of the year,” she said. 

Among the options being presented to US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin are building tanks “from scratch,” Wormuth said. Typically, however, the Army modernizes existing tank variants instead of building them from scratch. 

She also said that they are looking at options that would include “countries that we’ve sold tanks to previously,” which could “presumably get tanks to the Ukrainians more quickly but might disrupt relations with important allies.” 

More on the tanks timeline: Since the US announced M1 Abrams tanks would be provided to Ukraine alongside other tanks from partner nations, US officials have cautioned that the timeline of getting them there could be substantial. 

And it’s not just about the tanks themselves; as Wormuth pointed out on Thursday, it’s also about the support will also include recovery vehicles, ammunition, and the training for Ukrainian troops that comes along with them. 

Editor’s Note: Warning: This story contains graphic imagery.

It has to count as one of the strangest PR campaigns in memory: using a pile of corpses to make your case to the powers that be.

That's what Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, appears to have done this week in an unusual public appeal for ammunition for his fighters in Ukraine. And in the process, he has cast a harsh light on his open feud with Russia's military leadership on the eve of the anniversary of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

On Wednesday, Prigozhin posted a picture on Telegram showing the bodies of several dozen slain Wagner fighters, piled unceremoniously in a courtyard. Alongside that shocking photo, he posted the image of a formal request from Wagner for more ammunition, pointing the finger of blame squarely at the Russian Ministry of Defense for squandering one of those lives. 

"This is one of the gathering places of the dead," Prigozhin said. "These are the guys who died yesterday due to the so-called 'shell starvation' [by the Russian MOD]. There should have been five times fewer of them. So mothers, wives and children will get their bodies."

Apparently, the message got through to someone. In a message and voice note Thursday, Prigozhin said a shipment of ammunition was now on its way to his forces. 

“Today at 6 am (local time, 11 a.m. ET) it was reported that shipment of ammunition begins,” he said. “Most likely, the train has started moving … we are told that the main papers have already been signed.”

What was the rationale behind this ghoulish spectacle? Prigozhin already has a reputation for callousness and cruelty: Late last year, around the New Year’s holiday, he visited a morgue stacked with the body bags of dead Wagner soldiers, many of whom had been recruited from prisons with a promise of amnesty.

“Their contracts are over,” he deadpanned. “They’re going home.”

But Prigozhin’s latest stunt appeared to raise the ante in the oligarch’s confrontation with Russia’s defense establishment, and with Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

Read more here.

CNN’s Tim Lister, Vasco Cotovio and Radina Gigova contributed reporting to this post.

Ukrainian officials say there have been further explosions in the Russian-occupied city of Mariupol, a supply hub and rear base for Moscow's forces.

Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of Mariupol, said there had been three explosions Thursday.

The official, who is not in Mariupol himself but maintains contacts there, said two strikes had hit the area of the Ilyich Iron and Steel Works. "The Armed Forces of Ukraine are surgically precisely hitting the bases of the occupiers," he said on Telegram.

"There is a third explosion, it was a hit near the airport. Again. We are finishing the job," he added.

The adviser also said Russian aircraft had been flying over the city at several points on Thursday. According to social media video and unofficial accounts, there have been several explosions around the city over the past two nights.

It's unclear what has caused the explosions and how many may be air defenses operating. Mariupol is beyond the range of Western-provided rockets systems and howitzers operated by the Ukrainian armed forces.

The city is about 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the nearest Ukrainian front line positions, which would be just beyond the range of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and M270 Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (MLRS) provided to Ukraine. 

Natalia Humeniuk, spokesperson for the Ukrainian military in the south, said only that "at this stage, we can only state that remoteness is a very relative concept. What is considered so remote that it is unreachable is not always so. The direction of Mariupol is no longer absolutely unreachable for us."

Ukrainian media have suggested that the military may have deployed a new locally-produced rocket system with greater range.

More on Russia's presence in Mariupol: There has been an extensive build up of Russian forces in and around Mariupol since November, according to Ukrainian officials and geolocated social media video.

In November, Andriushchenko posted a video and comment saying that "Russia continues to build up military personnel in Mariupol area. At least 30 trucks with manpower are moving through Mariupol daily." CNN cannot verify that number. 

This week, Andriushchenko reported that the "movement of military equipment towards Manhush/Berdiansk has resumed. A column of at least 7 trucks with ammo was recorded moving through Mariupol towards Manhush."

Why Mariupol is important to Moscow: Analysts say the supply routes from Mariupol to the west and north are essential to the Russians to hold defensive lines in neighboring Zaporizhzhia region against any Ukrainian counteroffensive.

NATO has seen "signs" that China is “considering and may be planning” to send arms to Russia to help in its war in Ukraine, the alliance’s chief Jens Stoltenberg said in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.  

“And China should of course not support Russia's illegal war, a blatant violation of international law,” he added.  

The NATO chief said China is a member of the United Nations Security Council and Russia's war against Ukraine is a violation of the UN Charter.

“The basic principle of that charter is to respect the integrity of other nations and not to march in and invade another country with hundreds of thousands of troops and of course, China should not be part of that,” he said.  

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said last week that Washington is concerned that China is considering providing “lethal support” to Russia’s war in Ukraine.  

Following a meeting with China’s top diplomat Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, Blinken said: “I warned China against providing materiel support to Russia.”

Finland will send three Leopard 2 mine clearing tanks to Ukraine, the Finnish defense ministry announced in a statement Thursday.

A mine clearing Leopard 2 tank is an adaptation designed for that purpose.

The tanks are part of Finland’s 13th package of defense support for Ukraine, which is worth over 160 million euros (approximately $170 million), the statement said.

Training on using and maintaining the tanks will also be included, it said. 

The Finnish defense ministry would not provide more detailed information on the aid’s delivery schedule “for operational reasons.”

Correction: An earlier version of this post had an incorrect US dollar figure.

The Ukrainian government is spending almost its entire peacetime budget on the army, according to Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“The state budget deficit last year amounted to about $31 billion. We received these funds from our partners. Mostly from the EU, G7, and the US, and from international financial institutions, including the IMF [International Monetary Fund]," Shmyhal told journalists in Kyiv Thursday.

Shmyhal thanked the European Commission for providing about $18 billion of macro-financial support for 2023. He said the United States will provide Ukraine with more than $10 billion, "and other G7 countries are also providing direct budget support."

He said Ukraine had completed the revision of the monitoring program with the IMF "and have come up with a large four-year program."

Shmyhal estimated Ukraine would need an additional $17 billion to promote what he described as "rapid recovery," after Ukraine's GDP declined some 30% in 2022.

He set out the government's priorities as firstly, "the restoration of the energy sector. Without it, it is impossible to talk about other social or humanitarian projects."

"The second is humanitarian demining...We need to demine 174,000 square kilometers (more than 67,181 square miles).

The prime minister said the third priority is to restore critical infrastructure and damaged housing, and the fourth is to promote economic recovery. 

"Due to the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians have lost more than 3 million jobs. Large extractive and metalworking enterprises in eastern Ukraine have been destroyed or occupied. That is why the Government is focusing on the development of microbusinesses, small and medium-sized enterprises," he added.