March 19, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

There are conflicting reports over the status of one of Ukraine’s key industrial facilities – the Azov Steel plant in Mariupol.   

Late Friday, a government advisor reported the plant was in Russian hands after ongoing battles with Ukrainian troops for control of the seafront site. 

But in an update Saturday, the Azov battalion, which has a large presence in Mariupol, said the plant remained in their hands.  

“The enemy has not reached this far into the city. The [Ukrainian] navy, along with the Azov battalion, along with the police, continue defending the city and its civilians,” battalion member Vladislav Sobolievskyi told Ukrainian television.  

“Today the Azov Steel plant is under our control. Air strikes hit the whole city, including the plant, but the enemy has not laid his hands on our plant.” 

The giant steelworks lies immediately to the east of Mariupol city centre. Losing control of the facility to Russian forces would be a huge setback to Ukrainian efforts to hang on to the city. 

Russia's Ministry of Defense said Saturday powerful hypersonic "Kinzhal" missiles destroyed a military ammunitions warehouse in western Ukraine on Friday.

"On March 18, the Kinzhal aviation missile system with hypersonic aeroballistic missiles destroyed a large underground warehouse of missiles and aviation ammunition of Ukrainian troops in the village of Delyatin, Ivano-Frankivsk region," the ministry said. 

CNN is unable to independently verify this claim. 

The ministry has previously made claims that the highly maneuverable missile, which travels faster than the speed of sound, is unmatched for potency when coupled with its MiG-31 fighter jets.

In his 2018 annual address to Russia's parliament, President Vladimir Putin said Russia had developed an "invincible" missile that could deliver a warhead at hypersonic speed.

Rescue operations were still underway in Mykolaiv Saturday morning at the scene of a missile strike on a barracks housing soldiers, regional boss Vitalli Kim said. 

Dozens of troops are reported to have been killed in the attack by Russian forces, according to journalists from CNN Swedish affiliate Expressen who were at the scene.

Expressen correspondent Magnus Falkehed and photojournalist Niclas Hammarström reported that around 6 a.m. local time on Friday (12 a.m. ET), “Two Russian fighter jets dropped what appeared to be five bombs,” destroying several buildings at the barracks. 

Speaking on his Telegram channel Saturday, Kim said he was not yet able to provide information on fatalities, as he was waiting for official data.  

Rescuers at the scene have been using shovels and their bare hands to free survivors from the rubble of the buildings. In dramatic video filmed by Expressen, one Ukrainian soldier is seen being pulled alive from wreckage. 

Expressen quoted one of the surviving soldiers, 54-year-old Serhil, who was sleeping in the barracks opposite where the attack hit, as saying, “of the approximately 200 who were there, I would guess about 90% did not survive.” 

"Glass flew everywhere. I prayed to God that I would have time to take shelter before more bombs came. There are always more bombs," Nikita, a 22-year-old Ukrainian soldier, told Expressen. 

Mykolaiv, a southern city that sits along the Black Sea, has been a frequent target of Russian attacks. 

It is seen as a strategic target for Russian land forces in any move to capture Ukraine's third-largest city, Odesa, which lies further west along the coast. 

Norway's Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre said Saturday that four US soldiers have died in a plane crash. 

"It is with great sadness we have received the message that four American soldiers died in a plane crash last night," he said on his official Twitter account. 

"The soldiers participated in the NATO exercise Cold Response. Our deepest sympathies go to the soldiers' families, relatives and fellow soldiers in their unit," he added. 

According to NATO: "Cold Response 2022 is a long-planned and regular exercise, which Norway hosts biannually. This year’s exercise was announced over eight months ago. It is not linked to Russia’s unprovoked and unjustified invasion of Ukraine, which NATO is responding to with preventive, proportionate and non-escalatory measures."

Russia continues to make "incremental gains" in Ukraine's south and has used "brutal, savage techniques'' in the way it has targeted civilians, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Saturday.

"In terms of Russians' progress in the south, I would say that they continue to make incremental gains. I would also say that they've used some brutal, savage techniques in terms of the way that they've been targeting civilian populations," Austin said during a joint press conference with Bulgaria's Prime Minister Kiril Petkov in Sofia. 

"And again, we would hope that they [Russia] would choose a different path," Austin added. The amount of pain that the civilians have endured "has been hard to watch," he said. 

Austin also said Europe faces its "largest security challenge in generations," and that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s "war of choice" against Ukraine has been "tragic."

"Russia’s aggression has galvanized the Ukrainian people, NATO, and the free world," Austin said. "Our commitment to Article 5 is ironclad."

"Improving Bulgaria’s military readiness and NATO interoperability is even more vital today," Austin said, adding "the United States will continue to stand strong with Bulgaria and our other NATO Allies."

Austin condemned Russia’s "reckless and ruthless aggression against a peaceful neighbor" and praised Bulgaria for helping Ukrainian civilians.

Austin has traveled to Bulgaria and Slovakia this week as part of a trip to bolster NATO allies.

More context: Troops have made progress in the south of the country using tactics "ripped from the Syria playbook," Mason Clark, lead Russia analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, told CNN Friday evening.

These tactics include "specific neighborhood-by-neighborhood targeting," less precise weapons that take a more brutal toll, and hitting civilian infrastructure, he said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky has called for negotiations on peace "without delay" and warned that otherwise Russia's losses would be "huge." 

Speaking on Saturday, Zelensky said that "negotiations on peace, on security for us, for Ukraine -- meaningful, fair and without delay -- are the only chance for Russia to reduce the damage from its own mistakes," in his latest video message. 

"We have always insisted on negotiations. We have always offered dialogue, offered solutions for peace," he said. "And I want everyone to hear me now, especially in Moscow. It's time to meet. Time to talk. It is time to restore territorial integrity and justice for Ukraine."

"Otherwise, Russia's losses will be so huge, that several generations won't be enough to rebound," Zelensky added. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin laid out his justification for the invasion of Ukraine at a rally in Moscow on Friday, where his speech was abruptly cut off on the state TV broadcast in what the Kremlin described as a technical error.

Tens of thousands of people waved the Russian flag at the national stadium as they took part in celebrations commemorating the eighth year of Russia's annexation of Crimea -- which is deemed illegal by the Ukrainian government and not recognized in the West.

Speaking from a stage in front of a banner that read, "For a world without Nazism," Putin said Russia "will definitely implement all our plans" in Ukraine.

Read the full story here.

Russia has so far been "surprised by the scale and ferocity" of Ukrainian resistance and has been "forced to change its operational approach," the UK Ministry of Defence said in its latest intelligence update on Saturday.

Grip on media: Amid the invasion, Russian President Vladimir Putin has reinforced his control over the country's media, the ministry said. "The Kremlin is attempting to control the narrative, detract from operational problems and obscure high Russian casualty numbers from the Russian people," the ministry said.

More than 3 million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia's invasion, with most going to neighboring Poland.

But only the smallest trickle — about 690 — have come to the United States as refugees since last October. That means essentially no Ukrainians of those 3 million who left since the war began have come to the US.

Why haven't more been allowed? It's a story of red tape and the broken immigration system, which the Biden administration, despite a desire to welcome refugees, has been unable to change.

"I will welcome the Ukrainian refugees," President Joe Biden said from the White House on March 11.

But it is not currently possible for American families to sponsor Ukrainian refugees. Multiple sources have told CNN the administration is discussing ways to help Ukrainian refugees join family members already living in the US.

That's something Poland's President has been pushing for; last week he asked Vice President Kamala Harris to speed up and simplify the procedures allowing Ukrainians with family in the US to come here.

It takes years to become a refugee in the US. The process takes so long because of the processing and screening time that's required — leaving limited, typically time-consuming options for Ukrainians seeking to enter the US.

Limit on refugees: Last May, Biden raised the cap on US refugees from the very low 15,000 set by the Trump administration to 62,500 in 2021, in line with the recent past, and then raised it again to 125,000.

But those caps are far below ones from the 1980s, when the US welcomed hundreds of thousands of refugees each year.

Read the full analysis:

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