March 20, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

The Russian Ministry of Defense has called on Mariupol local authorities to surrender the city to Russian forces, according to Russian state media outlet, RIA Novosti.

The news agency attributed its reporting to comments made by the head of the National Center for Defense Management of the Russian Federation, Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev.

“We appeal to the odious bandits, who are responsible for hundreds of lives of innocent people, and now call themselves representatives of the official local authorities, of this unique city Mariupol. We are aware that in the current situation little depends on you, since you are under the full control of nationalist battalions, but we very much hope that you, including the mayor of the city, have at least something human in you left, at least a sense of compassion for the civilians entrusted to you," Mizintsev said, according to RIA Novosti.

The Mariupol City Council said Saturday residents are being taken to Russia against their will by Russian forces.

Captured Mariupol residents were taken to camps where Russian forces checked their phones and documents, then redirected some of the residents to remote cities in Russia, the statement said, adding the "fate of the others is unknown."

In calling on city officials to surrender, RIA Novosti quoted Mizintsev, saying: "It is you who now have the right to a historic choice – either you are with your people, or you are with bandits. Otherwise the military tribunal that awaits you is only a minor thing that you have already deserved because of the despicable attitude towards your own citizens, as well as the terrible crimes and provocations already arranged by you."

RIA went on to report the Colonel-General said nearly 60,000 residents of Mariupol “found themselves in Russia in complete safety.”

A deputy commander of Russia's Black Sea Fleet, Captain of the First Rank Andrei Paliy, was killed during fighting in the region of the southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol, two senior Russian officials said.

In a statement on Telegram, Mikhail Razvozhaev, the governor of Sevastopol, said, "Andrei Nikolaevich chose to defend his homeland as his life's work and died for our peaceful future. In 1993, he refused to take the oath of allegiance to Ukraine, remained loyal to Russia by leaving for [Russia's] Northern Fleet."

Sevastopol is the headquarters for Russia's Black Sea Fleet. The port city is in Crimea, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014.

Ekaterina Altabaeva, a Russian senator from Sevastopol, said on VK.com, a popular Russian social network, that the city had "suffered a heavy, irreparable loss."

According to Altabaeva, Paliy graduated from the Kyiv Higher Naval Political School -- a school for political officers of the Soviet navy -- and took part in Russia's 2008 war against Georgia.

Thousands of Russian troops have been killed in Ukraine since Russia's invasion began nearly one month ago, US and NATO officials told CNN this week, and Russia is now struggling to resupply those forces as it faces sagging troop morale and fierce Ukrainian resistance.

US and allied intelligence assessments vary widely as to exactly how many Russian forces have been killed to date, sources familiar with the intelligence tell CNN. But even the lowest estimates are in the thousands.

One such assessment found approximately 7,000 Russian troops have been killed so far, said one of the sources. But that figure, first reported by The New York Times, is on the higher end of US estimates, which vary because the US and its allies have no precise way of counting casualties. Some estimates place the number of Russian troops killed in Ukraine at about 3,000, while others suggest more than 10,000 have died.

Four of the seven established humanitarian corridors out of the besieged southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol were operational on Sunday, said Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

In total, almost 7,295 people were evacuated during the day, Vereshchuk said in a video address. Among them, 3,900 people were evacuated from Mariupol to Zaporizhzhia by buses and private transport.

Russia's Defense Ministry also released a statement Sunday, claiming to have evacuated more than 330,000 people -- including 68,963 children -- since the invasion's beginning.

The United Nations said within the invasion's first week, more than one million Ukrainian refugees fled to neighboring countries.

The Russian military claimed on Sunday that it had launched a series of strikes on military targets in Ukraine employing hypersonic and cruise missiles on Saturday night and Sunday morning.

US officials have also confirmed to CNN that Russia launched hypersonic missiles against Ukraine last week, the first known use of such missiles in combat.

It's late Sunday night in Kyiv. Here are more of the headlines from Sunday in the Russia-Ukraine conflict:

Turkey wants to see Ukraine’s independence recognized and is working hard to achieve peace, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said during a party gathering in Antalya on Sunday.

While Turkey has strong ties to both Ukraine and Russia, the war between two large neighbors of Turkey is affecting the country as well as the rest of the world, he said. 

He believes both sides are close to an agreement in fundamental areas. Ukraine’s independence is among the conditions discussed which Turkey wants it to be guaranteed. Along with UN Security Council and Germany, Turkey wants to be guarantors for Ukraine’s independence. 

Ibrahim Kalin, the presidential spokesperson, posted updates on his Twitter page indicating Turkey is continuing their efforts to end the war in Ukraine. He took parts of his interview with Al Jazeera and posted this update: “The humanitarian toll is becoming heavier by the day. There will be no winners in this war. A peace deal is not impossible.” 

Kalin added: "The most difficult conditions to agree are Russia’s demand of recognition of Crimea annexation under Russia and also recognition of so-called independence of two republics in Donbas region. They are main issues and I think they are most difficult to reach an agreement on, Kalin added. The other four topics in discussion are Ukraine’s neutrality, disarmament and security guarantees for Ukraine, and work so-called de-Nazification”. 

Both officials emphasized President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has continuous communications with both Russian and Ukrainian officials in this process to achieve an end to the war.

Turkey hosted an international meeting last week, including a meeting between Ukrainian and Russian Foreign Ministers. 

As recent as last Friday, Russia launched missile strikes near an airport in Lviv, a strategic Ukrainian city not far from the Polish border that had until now largely been spared from the relentless bombardment witnessed across the rest of Ukraine during the war.

There are over 200,000 internally displaced people now in Lviv, a city of just over 700,000 people.

As Russia's invasion spreads further west of the city, these images capture moments of daily life in Lviv.

“Putin must not win this war,” Estonia’s Prime Minister Kaja Kallas told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Sunday, adding that it was “heartbreaking” to see what Russia is doing in Ukraine.

Kallas, who will be attending the upcoming NATO summit, said that NATO’s strategy should focus on ending the war by using “smart containment”, meaning that NATO should move from a “deterrence posture” to a secure “defense posture,” raising NATO nations’ contribution to strengthen each nation’s defense and ultimately NATO as a whole and focusing on cooperation. 

“There are some capabilities that are too expensive for any individual state, but if we do them together here in Europe to protect our territories, we are stronger,” she said, nations should move to isolate Russia “at all the political levels that is possible.”

When asked about Poland’s proposal to send peacekeepers to Ukraine, Kallas said that first peace must be achieved, and that Russia is not showing any intentions of achieving it. 

“We can only have a peacekeeping mission if we have peace, but you know, if you look at what is happening in Ukraine, peace is nothing that we see there. It's a war that is going on, and I don't see that Russia has any intention of doing anything to achieve peace. So first we should have peace, then, to keep it,” she said. “Sometimes in order to achieve peace, we have to have the willingness to use military power.” 

Kallas said they do not see the possibility of a third World War in Europe and that the effort should be on ending this war.

Kallas also compared deportations happening in Mariupol to what Russia did in the 1940s where Estonians were put in “cattle cars” sent to Siberia. 

She said that Putin’s is feeding into the right-wing narrative in Europe and the US by creating a refugee crisis.

“He is creating this huge migration pressure to Europe and what we see in different countries, we also see that the Far Right now picking up the tone” and not helping refugees coming from Ukraine, she added. 

“The enemy is Russia and not the refugees,” Kallas said.

US and NATO officials believe Russian President Vladimir Putin has not backed off his original demands in peace talks with Ukraine and there is a heavy dose of skepticism in western capitals about how credible Moscow’s engagement truly is — even as the status of those negotiations remains difficult to decipher, according to multiple sources briefed on the situation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has recently indicated he is willing to consider some concessions to Russia to help bring an end to the violence, including a neutrality policy albeit one underpinned by robust security guarantees, raising more questions about the current state of talks and specific elements of any peace deal that may be under consideration. 

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators have met four times since the start of Russia’s invasion.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov weighed in on the possibility of Ukraine agreeing to neutral status during a media event in Moscow on Saturday, saying “after our operation in Ukraine ends, and I hope its ends with a signing of a comprehensive agreement on the issues I mentioned — security issues, Ukraine's neutral status with the guarantees of its security as the President [Putin], a couple of months ago as I recall, commented at a news conference on our initiative of non-expansion of NATO, he said we understood every country needs guarantees of its security,” said Lavrov.

But details on negotiations remain scant with many NATO countries, and the US, remaining on the outside looking in when it comes to the secretive peace talks, with one European defense official calling negotiations “a bit of a dark avenue right now.”

The Biden administration still sees no indication that Putin is willing or ready to deescalate the conflict — making it difficult for US officials to be optimistic about the current state of negotiations, one source familiar with the situation said. 

But at the same time, this source also said that the US is not pressuring Ukraine to accept or reject specific concessions and is not involved in the negotiation process. 

CNN has reached out to the US National Security Council for comment but hasn’t received a response.

Read more here:

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US and NATO officials struggle to decipher status of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine

Kylie Atwood and Jennifer Hansler contributed to this report

Hundreds of people turned out Sunday in the central Ukrainian town of Enerhodar to protest the detention of its deputy mayor, Ivan Ignatevich Samoydyuk.

Enerhodar — which is close to the Zaporizhzia nuclear power station that was occupied by Russian forces on March 4 — has seen sporadic protests since.

There appeared to be scuffles with Russian soldiers around a vehicle, followed by volleys of shots into the air. 

Samoydyk's son — also named Ivan — told CNN that "about 30 minutes after the rally began, a military vehicle with five or six Russian soldiers arrived. They tried to detain two people but the residents fought back and didn`t let that happen."

He said: "Immediately after that, an armored personnel carrier accompanied by several dozen armed Russian soldiers arrived at the rally site to disperse the demonstration." 

Samoydyk told CNN that on Saturday "during a phone call with one of his subordinates, my father said that he was being stopped by the Russian military."

The younger Samoydyk added: "The big problem is that my father is responsible for the livelihood of the city," including providing food for the operational personnel at the Zaporizhzia plant.

"The staff of the Zaporizhzhya NPP is extremely concerned about the events taking place in the city, and does not know whether it is safe for them to go to their shifts at all, whether they risk disappearing at any time in the same way it happened to my father," Samoydyk told CNN.