Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine

Ukrainian Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko told CNBC that the country should use China as leverage to help bring an end to the conflict with Russia.

His comments come shortly after Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Chinese President Xi Jinping held their first phone call since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February last year.

“I am not fully convinced that we can emphasize something particular after this conversation but what I truly can tell you is that it is important to continue dialogue between our countries,” Marchenko told CNBC’s Silvia Amaro.

“We really understand the importance of China and we really understand the importance for us to create our own relationship with China and to prevent China to [fully] support Russia.”

Asked whether China could be seen as Ukraine’s best friend in the bid to find a compromise for peace, Marchenko replied, “Of course not. Our best friend is the United States, the G-7 nations and all our partners which is supporting Ukraine.”

He added that Kyiv “should use China as leverage to win this war,” saying the country must use every opportunity “to convince Russia to stop this bloody war in Ukraine.”

— Sam Meredith

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reflected on what he described as another night of Russian terror, saying 10 residential buildings were damaged by missile attacks in the central Ukrainian city of Uman.

He said at the time of sharing his message via Twitter that seven people were killed, while others were injured in the attacks.

“Evil can be stopped by weapons – our defenders are doing it. And it can be stopped by sanctions – global sanctions must be enhanced,” Zelenskyy said.

— Sam Meredith

A wave of Russian missile attacks early on Friday hit several cities across Ukraine, killing at least five people and injuring others, according to Ukrainian officials.

The barrage comes at a time when analysts see the potential for an imminent Ukrainian counteroffensive, with the Eastern European country bolstered by billions of dollars worth of Western military and economic support.

In Uman, in central Ukraine’s Cherkasy Oblast, a rescue mission is underway after two cruise missiles hit residential and warehouse buildings, killing three people and injuring eight others, Ihor Taburets, the head of the Cherkasy Regional Military Administration, said via Telegram.

In the central city of Dnipro, the city’s mayor said a Russian missile attack killed a young woman and child.

Air raid sirens were heard in Kyiv after a Russian airstrike hit the capital for the first time in 51 days, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration. No casualties were reported among the civilian population; a local power line was said to have been cut off because of falling debris.

— Sam Meredith

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Friday said the real aim of the West in Ukraine is to strategically defeat Russia, to pose a threat to China, and to maintain its own monopoly position, state-owned news agency RIA reported.

RIA cited him as adding that “almost all” NATO countries had deployed their military capabilities against Russia.

— Reuters

Curators at the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in Kyiv display a variety of items left by Russian soldiers when they occupied areas around Kyiv during the first part of Russia’s 2022 invasion.

Russia ultimately retreated from the capital area, concentrating its land war in the east. 

The Biden administration announced a first round of sanctions targeting Russia and Iran for engaging in hostage-taking and the wrongful detention of U.S. citizens abroad.

The U.S. sanctions take aim at Russia’s Federal Security Service, often known as the FSB, and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organization, or IRGC IO.

“Our action is a warning to those around the world who would wrongfully detain U.S. nationals, the potential consequences of their actions,” a senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on a call with reporters.

The administration has identified at least two American citizens wrongfully detained in Russia and three in Iran along with one legal permanent U.S. resident.

During opening remarks before Monday’s U.N. Security Council meeting, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield spoke directly to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and called for the immediate release of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich and former U.S. Marine Paul Whelan, both detained in Russia.

Thomas-Greenfield invited Elizabeth Whelan, the sister of Paul Whelan, to attend a U.N. Security Council meeting.

“I want minister Lavrov to look into her eyes and see her suffering. I want you to see what it’s like to miss your brother for four years. To know he is locked up, in a Russian penal colony, simply because you want to use him for your own ends,” Thomas-Greenfield said.

Whelan was arrested on espionage charges in 2018 and sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in a Russian penal colony in 2020.

Read the full story here.

— Amanda Macias