May 10, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of the war in Ukraine has?moved here.

U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi speaks to members of the media outside the West Wing of the White House following a meeting with President Joe Biden in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, May 10, 2022. The meeting comes hours before the House plans to vote on a nearly $40 billion aid bill for Ukraine.?

The Democratic-led House of Representatives voted on Tuesday evening to pass a?roughly $40 billion bill?to deliver aid to Ukraine as it continues to?face Russia’s brutal assault.

The measure will next need to be passed by the Senate before it can go to President Joe Biden to be signed into law.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said earlier in the day that after the House approved the package, the Senate “will move swiftly” to get the measure passed and sent to Biden’s desk.

Aid to Ukraine has been a rare bright spot of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill with Democrats and Republicans largely rallying around a call to help the nation as it faces Russian attack.

Lawmakers unveiled the bill text earlier in the day ahead of the House vote. The legislation the House approved provides funding for a long list of priorities, including military and humanitarian assistance.

The bill includes an increase in presidential drawdown authority funding from the $5 billion the Biden administration originally requested to $11 billion. Presidential drawdown authority funding allows the administration to send military equipment and weapons from US stocks. This has been one of the main ways the administration has provided Ukrainians with military equipment quickly over the past 75 days of the conflict in Ukraine.

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WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 21: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaks at her weekly press conference at the U.S. Capitol Building on October 21, 2021 in Washington, DC. Speaker Pelosi discussed a range of topics including the status of the negotiations for the Build Back Better agenda. (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Related article House expected to vote Tuesday on $40 billion Ukraine aid bill | CNN Politics

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines testifies during a Senate Armed Services hearing in Washington, DC, on May 10.

The US intelligence community believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is likely to become “more unpredictable and escalatory” in the coming months, the nation’s director of national intelligence told Congress on Tuesday.?

Here’s what to know about Avril Haines’ remarks:

Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project Dynamo, left, and Kirillo Alexandrov, a 27-year-old American?citizen who was held captive by Russians for alleged espionage

CNN’s Erin Burnett spoke with Kirillo Alexandrov, a 27-year-old American?citizen who was held captive by Russians for alleged espionage.?

Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project Dynamo, told CNN that?Alexandrov?and his Ukrainian wife and mother-in-law were taken by Russian forces?more than a month ago?in Kherson Oblast.?They had been held in a building occupied by the Russians and the Russian security services would not allow them to leave until today, Stern said.????

Sitting next to Stern, Alexandrov told Erin, “I feel relieved,?nothing more, nothing less, just relieved.”??

When asked how he was treated by Russian soldiers while in captivity he said he is a victim of war crimes.?

Alexandrov?did not know negotiations for his release were happening.?

“I was ignorant to basically everything. I was just held in a room for however many days. It just felt like one long day or a lifetime,” he said.?

His wife was assaulted during their time in captivity but she is a strong person and doing much better, he said.?

“She’s great. She’s held me up … she’s got a strong grip, she’s a strong person and she’s doing a lot better,” he said of his wife.?

The US government was aware and helped when they could,?Stern told CNN.?

“We were close to getting them out pretty much every day for the last two and a half weeks,” he said. “A lot of people told us this was a losing case, this is not gonna work, this is too hard, he’s an alleged spy in captivity there’s just no way … A lot of people told us it was impossible but we get told that a lot in Dynamo and it always seems to work out.”?

Alexandrov says he’s indebted to Stern for his teams work securing his released.?

“Incredibly brave, honorable, he’s a very good man and I’m not gonna forget any of this ever, I don’t know how I can ever repay him and his team because I would be dead if it wasn’t for him,”?Alexandrov said of Stern and his team.

The UN Security Council is expected to hold a public meeting Thursday morning on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine at the request of France and Mexico. The UN Humanitarian Office and officials from UNICEF are expect to brief the council at that time though no vote is scheduled.

The security council is also expected to hold a public meeting on Wednesday afternoon on North Korea’s recent ballistic missile test. The United States has been pushing a new resolution on the issue, as well, but no vote is scheduled at this time.?

The Democratic-led US House of Representatives is expected to vote Tuesday evening on a nearly $40 billion bill to deliver aid to Ukraine as it continues to face Russia’s brutal assault.

Lawmakers unveiled bill text on Tuesday ahead of a planned vote later in the day on the legislation, which is expected to have bipartisan support. Aid to Ukraine has been a rare bright spot of bipartisanship on Capitol Hill with Democrats and Republicans largely rallying around a call to help the nation as it faces Russian attack.?

The legislation the House will vote on provides funding for a long list of priorities, including military and humanitarian assistance.?

Included among the legislation’s allocations for defense is $6 billion to assist Ukrainian military and national security forces, according to a fact sheet released by House Democrats. The expenditure will go toward training, weapons, equipment, logistics and intelligence support as well as other needs.?

There will also be almost $9 billion to help restock US equipment that has been sent to Ukraine. That comes as many lawmakers have raised concerns about replacing US stocks of weapons the US is giving to Ukraine, especially stingers and javelin missiles.

The bill includes an increase in presidential drawdown authority funding from the $5 billion the Biden administration originally requested to $11 billion. Presidential drawdown authority funding allows the administration to send military equipment and weapons from US stocks. This has been one of the main ways the administration has provided Ukrainians with military equipment quickly over the past 75 days of the conflict in Ukraine.

In the Ukraine aid supplemental that was signed into law in mid-March, $3 billion in this kind of funding was included. The Biden administration has been using that funding to provide military assistance to Ukraine in a series of presidential drawdown authority packages. The latest package of $150 million was authorized on May 6.?

The bill also includes $6 billion in Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, another way the Biden administration has been providing Ukraine with military assistance. USAI funding allows the administration to buy weapons from contractors and then provide those weapons to Ukraine, so this method does not draw directly from US stocks.

To address humanitarian needs, the bill will include $900 million to bolster refugee assistance, including housing, trauma support, and English language instruction for Ukrainians fleeing the country.

The measure provides an additional $54 million that will be used for public health and medical support for Ukrainian refugees.

“This package, which builds on the robust support already secured by Congress, will be pivotal in helping Ukraine defend not only its nation but democracy for the world,” Pelosi said.

Senate Democratic leadership has indicated the chamber will take up the bill quickly once it passes the House.

Read more here.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis said the removal of not only Vladimir Putin, but the entire regime that supports him is necessary to stop Russia’s “warmongering” and predicted the Kremlin leader will become increasingly erratic as his battlefield losses grow in Ukraine.

Speaking to CNN in Washington on Tuesday, Landsbergis also said his nation is seeking a permanent US troop presence, calling it “the biggest deterrent to an aggressor like Russia,” as well as fortified support from NATO at next month’s leaders’ summit in Madrid.

Lithuania has been a strong supporter of Ukraine since the start of the war more than two months ago and has pushed for a robust response to counter Russia, becoming the first country in the European Union to stop Russian gas imports.

Landsbergis said the United States and European allies have thus far been focused on their “tactical approach” to the war in Ukraine, responding to the developments on the ground.

However, the foreign minister stressed that they also need to think strategically about the longer-term — and until Putin and his enablers are gone, the world needs to be prepared that Russia “might war again, and not excluding NATO countries.”

Landsbergis did not suggest the West should take concrete action to remove Putin from power and acknowledged that “it might take quite some time for it to change, because we don’t have any active means to change it. So it needs to change from within.”

Moreover, Landsbergis explained it would not be enough just for Putin to no longer lead Russia because “it’s a whole system.”

“Putin might be sick, he might be pushed aside by his inner circle — who’s probably quite unhappy about the losses in the battlefield — but that doesn’t mean that the regime will change or its attitude, the war mongering attitude will change,” he said, saying it was reminiscent of Nazi Germany.

Landsbergis told CNN that?Putin’s Victory Day speech on Monday?suggested there may be discontent among that inner circle about Russia’s failures in the war, saying it was “fascinating” that the Russian President “tried to explain” why he started the war in those remarks.

?Read more here.

Ukraine’s fierce resistance to the Russian invasion has resonated around the world.

At the center of that fight are ordinary citizens who left behind comfortable lives to answer a call of duty – people such as a software engineer, a logistics manager and even a poet.

The area south of Izium is a key point of resistance against Russian attempts to completely encircle the Donbas region.

Most civilians have left, and the artillery battles are near-constant. These are some of the people trying to ensure it does not fall into Russian hands.

Anna Arhipova, 22

Anna Arhipova was a logistics manager in her hometown of Poltava, northeast Ukraine, before the war began.

At the time, her overriding fear was not of the violence, but of “not being useful,” she says. So she signed up, and now drives a pickup truck to some of the most dangerous areas of the conflict.

In a world of bearded, stocky young men, her slight frame cuts an uncommon figure. But she says it’s the men, not her, who are troubled by her presence.

“Everybody tells me that I have to give birth, cook, clean, and do the housekeeping, not be here,” she says. “It irritates me very, very much. I answer that if I would like to give birth, I would not be here.”

Alex, 34

Alex, who wanted to use only his first name out of privacy concerns, is a software engineer from Kharkiv. Last year, he built his own countryside log cabin.

Now his house, which was on a strategically located hill, has been reduced to a hole five meters deep, and he spends many of his nights sleeping in a tank named ‘Bunny,’ which was stolen from the Russian military in the opening weeks of the war.

“This is like my personal tank,” he explains. “I am like tank commander and tank owner,” he says with a laugh.

Vlad Sord, 27

Vlad Sord was still a teenager when he signed up to fight for Ukraine in 2014.

“A lot of strange things happen there,” explains Sord, as he chain smokes cigarillos. “Things that I could not explain, I collected them, compiled them, wrote them down.”

He’s now a published author and poet. He fights for his country, and gathers material to document what’s happening.

“I have a very good memory for the dialogues themselves and I use that. I write everything down.”

Bridget?Brink, nominated to be U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, prepares to testify at her Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, May 10

Bridget Brink, the nominee for US ambassador to Ukraine, said Tuesday that the United States is “trying to work with international partners and others to help find alternative routes for grain and corn out of Ukraine.”

Brink called it “an enormous challenge” but said the US has the benefit of the Biden’s administration’s “success in galvanizing a coalition of like-minded people who together condemned this war of choice and are ready to work together.”

Damaged cars and debris from a damaged residential building are seen in the Saltivka neighbourhood, of Kharkiv,?Ukraine, on Tuesday May 10.

The war in Ukraine is likely to become “more unpredictable and escalatory” in the coming months, the US director of national intelligence told Congress on Tuesday.?

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines painted a grim and uncertain picture of the next phase of Putin’s two-month-old invasion, which she told the US Senate Armed Services Committee will be difficult to predict in part because “Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities.”?

“At the very least, we believe the dichotomy will usher in a period of more ad hoc decision-making in Russia, both with respect to the domestic adjustments required to sustain this push, as well as the military conflict with Ukraine and the West,” she told US lawmakers.

Still, Haines told US lawmakers, the intelligence community does not believe Putin would turn to the use of nuclear weapons unless he felt there was an existential threat to Russia.

Here are more of the latest headlines from the Russia-Ukraine war:

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi meets with US President Joe Biden in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday, May 10, in Washington, DC. T

US President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Mario?Draghi?said that the ties between their two countries are “stronger” in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.?

The President thanked?Draghi?for his response to the “brutality of Putin,” when the two leaders met at the White House on Tuesday.

Draghi?told Biden he felt those bonds had been strengthened due to the unrest in Europe.

“The ties between our two countries have always been very strong, and if anything, this war in Ukraine made them stronger,” the Italian leader said.

“I agree,” the President responded.

Draghi?said that he and Biden would discuss “energy security” and “food security” during their meeting.

“What happened in Ukraine is going to bring a drastic change in (the) European Union,” the Italian prime minister said. “We’ve always been close, now we’re going to be much closer. I know that I can count on your support as a true friend of Europe and of Italy.”

Biden said he believed a strong European Union was “in the interest of the United States.?

“Granted,” he added, “that’s competition economically but it’s good. It’s good.”

“Putin really believed he could split us,” Biden said, “and we’ve all stepped up.”

US President Joe Biden on Tuesday will meet with the congressional delegation that visited Ukraine earlier this month, the White House said.

She noted that Biden had previously spoken to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “about the delegation’s trip by phone.”

“As we said earlier this month, he wanted to hear a more thorough account of their time in Ukraine in person after they returned to the United States, so this is an opportunity to do exactly that,” Psaki said.

“The President is eager to hear from them and to continue working together on their shared bipartisan goal of providing Ukraine with additional urgently needed security and economic assistance as soon as possible,” she continued.

A new Telegram channel set up in Mariupol and called?“Novyj Mariupol” (New Mariupol) has announced that temporary labor is being sought immediately at employment centers of the Donetsk People’s Republic.?

In a post on May 7, the channel said vacancies existed in information security, city improvements and “gathering up the dead.” An updated announcement, appearing in flyer form, with a QR linking to the “New Mariupol” Telegram channel, appeared on Tuesday.

The channel appears to be linked to the new Russian-backed administration in the city.

The flyer uses the same language as the original Telegram post, but makes three additional announcements: The DNR Pension Fund is now open to applications; work is being sought at Illich Iron & Steel Works; and open markets will begin operating at four different locations around the city, starting May 14.

In this 2018 photo, a Russian Air Force MiG-31K jet carries a Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missile during a Victory Day military parade in Moscow.

Russia has used about 10 to 12 hypersonic weapons during the war in Ukraine, a senior US defense official said Tuesday.??

Cautioning that the US does not have a “perfect count,” the official said the number of hypersonic weapons Russia has used is “probably between 10 and 12 I think would be about right.”

Though the official did not specify the dates and locations of the launches, US officials observed the first known combat use of the Russian air-launched Kinzhal hypersonic missile against a building in western Ukraine.

The official would not corroborate Ukraine’s claim that Russia had fired Kinzhal missiles at Odesa over the weekend. Sergey Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration, said Russia had fired three Kinzhal missiles at a “tourist infrastructure target.”

The US has seen no indications that Russia used hypersonic weapons in these strikes, the US official said.?

The Kinzhal missile, which became operational in 2017, has a claimed top speed of Mach 12, or about 9,000 miles per hour (more than 14,400 kilometers per hour). It is an air-launched version of the Russian Iskander short-range ballistic missile.

US officials downplayed the significance of the Russian use of their hypersonic Kinzhal missile. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said he did not view it as “some sort of game changer” after the Russians announced the missile launch. Days later, Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said it was “hard to know what exactly the justification” was for the launch, since it targeted a stationary storage facility.

“That’s a pretty significant sledgehammer to take out a target like that,” Kirby said at the time.?

Russia also claimed it used Iskander missiles in April to strike weapons depots and Ukrainian military equipment.

Ukraine, on the other hand, claims Russia used Iskander missiles launched from Crimea to strike at a settlement in the Odesa district in early April.

More on hypersonic missiles: Essentially, all missiles are hypersonic — which means they travel at least five times the speed of sound. Almost any warhead released from a rocket miles in the atmosphere will reach this speed heading to its target. It is not a new technology.

What military powers — including Russia, China, the United States and North Korea — are working on now is a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). An HGV is a highly maneuverable payload that can theoretically fly at hypersonic speed while adjusting course and altitude to fly under radar detection and around missile defenses.

An HGV is the weapon that’s almost impossible to stop. And Russia is thought to have an HGV in its arsenal, the Avangard system, which Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018 called “practically invulnerable” to Western air defenses.

CNN’s Brad Lendon contributed reporting to this post.

The Armed Forces of Belarus will deploy special forces to the border of Ukraine because “the?United States and its allies continue to increase their military presence at the state borders,” according to?the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Viktor Gulevich.

“In order to ensure the security of the Republic of Belarus in the southern direction, the forces of the units of the special operations forces are deployed in three tactical directions,” according to a statement Tuesday.

It said the Ukrainians had created a force of 20,000 close to the Belarus border, which “requires a response from us.”

“As part of the second stage of checking the immediate reaction forces, battalion-tactical groups were sent to the Western and North-Western operational directions. To strengthen them, air defense, missile forces and artillery units are being moved forward to ensure their combat functioning,” the statement continued.

Earlier today, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said the country has started the second stage of?inspection of its army’s reaction forces, according to video commentary posted on the Telegram account of Belarusian state media Belta.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba speaks during a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister?Annalena?Baerbock, in Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 10.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock had an “open, friendly conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, together with Dutch Foreign Minister Hoekstra, “a source in the German delegation said.?

“The conversation focused on assistance to Ukraine in the military sphere and reconstruction, as well as on how to solve the blockade of much-needed global food exports from Ukraine,” media was told.

Germany will start reopening its embassy in Ukraine, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock announced during a visit to Kyiv Tuesday.

The embassy will begin operating on limited capacity, Baerbock said, and the German ambassador?to Kyiv, Anka Feldhusen, will again be the German representative in Kyiv.

In her remarks, the foreign minister also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin has fallen victim to self-deception.?

“He believed that our European values of freedom and humanity, make us decadent and weak. Ukrainians have proved that in reality it is the other way around. Your will for freedom makes you strong,” Baerbock said.

“And the knowledge that you are fighting for your humanity against an army that knows only cynicism and terror. That is why your struggle marks a turning point in the world dispute between liberal democracy and autocratic regimes,” she continued.

Baerbock also visited Babyn Yar, a historical site in Ukraine where massacres were carried out by Nazi forces during World War II. In March,?Russian missiles struck near the memorial, located?on the northern edge of Kyiv, which?commemorates the site where more than 33,000 Jews were shot to death in 1941.?

Zelensky, who is Jewish, tweeted at the time that the Russian attack was “history repeating.”

CNN’s Zahid Mahmood contributed reporting to this post.

A senior US defense official told reporters Tuesday that 89 of the 90 howitzers the US agreed to give to Ukraine have been transferred to Ukrainian possession. ?

“Almost 370 Ukrainian soldiers” have completed training on those M777 howitzer artillery systems in locations outside of Ukraine conducted by the US and other NATO allied countries, and 29 Ukrainian soldiers “are completing, wrapping up their maintenance course,” on the howitzer systems, the official added.

“It’s a two-week course, so about 29 have finished it; there’s another 17 going through it right now,” the official said.

The official said 120,000 rounds of ammunition out of the United States’ commitment of 184,000 rounds of ammunition have been transferred to Ukraine from the US. One of the 11 Mi-17 helicopters the US plans to give to Ukraine “is going in” to Ukraine today, the official said.

In other ongoing trainings, 60 Ukrainian soldiers “have completed training on the M1-13, the armored personnel carrier,” the official said. Training on the US Phoenix Ghost, an unmanned aerial system, is also ongoing.

“There is training for a small number ongoing outside of Ukraine on the Phoenix Ghost, there have been others ahead of them that have already returned to Ukraine. So that’s ongoing,” the official added.

The intelligence arm of the Ukrainian defense ministry said that grain stolen by Russian troops in occupied areas is already being sent abroad.

The intelligence directorate claimed that a “significant part of the grain stolen from Ukraine is on dry cargo ships under the Russian flag in the Mediterranean.”

The directorate also said the Russians “continue to export food stolen in Ukraine to the territory of the Russian Federation and the occupied Crimea.”

It said that in one of the main grain-producing areas — around Polohy in the Zaporizhzhia region — grain and sunflower seeds in storage are being prepared for transportation to Russia.?

A column of Russian trucks has left the town of Enerhodar, which is also in the Zaporizhzhia region, under the guard of the Russian military, the directorate claimed. The final destination of the column was Crimea, it said.?

Grain was also being stolen in the Kharkiv region, and 1,500 tons of grain had been taken from the village of Mala Lepetykha in the Kherson region to Crimea.

Last week, the defense ministry said nearly half a million metric tons of Ukrainian grain had already been stolen.?

Read more:

Multiple sources have told CNN how Russian forces have been stealing grain and farm equipment from Ukrainian farmers. The photo shows one machine being stolen near Melitopol.

Related article Russians steal vast amounts of Ukrainian grain and equipment, threatening this year's harvest

The Armed Forces of Ukraine said that the Russians have sent about 500 troops from occupied areas of the Donetsk and Luhansk regions north into the Kharkiv region.

They gave no explanation for the move, but?CNN reported earlier Tuesday comments by local officials in the Kharkiv region that suggested some Russian troops were being sent northward to reinforce supply lines from the border.

Local authorities said there is “a mass withdrawal of Russian troops from the territory of Borova and Bohuslavka in the direction of Kupyansk.”?

Kupyansk is an important Russian logistics hub inside Ukraine and may become vulnerable if a Ukrainian counterattack in the region is sustained.

That attack made further progress Tuesday, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, with four more settlements to the north and east of Kharkiv falling under Ukrainian control.

CNN has geolocated video from one of those settlements, showing the Ukrainians in control. The new gains put Ukrainian units within a few kilometers of the Russian border in several areas.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, the Ukrainians said Russian forces continue to try to take the town of Rubizhne in Luhansk region, but without success. Officials said Ukrainian units had withstood several attacks in the Luhansk region.

In the Donetsk region, the General Staff said the Russians were trying to break through Ukrainian defenses north of Sloviansk, around the settlements of Oleksandrivka and Shandryholove.?

This area has seen almost constant fighting for around two weeks, but the Russians appear to have made minimal progress on the ground.

Overall, the General Staff’s report suggests that Ukrainian units are under pressure but resisting on most fronts while taking territory in Kharkiv as the Russians fall back toward the Oskil river.

A US nonprofit involved in rescue and evacuation operations in Ukraine during the Russian war said that it has?freed an American citizen and his family from Russian forces on Tuesday.

Florida-based nonprofit Project Dynamo said in a statement that on Tuesday, in the vicinity of southern Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region, one of its exfiltration teams?“successfully rescued”?Kirillo Alexandrov, a 27-year-old American?citizen, and his family.

Their release comes after more than a month of negotiations, the group said.

Bryan Stern, co-founder of Project Dynamo, told CNN that?Alexandrov?and his Ukrainian wife and mother-in-law were taken by Russian forces?more than a month ago?in the Kherson region.?They had been held in a building occupied by the Russians and the Russian security services would not allow them to leave, Stern said.??

The Russians had charged?Alexandrov?with spying, Stern?told CNN.?

Russia’s defense and foreign ministries have not yet responded to CNN’s request for a comment.??

Stern said?he has been in regular contact with the US State Department about his efforts.?

“We are aware of these reports. Due to privacy considerations, we have no further comment,” a State Department spokesperson said Tuesday.???

Stern, in a press release, described the extensive operation to secure Alexandrov’s release:?????

Stern said that?Alexandrov?and his family members are healthy and were fed by the Russians while they were detained.?

US Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth said the timeline for replacing US stocks of Stinger and Javelin missiles that the US has given to Ukraine to counter Russia’s invasion will “vary depending on what the systems are.”

To replace US stocks of Javelin missiles, Wormuth told a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense hearing that she is not sure Raytheon, the company that makes the missiles, will be able to replace US stocks of those missiles in a “one-year period.”

On replacing US stocks of the Stinger missiles, Wormuth said it would “take more time,” because there is no open production line for Stinger missiles right now.

“We have not had an open production line for Stinger for some time, we do still have some missiles, some Stinger missiles that we can provide, but there’s an obsolete part that we’re going to have to figure out how to work around, you know, do we design around that, or sort of bring forward a next-generation Stinger, and I think that will take more time,” Wormuth said.

The European Union and the United Kingdom have blamed Russia for a hack that knocked out internet service for tens of thousands of satellite modems in Ukraine and elsewhere in Europe at the onset of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, the EU and UK governments said Tuesday.?

The cyberattack on a satellite network owned by US-based telecommunications firm Viasat is one of the most consequential cyber incidents of the war in Ukraine: It disrupted communications in Ukraine an hour before Russia’s full-scale invasion, and the collateral damage included knocking thousands of wind turbines offline in Germany that relied on the satellite network.

A top Ukrainian cyber official, Victor Zhora, on March 15 called the hack “a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of the war.”

The UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said that “new UK and US intelligence suggests” Russia was responsible for the hack of the Viasat network.?

The United States’ response: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that in support of the EU and others, the United States “is sharing publicly its assessment that Russia launched cyber attacks in late February against commercial satellite communications networks to disrupt Ukrainian command and control during the invasion, and those actions had spillover impacts into other European countries.”

In his statement, Blinken also said the US “has assessed that Russian military cyber operators have deployed multiple families of destructive wiper malware, including WhisperGate, on Ukrainian Government and private sector networks. “

“These disruptive cyber operations began in January 2022, prior to Russia’s illegal further invasion of Ukraine and have continued throughout the war,” he said.

CNN has requested comment from the Russian Embassy in Washington.?

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting to this post.

Ukraine has killed between “eight and ten” Russian generals during the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier, the head of the US Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday.

US officials have closely watched the climbing number of general officer deaths in the Russian military —?an unusually high number for a modern military that far outstrips the number of US generals lost during 20 years of conflict in Afghanistan.

Some US officials have attributed that atypically high figure in part to the intelligence support provided by the United States, while others believe it is because Russian generals are being forced to operate far more forward in the conflict zone than would normally be expected in order to motivate their troops.?

“Does the fact that Russia is losing all these generals suggest to you that these generals are having to go forward to ensure their orders are executed?” Arkansas GOP Sen. Tom Cotton asked.

“Yes,” DIA head Lt. Gen. Scott Berrier said.?

Overall, Berrier said that Ukraine is better poised to field motivated soldiers in the conflict —?even as its military is far smaller than the Russian force.?

“I think the Ukrainians have it right in terms of grit and how they face the defense of their nation,” Berrier said. “I’m not sure that Russian soldiers from the far-flung Russian military districts really understand that.”

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) met on Tuesday to elect the Czech Republic to replace Russia on the Human Rights Council, with 157 votes in favor and 23 abstentions.

The Czech Republic’s term begins Tuesday and will expire on December 31, 2023. It was the only candidate announced to replace Russia.?

On April 7, the?UNGA voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council with 93 votes in favor, 24 against, and 58 abstentions.?

In the draft of the April 7 resolution, the UNGA said the General Assembly would “suspend the rights of membership in the Human Rights Council of a member of the Council that commits gross and systematic violations of human rights.”

With previous reporting from CNN’s Richard Roth.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen testifies before the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on Tuesday.

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Tuesday that Western sanctions have delivered a powerful blow to Russia’s economy following the invasion of Ukraine.

“Their economy is clearly in recession,” Yellen told lawmakers during a hearing on the Financial Stability Oversight Council’s annual report to Congress, adding that there are forecasts the Russian economy will contract by 10% to 15%.?

Inflation in Russia is probably running around 20% this year, Yellen said. That would be more than double the 8.5% year-over-year jump in consumer prices in the United States in March.

Earlier, Yellen said that “Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine has further increased economic uncertainty.”

The war in Ukraine has disrupted supplies of food and energy, contributing to the highest level of inflation in decades. The?average price of regular gasoline?has increased about 25% to record highs since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February.

Yellen said financial regulators will continue to monitor developments and “coordinate actions as the risks and threats evolve.”

The Lithuanian Parliament on Tuesday passed a resolution declaring Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “genocide” and Russia a perpetrator of terrorism.

In the resolution, the Seimas, Lithuania’s Parliament, recognized “the full-scale armed aggression — war — against Ukraine by the armed forces of the Russian Federation and its political and military leadership […] as genocide against the Ukrainian people.”

Passed unanimously, the resolution accuses Russian military forces of “deliberately and systematically targeting civilian targets,” declaring Russia “a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism.”

The Seimas also called for the establishment of an international tribunal to investigate alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.

Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told CNN Tuesday that the decision is a recognition of reality and “gives impetus for further legal investigations into the situation.”

In his first reaction to the unanimous passage of the resolution, Landsbergis said the designations must be followed up by investigations, such as those being carried out by the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice.

“We haven’t seen anything like it since the Second World War, so that might give additional speed to the investigation and resources that they require, because especially ICC … they have as much money as the countries provide and as many investigators as the countries provide,” said Landsbergis, who noted Lithuania was one of the first countries to provide financial assistance to the investigators.

Landsbergis said that the international community must not only work to strengthen mechanisms aimed at accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, but perhaps look for new ones because “Russia truly changed the reality with their attack on Ukraine.”

“We had trust that after the Second World War, we built the mechanism that should empower this ‘never again’ concept. Obviously the mechanisms were not sufficient. And so we really need now to start working on strengthening those mechanisms,” he told CNN. “I think that we not only need to strengthen what we built, but maybe even to look for new mechanisms and new instruments that would really allow us once again to say this was the last time.”

The US intelligence community believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine is likely to become “more unpredictable and escalatory” in the coming months, the nation’s director of national intelligence told Congress on Tuesday.?

Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines painted a grim and uncertain picture of the next phase of Putin’s two-month-old invasion, which she told the Senate Armed Services Committee will be difficult to predict in part because “Putin faces a mismatch between his ambitions and Russia’s current conventional military capabilities.”?

Still, Haines told lawmakers, the intelligence community does not believe Putin would turn to the use of nuclear weapons unless he felt there was an existential threat to Russia.

The intelligence community believes that Putin is preparing for a protracted conflict —?and that his goals extend far beyond the eastern region of the Donbas, where his military is currently focused after being repelled from Kyiv in the early weeks of the war.?

In the near term, Putin wants to capture the two eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, control the city of Kherson and potentially extend a land bridge around the southern rung of the country to Transnistria, a separatist region of Moldova where Russian troops are currently stationed, Haines said.?

But to reach Transnistria, the intelligence community believes that Putin would need to launch a full mobilization inside Russia, a step he has so far not taken.?

“As both Russia and Ukraine believe they can continue to make progress militarily, we do not see a viable negotiating path forward, at least in the short term,” Haines said.?

This satellite image shows smoke rising after a suspected artillery strike on the front lines near Izyum, Ukraine, on May 7.

The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a five-story building in the town of Izium, which is currently controlled by Russian troops, according to the head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

Oleh Syniehubov?said the building had been “completely destroyed by the occupiers” but it’s not yet clear when it happened.

Russian forces have been in control of Izium for nearly two months. Before that, the town was heavily contested and intensively shelled.

Syniehubov said that locals who had stayed behind in Izium had excavated the site.

He said there was “no special equipment for dismantling debris, everything is done by hand.”

“And of course it does not happen around the clock. When there is no shelling, people come out and try to dismantle those blockages,” he added.

What’s unclear is whether Russian forces in the area were aware of the operation and permitted the retrieval of the bodies.

Syniebuhov said that, since Izium was occupied, about 1,700 people had been evacuated while what he called a “green corridor” was in existence.

“After that, the occupiers did not allow people to be taken out or humanitarian aid brought there,” he added.

He also said that Tsirkuny, a town near Kharkiv, had been liberated and described the scene there as a “total war crime.”

What we know: The Kharkiv Regional Prosecutor’s Office said a criminal case “for violating the laws and customs of war, combined with premeditated murder” has been opened.

Between March 7 and 10,?the Russian military “systematically shelled the city of Izium. As a result of the shelling, public infrastructure and residential buildings were destroyed,” the prosecutor’s office said. “So far, the bodies of the victims have been removed from the rubble, and 14 people have been identified.”

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers a keynote speech via video at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference 2022, on April 21.

Chinese President Xi Jinping “agreed on the urgency of a cease-fire” in Ukraine during a 90-minute phone call with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron, the élysée Palace said in a statement on Tuesday.

“All efforts to provide humanitarian support to the Ukrainian population should also be supported,” it added.

Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin inspects the units as Russian and Belarusian armed forces take part in the Allied Determination-2022 military drill in Gomel, Belarus, on February 15.

Belarus has started the second stage of?inspection of its army’s reaction forces, Belarusian Defense Minister Viktor Khrenin said Tuesday?in a video commentary posted on the Telegram account of Belarusian state media Belta.

“This is all planned as part of an adequate response to the ‘Defender-Europe’?exercises that have been taking place on the territory of NATO countries since May 1,” Khrenin said.

He said that the Belarusian side watches the NATO exercises and sees “every movement that battalion groups are involved in” and “the tasks that they plan to carry out.”

Last week, the Belarusian army began a previously unannounced inspection of its reaction force, planning movement of a significant amount of military equipment, according to a statement published by the Belarusian Ministry of Defense.

The threat of missile strikes on military and civilian infrastructure of Ukraine from the territory of the Republic of Belarus has never ceased, said Oleksandr Motuzyanyk, the spokesperson of Ukraine’s defense ministry, last Wednesday.

“As you know, today the Russian army is using the territory of the Republic of Belarus as a springboard for the attack on Ukraine. In fact, due to this, Russian units were able to appear in the suburbs of the capital so quickly,” Motuzyanyk said last week.

People evacuated from Mariupol arrive on buses at a registration and processing area for internally displaced people in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, on May 8.

More than eight million people?have been?internally displaced in Ukraine, according to the latest report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a United Nations agency.

Over 18% — or nearly one in five — of Ukraine’s pre-war population is now internally displaced, said the fourth Ukraine Internal Displacement Report, published Monday.

The latest survey, conducted between April 29 and May 3, found that 63% of those internally displaced are women.?

More than 50% of displaced households have children, 55% include elderly members and over 30% have people with chronic illnesses, according to the survey.

With more than 5.9 million refugees having left Ukraine for neighboring countries, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, a total of at least 13.9 million people have been left displaced since the beginning of the Russian invasion in late February.

Cecilia Rouse, chair of the Council of Economic Advisers, speaks during a press briefing at the White House, Washington D.March 4, 2022. (AP Photo/

Ahead of US President Joe Biden’s remarks on addressing inflation Tuesday, the White House sought to tie record high US gas prices to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Rouse also indicated that the possibility of a national gas tax holiday was one of many options on the table.

“The President understands the uncertainty … All measures are on the table. He is focused on these issues,” she added as she laid out longer-term measures to relieve pricing pressures.?

She later reiterated that Biden wants to consider all measures but he will need the support of his partners in Congress.

“He cannot do everything unilaterally. So he needs to work with partners in Congress in order to make meaningful change, but it’s very important to understand that this President is focused on rising prices,” she continued.

Later on Tuesday morning, Biden is expected to lay out a “whole of government approach” to combating inflation. She indicated that Chinese tariffs and trade policy more broadly will be part of his speech, as well as clean energy, and later called on Congress to confirm the administration’s Federal Reserve nominees.

She dismissed a recent assertion from Trump economic adviser Kevin Hassett, who has indicated the US is already in a recession.

“I’m not sure where that comes from,” she said, laughing, as she outlined economic growth in 2021 and GDP.?“We are not expecting that we’re already in the recession. In fact, the guts and the bones of this economy remains strong. Yes, there are headwinds, yes, there’s uncertainty, which is why the President is so focused on trying to reduce costs and grow this economy by investing in people in our physical infrastructure, and really building the kind of economy that will generate sustainable growth going forward.”

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, center, visits Bucha, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on May 10.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock discussed the impact of seeing where Ukrainians were killed and left in the street for days in the town of Bucha.

Baerbock, speaking during a news conference with her Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba in Kyiv, said it was important that displaced people will be able to come back to their homes.?

“This is not only about military support, where Germany has stood by your side for some time, but now it is also about [developing] conditions in towns, cities, in communities further, together, so that people can return,” Baerbock said.

“I cannot forget that these arms deliveries are also there to ensure that war crimes do not take place in other places,” Baerbock said.

Russian President Vladimir?Putin?delivers a?speech?during a military parade on Victory Day, which marks the 77th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany in World War Two, in Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, on May 9.

US officials found Russian President Vladimir Putin muted and subdued when he delivered his Victory Day address on Monday, further obscuring their attempts to ascertain the Russian leader’s ultimate objectives in Ukraine.

Officials inside the Biden administration have been contemplating ways Putin could exit his unprovoked war should he choose to do so, as the conflict grinds on and the Russian leader loses his chance for a quick triumph.

US officials still believe Putin is undeterred and wants a tangible victory in Ukraine. But they don’t know what measure could be sufficient for Putin to declare victory, one official told CNN, who said his goals are not readily apparent.

The difficulty in assessing Putin’s aims was underscored by comments from President Joe Biden at a fundraiser?Monday night, where he said he is concerned the Russian leader has not yet devised a way out of the ongoing war in Ukraine, despite Putin’s “calculating” nature.?

CIA Director Bill Burns also shared his concerns over the weekend, describing Putin “in a frame of mind in which he doesn’t believe he can afford to lose.”

“I think he’s convinced right now that doubling down still will enable him to make progress,” Burns said.

Putin so far has failed to achieve any of his major war objectives in Ukraine. After initially believing his forces could take Kyiv and dismantle President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government within days, Putin was forced to recalculate and focus on eastern Ukraine. But that too has proven to be an incremental fight, according to assessments from the Pentagon.

Read the full report here.

Ukrainian soldiers trapped in the Azovstal steel plant say there was heavy shelling overnight and, for a while, they lost contact with the field hospital at the complex in Mariupol.

The deputy commander of the Azov Regiment, Captain Svyatoslav Palamar, said the bombardment?had gone on all night long, and had included Russian planes.

Kateryna Polishchuk, one of the soldiers trapped at the steel plant, has issued a defiant message via Facebook that the plant’s defenders will fight to the last.

A former music student, the 21-year-old combat medic was seen last week leading the soldiers in singing the army’s battle hymn. Since then she has become known on social media as “The Bird.”

The video was uploaded to the Facebook page of another soldier at Azovstal, as the last holdout of resistance in the southern city continues to endure heavy shelling.

Greece's Consul General?Manolis?Androulakis, center,?talks to the media after arriving back in Athens, Greece, on March 20 after evacuating the city of Mariupol, Ukraine.

The Greek foreign ministry announced on Tuesday that its embassy in Kyiv will resume operations.

According to the statement, as of now, the embassy in Kyiv will work only with key staff, while the Consulate General of Greece in Odesa will work as usual to provide all possible assistance to Greek citizens and expatriates in Ukraine.?

Manolis Androulakis, who was the consul general of Greece in Mariupol,?has been appointed head of the embassy in the Ukrainian capital.

The reopening is the latest in a number of planned reopening announcements from multiple countries, including the UK, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden and South Korea. On Sunday, acting US Ambassador to Ukraine Kristina Kvien and a group of US diplomats returned to the embassy in Kyiv for the first time since the war began in February.

A shopping mall is destroyed as a result of rocket strikes in Odesa, southern Ukraine, on May 10.

A Russian bomber fired three?hypersonic missiles?at the southern Ukrainian port city of Odesa on Monday night, Ukrainian officials said, as part of a barrage that leveled a number of civilian targets including hotels and a shopping mall.

It is not the first time Moscow has deployed its Kinzhal hypersonic missile during its invasion, but it does appear to be a relatively rare occurrence.

Russia said it used Kinzhal missiles Ukraine in mid-March – a claim later confirmed by US officials to CNN – in the first known use of the weapon in combat.

In March, US President Joe Biden?confirmed?Russia’s use of the Kinzhal missile, describing it as “a consequential weapon … it’s almost impossible to stop it. There’s a reason they’re using it.”

Biden’s defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, has downplayed the effectiveness of the missile,?telling CBS in March?that he “would not see it as a game-changer.”

And the UK defense ministry has previously said the Kinzhal missile is really just an air-launched version of the Iskander short-range ballistic missile (SRBM), which Russia has used repeatedly in its war on Ukraine.

Read the full story here:

FILE In this file photo taken on Wednesday, May 9, 2018, a Russian Air Force MiG-31K jet carries a high-precision hypersonic aero-ballistic missile Kh-47M2 Kinzhal during the Victory Day military parade to celebrate 73 years since the end of WWII and the defeat of Nazi Germany, in Moscow, Russia. The Russian military says it launched maneuvers in the eastern Mediterranean that involve MiG-31 armed with the new Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, which arrived at the Russian airbase in Syria for the exercise. (AP Photo/Alexander Zemlianichenko, File)

Related article What to know about Russia's hypersonic missiles

Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson processes through the House of Commons Members' Lobby during the State Opening of Parliament, at the Houses of Parliament, in London, England, on May 10.

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson vowed to remain a “steadfast friend of Ukraine?as it continues its heroic struggle against Russia’s invasion,” in a written foreword to the Queen’s Speech, marking the state opening of Parliament on Tuesday.

“We will not waver — and we will not let up — until Putin fails,” Johnson said.

Johnson added: “This country has risen to challenges with no precedent in recent history. We have led the way in responding to Putin’s brutal attack on Ukraine, rallying the world against his aggression and imposing punishing sanctions on Russia.”

The Queen’s Speech, which is written by the government, is a significant event in both the royal and political calendars.

The speech is one of the monarch’s most important symbolic duties and forms the centerpiece of the State Opening of Parliament ceremony.

The speech is also used to introduce the government’s legislative agenda, and its contents are fiercely debated by lawmakers for days afterwards.

Queen Elizabeth II was not in attendance due to what the Palace described as “mobility problems” on Monday. The speech was instead read by Charles, the Prince of Wales.

A Ukrainian firefighter works near a destroyed building on the outskirts of Odesa, Ukraine, on May 10.

Odesa and the surrounding area has seen a sharp uptick in strikes in the last week, with Russian forces using submarines, surface ships and aircraft to launch missiles.

The southern city came under attack again on Monday while, elsewhere, Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold out in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol.?

Here are some of the latest developments:

Odesa under fire: Russian aerial strikes hit two hotels and a shopping mall in the southern city of Odesa overnight. Ukraine says hypersonic missiles were used in the attack. One person died and five were hospitalized, according to Ukrainian officials.?Fires caused by strikes have since been extinguished

Ukrainian counterattack in Kharkiv: The Ukrainian military says Russia is holding back some of its forces within its borders to prevent a Ukrainian counterattack that has made some headway east of Kharkiv. Inside Ukraine, the general staff says the most intense activity is in the Donetsk region, where Russian forces are trying to advance toward the town of Lyman, a major transport hub.

Bodies of civilians recovered: The bodies of 44 civilians were found in the rubble of a five-story building in the town of Izium, which is currently controlled by Russian troops. It’s not clear when the building was destroyed, but the eastern town has been heavily contested and intensively shelled in recent weeks.?

WHO verifies healthcare attacks: The World Health Organization (WHO) has verified 200 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine since the start of the war. WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he discussed the health situation in the country with Ukrainian officials and said the WHO will continue to support Ukraine’s healthcare system.?

Holding out at Azovstal: At least 100 civilians, thought to be mainly men, are still trapped in the Azovstal steel plant complex in Mariupol, an adviser to the mayor of the city said. It comes as Ukrainian soldiers continue to fight in the last holdout of resistance in the southern city.

Russian journalists write posts critical of Putin: Two Russian reporters appear to have posted at least 30 articles that appeared briefly on a pro-Kremlin news site, lenta.ru, criticizing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his government’s suppression of critics. “Putin and his circle are doomed to face a tribunal after the end of the war,” they wrote on lenta.ru. “Putin and his associates won’t be able to justify themselves or flee after losing this war.”

Finland edges closer to NATO: It is “highly likely” that Finland will apply for membership in NATO, the country’s Minister for European Affairs Tytti Tuppurainen told CNN on Monday. The nation’s likely membership is “a very natural response” to Russia’s war in Ukraine, she said, adding that if her country does indeed apply, she hopes “the ratification process would be as brief as possible.”

Press briefing by Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield President of the Security Council for the month of May at UN Headquarters in New York on May 3.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said that passing the Ukrainian aid bill is critical because it will enable the country to defend itself in the face of ongoing Russian aggression.

“This is about Ukrainians on the ground, being able to defend their democracy, defend their sovereignty and defend their people,” Thomas-Greenfield told reporters in Brussels Tuesday.

Her comments come as US President Joe Biden urged lawmakers to immediately pass the supplemental funding for Ukraine – almost a $40 billion bill – on Monday. He warned that the existing aid will run out in about 10 days.

Thomas-Greenfield noted the bipartisan support that has gone into providing support to the Ukrainians and said she believes that Congress knows how high the stakes are.

German Foreign Minister Annalena?Baerbock?visits a church where a mass grave was found after Russian forces retreated from the area, Bucha, Ukraine, on May 10.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock is visiting Ukraine today, starting with a trip to Bucha.

Baerbock gave brief comments in a church in the town where prosecutors are investigating whether war crimes were committed by Russian troops.

She also took a walk around the town to get a picture of the situation on the ground, accompanied by the Ukrainian prosecutor general Iryna Venediktova.

Following her visit, Baerbock tweeted that Bucha had become a symbol “for unimaginable crimes, for torture, rape, murder.”

She added: “The unimaginability makes this place seem far away. And then you stand here and realize: Bucha is a completely normal, peaceful suburb. It could have happened to anyone.”

Baerbock also pledged Germany’s support for the war crimes investigation.

Baerbock is the first German cabinet member to travel to the Ukraine since the outbreak of war in the country, and her trip comes after a period of diplomatic tension between Germany and Ukraine.

Some background: German?President?Frank-Walter Steinmeier?had offered to visit Kyiv in April on a joint trip with the heads of state of Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, but Ukrainian officials said they didn’t want him to come.

The decision came amid sustained criticism over Steinmeier’s close relations with Russia in his previous role as foreign minister, as well as criticism from?Kyiv?that?Germany was hesitant to provide much-needed military support to Ukraine.?

At the beginning of May, German Chancellor Olaf?Scholz?said he had no plans to visit Ukraine following Kyiv’s rejection of Steinmeier.

“This stands in the way,” said Scholz?in an interview with German public broadcaster ZDF. Democrats do not treat each other like that,?Scholz?added. “This cannot be done.”

But the row was resolved on May 5 when Steinmeier?and Zelensky spoke on the phone, according to the German President’s office.

As the doctor enters the room on rounds, Dmytro Kaliuzhnyi sits quietly on his hospital bed. He absent-mindedly answers their routine questions as his bandages and wounds are carefully checked.

The 19-year-old still appears to be in a state of shock. It’s hardly surprising, given that less than a month ago his body was riddled with shrapnel from shelling outside his home in Kharkiv in north-eastern Ukraine.

Dmytro Kaliuzhnyi, 19, is slowly recovering from injuries sustained outside his home in Kharkiv, northeastern Ukraine.

Kaliuzhnyi, who lost both of his parents before the war, is yet another civilian who has been caught in the crossfire as fighting has escalated. In a whisper, he adds that he wishes he’d listened to others and protected himself better.?

“I never thought that I would say it, you have to protect yourself to the maximum and follow all the rules that are told by adults.”

Kaliuzhnyi has spent the last several weeks here at Lviv Clinical Emergency Hospital, western Ukraine’s largest medical facility. According to doctors, he is just one of a rapidly growing number of patients being treated in the hospital’s intensive care units.

His doctor, Hnat Ihorovych Herych, tells CNN that treating civilian injuries such as these has become all too common as Russia’s invasion of the country continues into its third month.

“I’ve done some operations that I only read from the books,” Herych adds, recalling some of the recent procedures he’s had to carry out.

Trains have been refurbished with mobile ICUs to help transport critically injured patients away from the frontlines for treatment in the west.

Kaliuzhnyi is part of a steady stream of patients who have made terrifying and increasingly dangerous journeys across the country aboard makeshift medical trains.

One of those to make the treacherous trip with a head injury was 9-year-old Sofiya Hurmaza. From the southern city of Mykolaiv, she was caught by shelling near her home in early April – a piece of shrapnel striking her head and lodging deep in her brain.

Miraculously, after successful operations to remove the broken fragment, she is now recuperating in a hospital cot in Lviv under the watchful eye of her mother, Nina Vavryniuk.

“She is very strong, she didn’t even cry when she got wounded,” Vavryniuk says, before recalling the moment she was reunited with her daughter.

“When I walked in, I thought maybe she had lost some of her memory. I walked in and unexpectedly she said, ‘Mommy,’ with tears in her eyes.?

“I was so happy that she remembers me and she didn’t lose her memory. The doctor told me the fragment went right through the center [of her brain]. If it went one millimeter left or right, she wouldn’t make it.”

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Mariana Vishegirskaya, an injured pregnant woman, walks downstairs in a maternity hospital damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, on March 9.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has verified 200 attacks on healthcare facilities in Ukraine since the start of the war, Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Tuesday, urging Russia “to stop this war.”

Speaking from Kyiv after spending two days in Ukraine, Tedros said?he was “deeply moved” by what he’d seen and heard.

Tedros said attacks on healthcare facilities “must stop,” adding: “There is one medicine WHO cannot deliver, and which Ukraine needs more than any other, and that is peace.”

Tedros said he discussed the health situation in the country with Ukrainian officials and said the WHO will continue to support Ukraine’s healthcare system.?

“My message to all the people of Ukraine is that WHO stands with you,” he said.

The WHO chief said that, despite the devastation, he has also seen “extraordinary resilience” in Ukraine as people try to restore their lives.

“My time here has affected me very personally,” he said.

“I know the impact, I know the devastation of war firsthand and I felt very, very sad when Russia invaded Ukraine.”

The Azovstal?Iron and Steel Works behind damaged residential buildings in Mariupol, Ukraine, on May 8.

At least 100 civilians remain at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, a Ukrainian official has said.

The fact that civilians are still there “does?not reduce the density of attacks by the occupiers,” said Petro Andriushchenko, an adviser to the mayor of the city.

“Heavy artillery and aircraft continued shelling the plant all day [Monday],” he added.

Andriushchenko, who is not in Mariupol but maintains contact with people there, said Russian attempts to storm the plant continued to fail.

At the weekend, Ukrainian authorities said all women, children and the elderly had been evacuated from Azovstal. Most of the remaining civilians are thought to be men.

Aftermath of Russian strikes on?Odesa, Ukraine,?on May 10.

Fires caused by missile strikes in the southern Ukrainian city of Odesa have been extinguished, said the country’s State Emergency Service on Monday night.

Odesa came under heavy attack on Monday, with cruise missiles — including Russia’s new hypersonic Kinzhal missiles — destroying two hotels, a shopping center and a warehouse, officials said.

One person died and five were hospitalized, according to Ukrainian officials. Detailed information on other injuries and possible victims is still being clarified, they said.

The hypersonic missile: The new Khinzal missile had its combat debut at the beginning of the war, and has only been used once before, according to Western intelligence sources. It carries a conventional payload of up to 480 kilograms.

The strikes caused extensive damage, with images from the city showing widespread devastation. One?missile strike in the Suvorov district set fire to three warehouses with a total area of ??1,200 square meters, according to Ukrainian officials.

Some context: Odesa and the surrounding area have seen a sharp uptick in strikes in the last week, with Russian forces using submarines, surface ships and aircraft to launch missiles.

A Ukrainian serviceman loads a shell into a mortar in?the Kharkiv?region of Ukraine on May 9.

The Russian military is reinforcing its presence along the northern border as Ukrainian forces counter-attack around the city of Kharkiv, the Ukrainian military said Tuesday.

Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, lies about 24 miles (39 kilometers) from the border with the Russian region of Belgorod.

Local Ukrainian officials in areas south of Kharkiv reported Monday that some Russian units had moved north, possibly to try to reinforce Russian supply lines from Belgorod. CNN cannot confirm the movement.

Last week, a video circulating on Telegram showed Ukrainian forces retaking the village of Molodova, just 13 miles southeast of the Ukraine-Russia border. CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of the video.

As Ukrainian units have pushed Russian forces further from Kharkiv, the Russians appear to be responding with more artillery and rocket fire across the border in other regions, the Ukrainian military said.

The General Staff?said that on Monday, Russia had carried out attacks with rocket-propelled grenades across the border at four villages in Sumy, about 110 miles (175 km) northwest of Kharkiv.

On the main front in the eastern region of Luhansk, which has seen the bulk of recent fighting, the military says fighting continues around Severodonetsk. The Russians tried to break south of the?Siverskyi?Donets?river by building pontoon bridges, but at least one was destroyed by Ukrainian forces, according to satellite imagery seen by CNN, with the loss of Russian tanks and other equipment.

However, one pontoon bridge north of the village of Bilohorivka appears to have allowed some Russian armor to cross on Sunday.

Early Tuesday,?Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, said that “the situation in Bilohorivka remains difficult. The enemy tried to create a strong crossing there to transfer equipment and personnel.”

Hayday said around 80 Russian soldiers crossed the river.

“There are a few of them left,” he said.

Hayday said elsewhere in Luhansk, Ukrainian units had held?the line of defense. “There are no breakthroughs.”

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin arrives to watch the Victory Day military parade at Red Square in central Moscow, Russia, on May 9.

Japan expanded sanctions against Russia on Tuesday, freezing the assets of more than 130 people including Russian Prime Minister?Mikhail Mishustin.

The new sanctions target?eight Russian citizens, and 133 members of the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic and Luhansk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine, said Japan’s Foreign Ministry in a statement.

The list includes Mishustin, oligarch Vladimir Bogdanov, and the family members of the oligarch Gennady Timshenko, according to the Ministry.?It’s unknown whether these officials hold assets in Japan.?

Japan also expanded its export ban?to 71 additional Russian organizations including manufacturers and research institutes, the statement said.?

Some background: Since March, Japan has introduced a series of sanctions against Russia, including freezing the assets of Russian President Vladimir Putin and his family members in response to the invasion.?

Russia has responded by imposing its own sanctions on Japan,?such as an entry ban of Japanese officials including Prime Minister?Fumio?Kishida.?

Aftermath of a Russian strike on a shopping mall near Odesa, Ukraine, on May 9

Russian forces attacked Odesa on Monday, using submarines, surface ships and aircraft to launch missiles at a range of locations – including a shopping mall and two hotels – across the southern city. Video released by the city council showed widespread devastation.?

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin used Victory Day celebrations to reiterate his baseless accusation that the West left him no choice but to invade Ukraine. He offered few clues on the direction of the conflict and?planned air shows?were canceled. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said Putin’s allegations that NATO was “creating threats next to our border,” are “patently false and absurd.”?

Here are some of the latest developments:

Ukrainian counterattack in Kharkiv unfolds:?The Ukrainian military says Russia is holding back some of its forces within its borders to prevent a Ukrainian counterattack that has made some headway east of Kharkiv. Inside Ukraine, the general staff says the most intense activity is in the Donetsk region, where Russian forces are trying to advance toward the town of Lyman, a major transport hub.

Holding out at steel plant: Ukrainian soldiers continue to hold out in the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol, according to the State Border Guard Service. There are thought to be several hundred soldiers still at Azovstal as well as an unknown number of male civilians.?The plant is the last holdout of Ukrainian resistance in the southern city.

Attack on Ukrainian cultural figure: A historic home of Ukraine’s treasured poet and philosopher Hryhorii Skovoroda was destroyed by a Russian artillery strike, along with a museum of his work. The home is located in a tiny village not far from Kharkiv, but nowhere near any obvious military targets. The attack appears to have been a deliberate act of cultural vandalism, and not the first since the Russian invasion began in February.

Russian journalists write posts critical of Putin: Two Russian reporters appear to have posted at least 30 articles that appeared briefly on a pro-Kremlin news site, lenta.ru, criticizing Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his government’s suppression of critics. “Putin and his circle are doomed to face a tribunal after the end of the war,” they wrote on lenta.ru. “Putin and his associates won’t be able to justify themselves or flee after losing this war.”

Additional US funds for Ukraine: The US House of Representatives will consider an additional $40 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. On Monday, President Joe Biden called on Congress to “immediately” pass?the Ukraine aid bill, warning for the first time that existing aid will run out in “approximately ten days.”

Finland edges closer to NATO: It is “highly likely” that Finland will apply for membership in NATO, the country’s Minister for European Affairs Tytti Tuppurainen told CNN on Monday. The nation’s likely membership is “a very natural response” to Russia’s war in Ukraine, she said,?adding that if her country does indeed apply, she hopes “the ratification process would be as brief as possible.”

A screen shows Russian President Vladimir Putin giving a speech as servicemen line up on Red Square during the Victory Day military parade in Moscow on May 9.

Two Russian reporters appear to have posted at least 30 articles to a pro-Kremlin news site, lenta.ru, on Monday criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and his government’s suppression of critics.

CNN reviewed the articles – which were almost immediately taken down – some pegged to the 77th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s defeat of Nazi Germany, others criticizing the Russian leader for using Victory Day to justify his bloody onslaught into Ukraine.

Reporters Egor Polyakov and Alexandra Miroshnikova made several claims in their articles, including that Russian defense officials were “lying to relatives” about those killed in the sinking of the Russian Navy’s Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva and accusing Putin of launching one of the “bloodiest wars of the 21st century.”

Polyakov and Miroshnikova are both business editors at lenta.ru, a major pro-Kremlin Russian news site. The outlet’s parent company was recently bought by Russian Sberbank, which is subject to US sanctions for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

CNN reached out to the two reporters and lenta.ru for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

The Russian parliament passed a law in early March criminalizing what it considers to be falsehoods about Russia’s war in Ukraine. Breaking that law can result in a 1.5 million ruble (around $21,467) fine or up to 15 years in prison. Putin and state-owned media still refer to the full-scale ground war in Ukraine as a “special operation.”

Independent Russian news site Mediazone?published?what it said was a statement from Polyakov and Miroshnikova after the articles appeared.

Polyakov and Miroshnikova not only publicly rejected the government line on the invasion but accused Putin of lying about his intentions in Ukraine from the outset.

They pointed to Putin’s call for a “liberation of Donbass,” “de-Nazification,” and the “demilitarization of Ukraine,” as examples of what they describe as hastily put together justifications for a needless war.

One of the articles in the duo’s Victory Day series focused on what they described as the Russian military lying to families of sailors who died on the Moskva flagship.?CNN has previously reported?on anxious Russian parents scrambling for information about the fate of sailors aboard the ship that was sunk by two Ukrainian missiles sunk last month.

The article claimed the Russian navy may have re-circulated old images of the Moskva’s crew to suggest more sailors made it off the ship unharmed than really did.

CNN could not independently confirm these claims.

Each article on lenta.ru started with the same urgent plea under the headline.?

The duo also appeared to sign off from lenta.ru saying, “We’re looking for work, lawyers and probably, political asylum!”

“Don’t be afraid, don’t be quiet,” they continued in an apparent call to action. “Resist! You are not one, you are many! The future is yours!… Peace to Ukraine!”

Reporting critical of the government in Russian media is rare – especially since the war in Ukraine started in February. The last major journalistic show of dissent from state media was when long-time Russian TV editor Marina Ovsyannikova held up an anti-war sign during a live broadcast on Russia’s Channel 1 in March. She was arrested and fined 30,000 rubles.

Ovsyannikova is now reporting for a German-owned news outlet from Russia and Ukraine

In the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, nonstop shelling has reduced buildings to rubble. In nearby villages, the fields are covered in debris.

But many residents can’t leave. Instead, they do their best to move forward, hiding in basement shelters when the shelling gets too close.

On the roads, men still sell cow’s milk, and care for their livestock. But it’s not so much that life goes on, said CNN’s International Security Editor Nick Paton Walsh — it’s that life has nowhere else to go.

When asked about the possibility of leaving, one resident laughs. “I’ve got plans for tomorrow,” she told Walsh. “Every day I go out, the goats are waiting for me. I’d sleep longer but there’s shelling and the goats are asking for food.”

Others feel they can’t leave their homes while beloved children are on the front lines.

Another resident, Svetlana, said she was waiting for her son to return from the war in Mariupol.

Take a look:

Firefighters respond to a missile attack on a hotel in Zakota, near Odesa, Ukraine, on May 9.

A shopping mall and two hotels were hit by Russian military strikes on Monday in the southern port city of Odesa.

Three Kinzhal missiles — Russia’s new hypersonic missiles — were fired from a plane and hit a “tourist infrastructure target”, said Sergey Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the Odesa regional military administration. ?

Two people were hospitalized from the missile strike, Bratchuk said. CNN could not confirm the injuries.??

Bratchuk did not identify the target, but CNN has geolocated and verified the authenticity of two videos circulating on social media, which show significant damage at a hotel in the village of Zatoka. One of the videos was first published by the Odesa City Council.?

This is the second hotel in the Odesa region that was targeted Monday. It’s unclear why the two hotels, or who may have been staying at them, were targeted.

A shopping mall was also hit by seven missiles, according to Ukraine’s Armed Forces Southern Operational Command. Five people were wounded, and one person died in the strike, it said.?

The House of Representatives will consider an additional $40 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine on Tuesday, according to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer.

On Monday, President Joe Biden called on Congress to “immediately” pass?the Ukraine aid bill, warning for the first time that existing aid will run out in “approximately ten days.”

“Get it to my desk in the next few days,” Biden said in a statement.

Biden initially requested $33 billion, but Congress has proposed billions more for food aid and military equipment.

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US Vice President Kamala Harris (R) listens as US President Joe Biden delivers remarks on lowering the cost of high speed internet, in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 9, 2022. (Photo by Nicholas Kamm / AFP) (Photo by NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP via Getty Images)

Related article Biden tells Congress to 'immediately' pass $40 billion Ukrainian aid bill

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Finnish Minister of European Affairs and Ownership Steering, Tytti Tuppurainen, talks to media prior to an EU General Affairs Council in Brussels, Belgium, on February 22.

It is “highly likely” that Finland will apply for membership in NATO, said the Finnish minister for European affairs.

Speaking to CNN on Monday, Tytti Tuppurainen said the decision has not yet been made, but called the nation’s likely membership “a very natural response” to Russia’s war in Ukraine.?She added that if her country does indeed apply, she hopes “the ratification process would be as brief as possible.”

On Thursday, Finnish President Sauli Niinist? is expected to give his personal opinion about whether to pursue NATO membership, which is expected to be followed by a statement by Prime Minister Sanna Marin.?

Impending decision: Tuppurainen told CNN that most of the country’s political parties have already discussed the issue. The Social Democrats — Marin and Tuppurainen’s party — will gather on Saturday to make their decision, which will be guided by Marin’s announcement.

“Now that the leader of the country is about to make the decision regarding the NATO application, we can say with good arguments that the whole country is ready for this,” Tuppurainen said, noting the strong public support in Finland for joining the defensive alliance.

Message to Moscow: Russia has warned it will respond if Finland – with which it shares a more than 800 mile border – joins NATO.?

“We’ve seen now what kind of a country Russia is and what kind of a regime it has. It has a ruthless dictator as leader,” she said. “We are no longer under any kind of illusions what he’s up to … and we know now that he can wage a war that is as despicable and ruthless and brutal as one can imagine.”

Finland has been a longtime partner of NATO, something that US and NATO officials have pointed to in voicing support for the nation’s membership if it chooses to apply.