Ukraine retakes parts of Severodonetsk amid brutal street fighting; World Bank slashes global growth forecast

Ukraine is taking action to prepare the country for the next winter, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address.

The country has banned gas and coal exports so all domestic production can be directed to the Ukrainian people, he said.

However, Ukraine is working to increase its electricity export capabilities, which will also directly help stabilize the energy situation in neighboring countries and reduce Russian energy consumption, Zelenskyy added.

Repairing thermal power plants, combined heat and power plants and boiler houses will also be one of the "top tasks" for the Energy Ministry, he said.

"I would like to emphasize that I have set a very specific task for the government to do everything possible to ensure that gas and electricity tariffs do not change in the next heating season," Zelenskyy said.

"People already face enough difficulties because of the war. This will be provided," he said.

— Chelsea Ong

The besieged Ukrainian city of Mariupol could now be facing a deadly cholera outbreak, NBC News reported, citing local officials.

Drinking water in the city has been contaminated by decomposing garbage and corpses, increasing the risk of a cholera outbreak, NBC reported, citing an advisor to the occupied city's mayor.

The advisor, Petro Andryushchenko, also added that a nearby Russian city across the border was preparing infectious disease units in case a cholera outbreak might affect Russian soldiers in Mariupol, NBC News reported.

"So really, this threat is not only recognized by the World Health Organization and us, but the occupants as well," Andryushchenko said on Ukrainian television, according to NBC News.

He said in a different interview that Russian authorities controlling Mariupol were effectively shutting down the city and imposing a self-imposed quarantine.

NBC News and CNBC could not independently confirm Andryushchenko's claim.

Cholera can kill within hours if left untreated, according to the WHO.

The organization last month warned of the threat of infectious disease outbreaks in Mariupol, citing local nongovernmental organizations that the city's sewage and drinking water were getting mixed, creating "a huge hazard for many infections, including cholera."

— Chelsea Ong

The World Bank executive board announced it has approved $1.49 billion in additional funding for Ukraine which will be used to pay for the wages of government and social workers.

The new funds are part of a larger support package of over $4 billion, up from the earlier estimate $3 billion, the World Bank said in a statement. Of the expanded package, $2 billion has been disbursed.

The latest funding was supported by financing guarantees from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Lithuania, and Latvia, as well as parallel financing from Italy, expected future guarantees, including from Denmark, and contributions from a new Multi-donor Trust Fund, the World Bank said.

The U.S. last month also committed $40 billion to Ukraine, while the Group of Seven's financial leaders agreed on $9.5 billion in new aid.

The World Bank added that it is working to support ordinary Ukrainians in areas such as access to health services, education, social protection, water supply, energy and roads.

"Maintaining these core services, and the ability of the government to deliver them, is essential to preventing further deterioration in living conditions and poverty in Ukraine beyond the suffering inflicted on the population because of the war," said World Bank country director for Eastern Europe, Arup Banerji.

"In addition, keeping government capabilities functioning will be the bedrock of any recovery and reconstruction going forward."

— Chelsea Ong

Angela Merkel defended her approach to Ukraine and Russia during her 16 years as Germany's leader, saying that a much criticized 2015 peace deal for eastern Ukraine bought Kyiv precious time and she won't apologize for her diplomatic efforts.

In her first substantial comments since leaving office six months ago, Merkel said there was "no excuse" for Russia's "brutal" attack on Ukraine and it was "a big mistake on Russia's part."

Merkel, who dealt with Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout her chancellorship, rejected a suggestion that she and others engaged in appeasement that ultimately enabled the invasion.

"I tried to work toward calamity being averted, and diplomacy was not wrong if it doesn't succeed," she said in an on-stage interview at a Berlin theater that was televised live. "I don't see that I should say now that it was wrong, and so I won't apologize."

"It is a matter of great sorrow that it didn't succeed, but I don't blame myself now for trying," Merkel said.

— Associated Press

Radiation detectors in the Exclusion Zone around Ukraine's defunct Chornobyl nuclear power plant are back online for the first time since Russia seized the area on Feb. 24, and radiation levels are normal, the U.N. nuclear watchdog said.

"Most of the 39 detectors sending data from the Exclusion Zone ... are now visible on the IRMIS (International Radiation Monitoring Information System) map," the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement. "The measurements received so far indicated radiation levels in line with those measured before the conflict."

— Reuters

The U.S. military has begun training Ukrainian forces on the sophisticated rocket systems that the Biden administration agreed last week to provide, but that Russia has said could trigger wider airstrikes in Ukraine.

Marine Lt. Col. Anton Semelroth, Pentagon spokesman, said Ukrainian troops are training on the High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, at Grafenwoehr training base in Germany and elsewhere in Europe.

The U.S. agreed to send four of the medium-range, precision rocket systems to Ukraine as part of a $700 million package approved last week, and officials said it would take about three weeks of training before they could go to the battlefront.

Russian President Vladimir Putin warned on Sunday that any Western deliveries of longer-range rocket systems would prompt Moscow to hit "objects that we haven't yet struck."

— Associated Press

Fiji's top court allowed U.S. authorities to take possession of a $235 million, 350-foot yacht said to be owned by Russian billionaire Suleiman Kerimov.

The superyacht Amadea quickly was sailed out of a port in Fiji, bound for the United States, the Department of Justice said.

The seizure is the latest in a series of actions taken against the assets of Russia's elite as punishment for their country's invasion of Ukraine.

The U.S. argued in Fijian courts that Kerimov, who is under American sanctions, was the real owner of the Amadea, despite paperwork that showed it was owned by Eduard Khudainatov, the former CEO of Russian oil and gas company Rosneft.

Fiji's Supreme Court said it was in the public interest that the Amadea leave in U.S. possession, saying its berthing there was "costing the Fijian government dearly."

- Dan Mangan

The U.S. Navy warship USS Gravely docked in the Baltic port city of Gdynia, Poland in what officials described as a show of support for Ukraine.

— Reuters

The World Bank expects Ukraine's economy to be cut almost in half this year, as Russia's invasion has crippled its industries, infrastructure, investment and population.

Ukraine's economy is predicted to contract by 45.1% in 2022, the Bank wrote in its Global Economic Prospects report. In 2021, Ukraine's gross domestic product reached nearly $200 billion, the highest level since its independence in 1991, its economy ministry said in February of this year.

Before the invasion its population was 44 million; 7 million Ukrainians have now fled the country as refugees, and a further 7 million are internally displaced, according to the United Nations.

Russia's economy, meanwhile, is expected to contract by 8.9%, the World Bank forecasts. Its economy has been hit by myriad international sanctions and a mass exodus of foreign companies, but high prices of oil and gas — of which Russia is a major exporter — are keeping its current account balance in a healthy surplus and its currency relatively strong.

— Natasha Turak

Russian forces now control 97% of Ukraine's Luhansk region, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu said, according to the Associated Press.

The assessment comes after weeks of brutal fighting and heavy Russian artillery bombardment of much of the eastern Donbas, of which Luhansk is a part. Moscow says that full control over the Donbas is an "unconditional priority."

Much of the fiercest fighting, including street battles, is currently taking place in Luhansk in the cities of Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk, where Russian forces have won major ground despite some recent successful efforts by Ukrainian troops to claw back territory.

Some officials and pundits in other countries have suggested Ukraine should give up the Donbas to Russia in exchange for peace, an idea Ukraine fiercely rejects. Kyiv and many of its Western allies warn that if they give up land to Russia, Moscow will only be incentivized to expand its gains and try to capture more Ukrainian territory. Russia has been ambiguous on whether it would seek to capture more land.

— Natasha Turak

The United Nations has confirmed 4,253 civilian deaths and 5,141 injuries in Ukraine since Russia invaded its ex-Soviet neighbor on Feb. 24.

The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll in Ukraine is likely higher, because the armed conflict can delay fatality reports.

The international organization said most of the civilian casualties recorded were caused by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple launch rocket systems, as well as missiles and airstrikes.

— Amanda Macias

The World Bank cut its projection for global growth by 1.2 percentage points to 2.9% for this year, citing Russia's invasion of Ukraine as a further blow that was worsening an already hard-hit economy still recovering from the Covid pandemic and facing mounting inflation.

The world is entering a "protracted period of feeble growth and elevated inflation," the organization wrote in its latest Global Economic Prospects report.

Russia's war in Ukraine has slammed global food exports, particularly grains and cooking oils — a huge proportion of which are exported by the two warring countries — because Russian forces are blocking Ukraine's vital Black Sea ports.

The disruption in agricultural supplies has hit Middle Eastern and African economies particularly hard, as these regions rely heavily on Black Sea food exports and their largely lower-income populations are now struggling under acute food price inflation.

"With inflation now running at multi-decade highs in many countries and supply expected to grow slowly, there is a risk that inflation will remain higher for longer," World Bank President David Malpass wrote.

The World Bank expects global growth to slow by 2.7 percentage points between 2021 and 2024. Global growth had reached around 5.5% in 2021, the Bank wrote previously.

— Natasha Turak

German lender Deutsche Bank has offered its roughly 1,500 employees at a tech center it ran in Russia the opportunity to relocate to Berlin with their families, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing a source familiar with the matter.

Roughly half accepted, the Journal reported. The bank has not specified what will happen to the Russian center, where staff were tasked with developing corporate and trading software.

The move follows similar decisions by several major firms to relocate their Russia-based staff — either permanently or temporarily — elsewhere as a result of Western sanctions on the country and its invasion of Ukraine. Several companies including international consulting firms have chosen the United Arab Emirates as their relocation spot.

Deutsche Bank's move reflects its desire to make Berlin the hub for its tech operations, as well as to avoid the cybersecurity risk of having major staff operations in Russia.

— Natasha Turak

Russia's parliament, called the Duma, passed bills ending its membership in the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) and terminating the court's jurisdiction over Russia. The bills passed established the deadline for its jurisdiction as March 16, meaning any cases or rulings beyond that point would be void.

The ECHR is part of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which expelled Russia as a member on March 15 over its invasion of Ukraine. Previously, the ECHR provided a means of pursuing legal and human rights cases against Russia that had either been rejected or ignored by Russian courts, or that were too dangerous to pursue in Russia itself.

Russia in March also left the Council of Europe, Europe's largest inter-governmental organization, whose parliamentary assembly unanimously voted to expel it. Moscow says it independently decided to leave the organization.

— Natasha Turak

Ukraine cannot be pressured by other countries into accepting a bad peace deal with Russia, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson said during a meeting with his cabinet.

Johnson "said it was vital that President Zelenskyy was not pressured into accepting a bad peace, noting that bad peace deals do not last," a spokesperson for the prime minister told reporters.

Johnson also "said the world must avoid any outcome where Putin's unwarranted aggression appears to have paid off," the representative added.

Some officials and former political players, including former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, have suggested that Ukraine should cede some of its territory to Russia in order to end the war.

Ukrainian officials have responded by accusing those people of not living in reality, pointing out Russia's continued effort to seize and annex Ukrainian land over the years, and arguing that giving up territory will only encourage Moscow to try to eventually take more.

Ukrainian officials say they will not give up on diplomacy, but that at the moment, peace negotiations are going nowhere.

— Natasha Turak

Speaking to U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson's cabinet, British Foreign Minister Liz Truss said new sanctions against Russia for its invasion of Ukraine are in the pipeline.

The U.K. has already levied several rounds of sanctions on Moscow targeting individual oligarchs and contacts of Russian President Vladimir Putin, trade with Russia, Russian financial institutions and state media outlets. It also aims to phase out its purchasing of Russian oil by the end of 2022.

Johnson said his government would "remain at the forefront" of support for Ukraine. The prime minister visited Kyiv in April in a show of support, meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as part of a surprise trip.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy decried what he called Ukraine's "dead cities," once centers of life now almost entirely destroyed by Russian bombardment.

He was referring to Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, crucial remaining holdouts in the country's east that Russian forces have almost entirely captured and that are key in Moscow's aims to take the entirety of Ukraine's Donbas region.

Fierce fighting continues in both cities, with most civilian areas and infrastructure completely demolished.

Zelenskyy visited Lysychansk on Sunday, in a surprise and risky move that put him on the frontlines of the fighting.

— Natasha Turak

Ukrainian forces have managed to retake some parts of the embattled city of Severodonetsk in the eastern Donbas, where Russia has captured significant territory in recent weeks.

The city is seen as a last Ukrainian holdout in the Luhansk region and has been the scene of brutal street fighting and severe Ukrainian personnel losses.

"Over the weekend, Ukrainian forces have recaptured parts of Severodonetsk although Russian forces likely continue to occupy eastern districts," the U.K.'s Ministry of Defence said in its latest daily intelligence update on Twitter. "Russia's broader plan likely continues to be to cut off the Severodonetsk area from both the north and the south."

"Russia made gains on the southern, Popasna axis through May but its progress in the area has stalled over the last week," the ministry wrote, adding that Russia is likely preparing to make a renewed push in the north of the territory.

"Russia will almost certainly need to achieve a breakthrough on at least one of these axes to translate tactical gains to operational level success and progress towards its political objective of controlling all of Donetsk Oblast," the ministry added.

Ukrainian officials have said that Russia controls more than 90% of the eastern Luhansk oblast.

— Natasha Turak

Russia's blockade of key Ukrainian ports, which has stalled critical grain exports, has hurt people around the world, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said.

"The Kremlin needs to realize that it is exporting starvation and suffering well beyond Ukraine's borders," he said during a roundtable on food insecurity with business leaders and Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack.

Blinken noted that African countries are "experiencing an outsized share of the pain."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has sought a corridor to export grains held up in Ukrainian ports. United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has held talks to try to free up the grain supply.

— Jacob Pramuk

— Reuters

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