Leaked classified intelligence suggests US is pessimistic that Ukraine can end war quickly.

1 year ago 8
46 min ago

Videos purport to show beheadings of Ukrainian soldiers

From CNN's Vasco Cotovio, Andrew Carey, Josh Pennington and Yulia Kesaieva

Two videos have emerged on social media in the past week which purport to show beheadings of Ukrainian soldiers.

The videos appear to be of separate events – one of them may have been filmed very recently, while the other, from the amount of foliage seen on the ground, looks like it was filmed during the summer.

The first video was posted to a pro-Russian social media channel on April 8. It was purportedly filmed by Russian mercenaries from the Wagner group and appears to show the beheaded corpses of two Ukrainian soldiers lying on the ground next to a destroyed military vehicle.

In the video, a voice can be heard, behind the camera, the sound seemingly distorted to prevent the speaker’s identification.

“(The armoured vehicle) got f**ked by a mine,” the voice, speaking Russian, says. 

Apparently referring to the bodies on the ground, the voice, laughing, continues, “They killed them. Someone came up to them. They came up to them and cut their heads off.” 

The dead soldiers also appear to have had their hands cut off. 

Russian social media accounts say the video was shot near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine, which has been the scene of the war’s fiercest fighting for many months, with Wagner fighters heavily involved. CNN is unable to independently confirm the video’s location.

The second video, which was posted on Twitter and is heavily blurred, looks to have been filmed during the summer because of the amount of plant life on the ground. It purports to show a Russian fighter using a knife to cut off the head of a Ukrainian soldier. A voice at the beginning of the video suggests the victim might have still been alive when the attack began.

Shortly after the videos emerged, Andriy Yermak, a top advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted: “There will be an accountability for everything.”

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43 min ago

Leaked classified intelligence suggests US is pessimistic that Ukraine can end war quickly. Here's what we know

From CNN Staff

The highly classified leaked Pentagon documents posted to social media offer a pessimistic US view of the war's progress in Ukraine.

The documents highlight flaws in Ukraine's weaponry and air defenses and predict a stalemate in the war for months to come.

The documents, which appear to date from February and March, detail many of Ukraine's perceived military shortfalls as Kyiv prepares for a spring counteroffensive against Russia. 

Several of the classified documents warn Ukraine's medium-range air defenses to protect front-line troops will be "completely reduced by May 23," suggesting Russia could soon have aerial superiority and Ukraine could lose the ability to amass ground forces in a counteroffensive. 

The documents also underscore lingering problems with Russia's own military offensive, predicting that the result will be a stalemate between the two sides for the foreseeable future.

Officials familiar with the situation tell CNN the documents appear to be part of a daily intelligence briefing deck prepared for the Pentagon's senior leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley. 

The leaking of the documents — many of which are marked top secret — represents a major national security breach, and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into who may have leaked them while the Pentagon is investigating how the leak impacts US national security.

In addition to the assessment of the Ukraine war, the documents include intelligence gathered on allies and adversaries alike.

Here are the latest headlines:

  • UN says nearly 8,500 civilian deaths confirmed in Ukraine since invasion: The  the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said it had recorded 22,734 civilian casualties in Ukraine. between the beginning of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, until April 9, 2023 — with 8,490 civilians killed and 14,244 injured. The actual figures are likely to be “considerably higher,” the OHCHR cautioned, because information from some frontline locations such as Mariupol and Severodonetsk had been delayed, with many reports pending corroboration. 
  • Ukraine's top national security official downplays leaked intelligence documents: Some of the information in the highly classified leaked Pentagon documents was “not secret at all," according to Oleksii Danilov, the head of Ukraine’s National Security Council. "You can find it in publicly available sources,“ Danilov told journalist, Vassili Golod, of German broadcaster ARD, in an interview on Sunday. Ukraine is in constant contact with its key allies, such as the US, the UK, Germany and Poland, according to Danilov.
  • Americans detained by Russia: Paul Whelan, an American wrongfully detained in Russia, was able to call home on Monday for the first time in nearly two weeks, his brother David Whelan said Tuesday. "We been led to believe, erroneously, that Paul had been moved to LPU-21, the prison hospital," David Whelan said in an email to journalists. Such a move has happened in the past, leaving Paul Whelan unable to call his parents or the embassy. Meanwhile, US President Joe Biden spoke with the parents of Evan Gershkovich, the Wall Street Journal correspondent detained in Russia, Tuesday. It's their first time speaking since Gershkovich was arrested in Russia last month. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken noted that he had designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained Monday, and reiterated that he called on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to immediately grant consular access and release the detained journalist.
  • Russia conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile: Russia successfully conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Tuesday, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The launch from the Kapustin Yar test range in the Astrakhan region was part of testing on next-generation ICBM combat equipment, the Defense Ministry reports. 
41 min ago

Russia conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile Tuesday, Defense Ministry says

From CNN's Josh Pennington and AnneClaire Stapleton

Russia successfully conducted a test launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Tuesday, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. 

The launch from the Kapustin Yar test range in the Astrakhan region was part of testing on next-generation ICBM combat equipment, the Defense Ministry reports. 

"On April 11, 2023, a Strategic Missile Forces combat crew conducted a successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile from the Kapustin Yar state central joint forces test range in the Astrakhan region," the statement said.

The launch helped confirm the correctness of schematic and structural and technical solutions used in developing new strategic missile systems, the Defense Ministry said. The missile's test warhead hit the target at the Sary Shagan firing range (Republic of Kazakhstan) with the target accuracy, according to the statement.

“The objectives of the launch were fulfilled in full," the statement read. 

Back in February, Russia carried out a test of an ICBM that appears to have failed around the time President Joe Biden was in Ukraine, according to two US officials familiar with the matter.

Russia notified the United States in advance of the launch through deconfliction lines under its New START treaty obligations, one official said, adding that "such testing is routine." Another official said that the test did not pose a risk to the United States and that the US did not view the test as an anomaly or an escalation.

CNN's Oren Liebermann and Natasha Bertrand contributed to this report.

1 min ago

Blinken: Russia's failure to grant consular access to detained journalist violates international commitments

From CNN's Jennifer Hansler

Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, April 11.Antony Blinken speaks during a news conference in Washington on Tuesday, April 11. (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Russia’s failure to grant consular access to wrongfully detained Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich “puts it, once again, in violation of international commitments it’s made."

“I think Russia not following through on meeting its obligations to consular access, never mind the practice of detaining people arbitrarily for political purposes, is going to do even more damage to Russia's standing around the world — a standing that has been in free-fall, particularly since its rei-nvasion of Ukraine last year,” Blinken said at a news conference at the US State Department.

“I think it sends a very strong message to people around the world to beware of even setting foot there, lest they be arbitrarily detained,” he said.

Blinken noted that he had designated Gershkovich as wrongfully detained Monday, and reiterated that he called on Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to immediately grant consular access and release the detained journalist.

Blinken did say what measures are being taken to free Gershkovich, only saying that the US is “engaged every single day in pressing for that access as well as pressing for Evan’s release.”

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