Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky interviewed by Emma Murphy of the UK’s ITV News in Kyiv (ITV)

Sunday’s Coverage: North Korea’s Kim Pledges Support for Russia’s “Just Cause”

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 2046 GMT:

Moldova’s government says authorities in its Russian-occupied Transnistria region have refused the European Union’s offer of €60 million ($62 million) in energy support under pressure from Moscow.

Transnistria has faced energy shortages since Russia’s State company Gazprom halted gas supplies in January.

The cutoff coincided with Ukraine’s refusal to extend a contract for transit of Gazprom’s supplies, because of the 35 1/2-month Russian invasion.

Gazprom said the halt to Transnistria was because of an “unpaid debt” by Moldova.

The European Commission offered assistance to Transnistria as part of a two-year strategy for energy support for Moldova. The aid package was contingent on commitments from local authorities to improve “fundamental freedoms and human rights” and to ensure that the funds would not be used for “energy-intensive activities”.

“[Transnistria capital] Tiraspol has refused. Russia does not allow them to accept European aid for fear of losing control over the region,” said Moldovan Prime Minister Dorin Recean.

He said the primary condition that led to the rejection was a requirement for a gradual increase in consumer tariffs: “As a result, they cannot receive European aid. This means that the residents of Transnistria will continue to live in a state of unpredictability.”

Moldova said it will continue supplies to the Russian-occupied region.

UPDATE 1730 GMT:

The European Union’s lending branch, the European Investment Bank, has signed agreements to put close to €1 billion ($1.03 billion) into Ukraine’s public and private sectors.

Amid the Trump Administration’s freeze on US non-military aid, EIB President Nadia Calvino said on Monday that she discussed urgent funding needs with Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal.

“We discussed the priority areas where the EIB could step up its support — for example, in the areas of border management, transport, energy, and municipalities,” Calvino said in Kyiv. “We’re working very closely with the government to finance the necessary investments to rebuild, repair, and make national infrastructure more resilient.

The investment includes €420 million ($433 million) to help the public sector restore critical infrastructure such as energy, heating, water supply, hospitals, schools, and social housing.

The bank is mobilizing almost €500 million ($515 million) for small and medium-sized businesses, including in frontline regions.

The German Economy Ministry is providing a €16.5 million ($17 million) loan through the EIB’s Climate Initiative to finance renewable energy projects.

During Russia’s full-scale invasion, the EIB has delivered more than €2.2 billion ($2.26 billion), mainly for repairing and modernizing Ukraine’s municipal infrastructure.

UPDATE 1707 GMT:

The Trump Administration’s freeze of US foreign aid is threatening the international effort to hold Russia responsible for war crimes in Ukraine.

Eight sources and a Ukrainian document cited the halting of dozens of jobs and tens of millions of dollars in aid.

Ukraine has opened more than 140,000 war crime cases during Russia’s full-scale invasion, which has killed tens of thousands of civilians.

The Biden Administration has funded initiatives such as the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group for Ukraine. The effort of Donald Trump and Elon Musk to gut US agencies is threatening six projects worth $86 million at the Ukraine Prosecutor General’s Office.

Of that funding, $47 million is for war crimes investigations.

At least five of the projects have already been frozen. They are on issues from the preservation of evidence from the battlefield to anti-corruption initiatives and reform of Ukraine’s prosecution system.

Two of the listed projects are funded by the US Agency for International Development, three by the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement, and one by the State Department.

Among those affected by the freeze are 40 experts provided through Georgetown’s International Criminal Justice Initiative, supporting the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group.

ACA, which is also funded by the EU and Britain, said it has provided more than 150 experts with “decades of experience” to help Ukrainian prosecutors.

A project to provide support for the victims of conflict-related sexual violence has also been suspended. The work of two non-governmental organizations, collecting evidence from victims and documenting damages, has been frozen or limited.

“Our organization…will continue to exist, but we will look for alternative sources of independent funding and accordingly will continue working in this field, just in a limited way,” said Oleksandr Pavlichenko of the Ukrainian Helsinki Human Rights Union.

The group has halted the work of its regional offices in Ukraine after the US freeze cut around 75% of its annual budget.

Another Ukrainian organization, assisting in the collection of war crimes evidence and training of legal professionals, has partly ceased operations. If new funding is not found, jobs will be cut in three months.

UPDATE 0940 GMT:

A leaked Russian Government presentation documents the concern of officials that western pressure is hampering Moscow’s efforts to draw former Soviet nations closer into its orbit.

The officials also cite obstacles to the building of economic ties with the Global South.

The presentation was displayed at a strategy session led by Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin last April. It concedes that sanctions pressure, as well as economic overtures by western countries, had succeeded in driving a wedge between Moscow and some of its closest trade partners.

The Russian Cabinet presented the report to several dozen senior government officials and top executives at some of the country’s largest State companies.

The Kremlin had hoped to put Russia at the center of a Eurasian trade bloc, a “macroregion” rivaling the US, European Union, and China.

The macroregion would connect Russia to the global south by giving each side access to raw materials, developing financial and transport ties, and uniting them through a common “world view…where we write rules for the new world [and have] our own sanctions policy”.

But Russia’s projected allies have profited from sanctions by driving out Russian businesses, taking control of import and export flows, and relocating production from Russia. Central Asian countries have sought extra commissions to compensate for the risks of violating sanctions.

The development of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, which includes Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, is struggling with “systemic problems”. These include sanctions risks, the use of different payment systems after western countries blocked Russia from the global SWIFT system, and currency controls introduced by Moscow.

Belarus has been Moscow’s biggest success. President Alexander Lukashenko has replaced his 2018 call to diversify away from Russia economically with the declaration that “we will always be united with Russia”.

Kyrgyzstan has firmly backed Russia and become an important route for sanctions evasion. But neighboring Kazakhstan, the region’s largest economy, has condemned the invasion of Ukraine, refused to recognise Russia’s territorial gains, and made an effort to demonstrate compliance with western sanctions.

UPDATE 0919 GMT:

Igor Potapenko, the head of Russia’s Federal Penitentiary Service for St. Petersburg and the Leningrad region, ordered guards to subject Ukrainian prisoners of war to abuse from the first weeks of Russia’s full-scale invasion.

Former prison officials and ex-prisoners say Potapenko instructed an elite unit of guards to “be cruel” to POWs and not to “pity them”.

Enabling the abuse in Leningrad and other regions, Russian authorities removed the requirements of body cameras and lifted official restrictions on the use of violence.

As a result, guards subjected prisoners to prolonged electric shocks to their genitals, beat them while “experimenting” with different materials to maximize harm, and withheld medical treatment, allowing gangrene to progress until amputations were necessary.

Officials who spoke to the Wall Street Journal reportedly entered a witness protection program after testifying to investigators from the International Criminal Court. They are now living in undisclosed locations.

UPDATE 0855 GMT:

Despite European Union sanctions, timber worth more than €1.5 billion has still been delivered from Russia into the EU, with an estimated twenty container loads arriving daily.

A nine-month investigation by environmental watchdog Earthsight established that Poland is the largest importer of the sanctioned timber, with a third of recent deliveries of birch plywood. The Poles, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Estonia, and Greece account for the majority of suspect imports.

The primary routes for moving the timber are through China, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.

Goods from seven of Russia’s ten biggest birch plywood manufacturers are being sold into the EU. They include two firms whose largest shareholders are billionaire oligarchs who met with Putin on the day Russia invaded Ukraine. Alexei Mordashov is under EU sanctions, and Vladimir Yevtushenkov controls Russia’s largest logging firm.

UPDATE 0833 GMT:

At least two civilians have been killed and 16 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past 24 hours.

One resident was killed and 12 wounded in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine. The other fatality was in the Kherson region in the south, where one person was injured. Casualties were also reported in the Sumy, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Air defenses downed 61 of 83 drones launched by Russia over 11 regions. The other 22 were lost to electronic counter-measures.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that security guarantees for Kyiv must precede negotiations to end Russia’s 35 1/2-month full-scale invasion.

Zelensky said in an interview with a UK outlet, broadcast on Sunday, “If I had an understanding that America and Europe will not abandon us and they will support us and provide security guarantees, I would be ready for any format for talks.”

The President added that there must be assurances against any renewed invasion by Vladimir Putin:

A frozen conflict will lead to more aggression again and again. Who then will win prizes and go down in history as the victor? No one. It will be an absolute defeat for everyone, both for us, as is important, and for [Donald] Trump.

Zelensky’s remarks were aired soon after Trump declared, without evidence, that he had spoken with Putin.

Asked by reporters on Air Force One if there had been discussions, Trump asserted, “I’ve had it. Let’s just say I’ve had it….And I expect to have many more conversations. We have to get that war ended.”

He evaded giving any proof of the supposed calls, “If we are talking, I don’t want to tell you about the conversations.”

Zelensky has repeatedly stressed that discussions must not be solely between the US and Russia, but must include Ukraine and European partners.

Trump’s National Security Advisor Mike Waltz said on Sunday that senior US diplomats will be in Europe this week “talking through the details of how to end this war and that will mean getting both sides to the table”.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Vice President J.D. Vance, and Trump’s envoy Keith Kellogg could meet Ukrainian and/or Russian officials on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference from Friday to Sunday. CBS News, citing undisclosed sources, said Vance is expected to see Zelensky.

Waltz said the Russian economy was not doing well and that Trump “is prepared to tax, to tariff, to sanction” Moscow to get Putin to the negotiating table. At the same time, the Trump Administration would seek to reduce US aid to Ukraine, with European allies assuming a greater burden.

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The National Security Advisor refused to confirm Trump’s comments about speaking to Putin, saying only, “There certainly are a lot of sensitive conversations going on.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he could not neither confirm nor deny a conversation between Trump and Putin: “I personally may not know something, be unaware of something.”

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin continued Moscow’s pushback against negotiations:

It is important that words be backed up by practical steps that take into account Russia’s legitimate interests, demonstrating a readiness to eradicate the root causes of the crisis and recognise the new realities.

Concrete proposals of this nature have not yet been received.