War in Ukraine: Recent Developments

Here are the latest developments in the war in Ukraine:

Russia’s Supreme Court has labeled the Ukrainian army’s nationalist Azov regiment, which has been under siege in the port of Mariupol for weeks, a “terrorist” organization, meaning captured Azov members face lengthy prison terms.

Under the Russian Penal Code, members of “terrorist” groups face up to 10 years in prison, while their leaders and organizers face up to 20 years.

Moscow has for months labeled the Azov regiment, which began as a volunteer battalion before being integrated into the army, as a “neo-Nazi” group. The Russian embassy in Britain sparked outrage last week when it called for the Azov regiment fighters to be hanged.

The first official shipment of Ukrainian grain to leave Odessa since the Russian invasion is expected in Istanbul on Wednesday after charting a route through the mine-infested waters of the Black Sea.

The Sierra Leone-registered ship Razoni sailed Monday from the Ukrainian port bound for Lebanon under a Turkey-UN brokered deal aimed at bringing millions of tons of war-stalled products to world markets.

It will be inspected at sea in the Bosphorus Estuary by representatives of Ukraine, Russia, Turkey and the United Nations before being allowed to enter the Lebanese port of Tripoli.

A report by Yale University’s School of Management in the United States says that since the invasion, Russia’s economy has been severely damaged by Western sanctions and the pullout of multinational companies.

“The sanctions and company pullouts not only worked, they have thoroughly crippled the Russian economy at all levels,” concludes the report, which was compiled using data from companies, banks, consultants and Russian trading partners.

The report challenges the notion that Russia is weathering the economic storm thanks to the tens of billions of dollars it earns each month from oil and gas exports.

It estimates that Russian retail sales and consumer spending have fallen 15 to 20 percent annually and that car sales have shrunk from 100,000 a month to 27,000 a month.

An aide to former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev claims the politician’s VKontakte social network account was “hacked” after a post questioned the sovereignty of former Soviet countries.

The message, which was removed shortly after publication, called former Soviet Kazakhstan an “artificial state” and accused the Central Asian country of committing “genocide” against its Russian people.

The post – shared with Medvedev’s 2.2 million followers on the platform – also said that Georgia, which Russia invaded in 2008, “didn’t exist” before it became part of the Russian empire.

Medvedev, who is deputy chairman of the Security Council, served as president from 2008 to 2012. Since the invasion of Ukraine, he has repeatedly lashed out at the Kremlin’s critics on social media.