Ukraine war live updates: Russia claims it intercepted drones en route to Moscow; Ukraine and allies focus on reconstruction

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday it was necessary to move towards real projects for the reconstruction of Ukraine.

“We must move from agreement to real projects,” he said at the Ukraine Recovery Conference in London. “There is a Ukrainian delegation that will present concrete things and we propose to do them together during my tour,” he said.

Opening the conference, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a new framework for war risk insurance on Wednesday, aimed at helping businesses invest in Ukraine.

“This is a huge step forward towards helping insurers to underwrite investments into Ukraine, removing one of the biggest barriers and giving investors the confidence they need to act,” Sunak said.

— Reuters

Ukraine’s armed forces said they are gaining ground in their counteroffensive in the south of the country.

Andriy Kovalev, spokesperson of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said Ukraine’s troops continue to conduct offensive operations in the Melitopol and Berdyansk areas of Zaporizhzhia.

“On the directions Novodanilivka – Robotyne, Mala Tokmachka – Verbove, Vilne Pole – Makarivka, they had partial success, they are gaining ground at the achieved milestones,” he said, according to comments posted on the Military Media Center on Telegram.

Kovalev added that Russian forces focused their main efforts “on conducting defense and preventing the advance of Ukrainian troops, using reserves, trying to restore the lost position.”

Defense forces of Ukraine continue to hold back the advance of Russian troops in the east of the country, Kovalev added, noting that “especially heavy fighting” continues in the Lyman area of Donetsk.

“Offensive actions were carried out in the direction of Bilogorivka – Shipylivka, they were partially successful,” he said. CNBC was unable to immediately verify the information in the update.

— Holly Ellyatt

Russia’s Ministry of Defense claimed Wednesday that it had intercepted three Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on their approach toward “objects” in the Moscow region. 

The drones were shot down with the help of electronic warfare, the ministry said, according to state news agency Tass.

“Today, an attempt by the Kiev [Russia’s spelling of Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital] regime to carry out a terrorist attack on objects in the Moscow region with three aircraft-type unmanned aerial vehicles was thwarted. All UAVs were suppressed by electronic warfare, as a result of which they lost control and crashed,” the ministry said.

It added that there was no damage or casualties as a result of what it described as a “failed terrorist attack.”

Ukraine has not commented on the incident and says it does not attack objects in Russia itself, previously stating that such incidents were likely carried out by Kremlin opponents within the country.

— Holly Ellyatt

Intense fighting continues in parts of southern Ukraine, but Britain’s Ministry of Defense noted that, over recent weeks, Russia is continuing to fortify occupied territory in the Kherson region near Russian-controlled Crimea.

“Russia has continued to expend significant effort building defensive lines deep in rear areas, especially on the approaches to occupied Crimea,” the ministry said in an intelligence update Wednesday.

“This includes an extensive zone of defences of 9 km in length, 3.5 km north of the town Armyansk, on the narrow bridge of land connecting Crimea to the Kherson region.”

These “elaborate defences” highlight the Russian command’s assessment that Ukrainian forces are capable of directly assaulting Crimea, the U.K. noted, adding that “Russia continues to see maintaining control of the peninsula as a top political priority.”

— Holly Ellyatt

International leaders, officials and investors are in London on Wednesday for a two-day “Ukraine Recovery Conference” focused on drumming up funding for Ukraine’s reconstruction once the war ends.

Ahead of the conference, which will be attended virtually by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, the U.K. pledged a new package of financial support for Ukraine, including $3 billion of World Bank loan guarantees.

In his opening address at the conference, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is expected to say that Russia was hellbent on destroying Ukraine’s economy as its invasion continues.

“As we’ve seen in Bakhmut and Mariupol, what Russia cannot take it will seek to destroy. They want to do the same to Ukraine’s economy,” he said in pre-released remarks. “The scale of the challenge is real, the war brought a 29% fall in Ukraine’s GDP last year, but just look at the streets of Kyiv, despite the threat of attack, people are getting on with their lives – and getting on with business.”

On Tuesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen outlined a 50 billion euro ($54.6 billion) aid package for Ukraine for the next four years. It would be in the form of a budget reserve from the EU’s 2021-27 budget.

Andrius Tursa, Central and Eastern Europe advisor at Teneo, commented that while the Ukraine Recovery Conference provides “an opportunity to advance still relatively early-stage discussions on the massive and challenging post-war reconstruction phase,” the war is set to continue for the foreseeable future “as the first weeks of Ukraine’s long-awaited offensive reaffirm expectations of slow and costly gains.”

— Holly Ellyatt

Defense firm Raytheon Technologies (RTX) is expecting another $3 billion in arms sales as countries look to restock their arsenals amid Russia’s war in Ukraine.

“We are going through the warcraft, we are going through the munitions at a rate none of us expected,” RTX CEO Greg Hayes told CNBC’s Phil LeBeau on the sidelines of the Paris Air Show.

“We have seen $2 billion of orders related to Ukraine restocking. We expect another $3 billion this year but there are probably a multiple of that we will see over the three or four years,” Hayes added.

The United States has provided the lion’s share of security assistance to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s war. Last week, the Biden administration approved its 40th weapons package for Ukraine worth $325 million bringing the U.S. security assistance to more than $40 billion since Russia’s full-scale invasion last February.

— Amanda Macias

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post contains graphic content depicting death in Kherson region.

Waters slowly recede in the Hola Prystan area of Kherson in eastern Ukraine following the collapse of Nova Kakhovka dam. Volunteers and municipal workers begin the gruesome task of clearing bodies in the Russian-controlled territory of the Kherson region after flood waters receded. Kyiv and Moscow both blame each other for the dam’s explosion.

— Anadolu Agency | Getty Images

A Moscow court fined the companies that own the popular messaging apps Telegram and Viber, citing their failure to remove certain content Russia deems to be “illegal”, in particular content on the war in Ukraine.

Telegram, whose operational center is in Dubai, was ordered to pay a 4 million ruble fine ($47,525), while Viber’s owner, the Japanese multinational company Rakuten, was fined $1 million rubles, according to Russian news agency Interfax.

Telegram is very widely used in both Russia and Ukraine by political leaders, the military, journalists, activists and ordinary citizens. It was founded by Russian-born brothers in 2013.

The fine for Telegram, Russian state media agency TASS reported, was for not deleting 32 channels publishing what Moscow described as “false information” about the war in Ukraine, which it calls its “special military operation.”

Shortly after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began, the Kremlin announced a law that banned any “discrediting” of Russia’s armed forces, with penalties of up to 15 years’ imprisonment. Numerous critics of the war have been arrested and jailed.

— Natasha Turak

It’s becoming clear that Ukraine could have a long and bloody slog ahead of it when it comes to its counteroffensive aiming at recapturing Russian-occupied territory in the south and east of the country.

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has produced only limited gains so far, with eight settlements reclaimed in the last two weeks. Ukrainian officials are the first to admit that the country’s armed forces face a “tough duel” with Russia in the weeks and months ahead.

“We knew from before we started [the counteroffensive] that this wasn’t going to be a walk in the park,” Yuriy Sak, a senior advisor in Ukraine’s defense ministry, told CNBC Tuesday.

“We knew that Russians had months to prepare for it, we knew that they have built very, very strongly-fortified defense lines, that they have laid millions of mines along the front line. They’re dug in so deep, that we already had a very good idea that this will be not an easy task,” he added.

Read more on the story here: ‘Tough duel’ ahead for Ukraine as Russia mounts fierce resistance to counteroffensive

— Holly Ellyatt