Russia-Ukraine live updates: Survivors reported in theater wreckage after Russian strike, Ukrainian officials say

A Russian court handling the investigation into Brittney Griner’s drug charge extended the American basketball star’s detention until May 19, according to a report by Russian state news agency TASS. With no indication whether she could be released then, the latest news means Griner, 31, will have spent more than three months, at least, in Russian custody.

Griner was arrested on Feb. 17 after Russian officials said they found vape cartridges containing hash oil in her luggage at the Sheremetyevo Airport outside of Moscow, an offense that could carry a sentence of up to 10 years in prison. Griner, a seven-time WNBA all-star, was returning at the time to Russia, where she plays for UMMC Ekaterinburg during her Phoenix Mercury offseasons.

The TASS report, according to several U.S. outlets, cited the Khimki Court of the Moscow region for the update on Griner’s status. Ekaterina Kalugina, a member of Russia’s Public Monitoring Commission — an agency that monitors the treatment of prisoners — told TASS that Griner is sharing a cell with two other women who are also charged with drug-related offenses.

PRZEMYSL, Poland — Their husbands and fathers stayed behind to fight. So the women and children have fled war-ravaged Ukraine mostly on their own.

That makes their flight distinct from other mass refugee movements this century, prompting heightened concerns, from Poland’s eastern border to Germany’s capital, about human trafficking. European authorities and aid organizations are warning that criminals may seek to capitalize on the desperation of refugees, with more than 3 million leaving Ukraine since Feb. 24, according to U.N. estimates.

The International Organization for Migration on Wednesday said those concerns were based in reality, pointing to initial reports of traffickers exploiting the large-scale human displacement, including instances of sexual violence. The U.N. agency did not quantify the problem, noting that many cases go unidentified in the immediate aftermath of a displacement event.

Spanish authorities have impounded a third superyacht believed to belong to a Russian oligarch, a seizure that is part of a global crackdown on those believed to support Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Crescent, a yacht registered in the Cayman Islands, had requested to depart the Spanish Port of Tarragona on March 4, authorities said, but it did not set sail. The 443-foot yacht has an estimated value of about $600 million, according to SuperyachtFan, a website tracking luxury yachts, which cited its owner as an “unknown billionaire.”

Governments all over the world are working to identify and freeze the assets of Russian elites and their family members, including luxury apartments, money and yachts. Online sleuths are watching their moves, tweeting names, locations, ownership and the latest status of yachts owned by Russian oligarchs.

Wall Street was poised for a tepid open Thursday, with the three major U.S. indexes opening slightly lower a day after the Federal Reserve’s first interest rate increase since 2018 spurred an emphatic rally.

Oil prices, meanwhile, soared more than 7 percent in morning trading, again surpassing $100 per barrel as fighting intensified in Ukraine. After eclipsing $130 per barrel earlier this month, prices had been declining amid hopes for a cease-fire even as evidence of progress remains to be seen.

The Russian invasion has introduced a fresh degree of uncertainty to markets already grappling with a bevy of challenges, from a tight labor market to a supply chain crisis and the highest inflation in 40 years. Russia’s role as one of the world’s biggest energy producers means that the financial fallout from the conflict will quickly ripple through a global economy still trying to recover from the covid-19 pandemic.

The International Energy Agency warned Wednesday that “the prospect of large-scale disruptions to Russian oil production is threatening to create a global oil supply shock.” It estimated that by April, Russian output could be reduced by 3 million barrels per day.

Although the United States has minimal direct exposure to the Russian economy, consumers are feeling the burn: The national average for a gallon of gas Thursday was $4.29, up 77 cents from a month ago, according to data from AAA.

Shortly after the open, the Dow Jones industrial average and the S&P 500 were both barely negative. The tech-heavy Nasdaq moved about 0.3 percent lower.

Investors got some comfort Wednesday from the Fed’s long-telegraphed move to raise its benchmark interest rate and set the stage for further rate increases this year, as the central bank harnessed its best weapon against surging prices that are burdening American businesses and households. But the Ukraine war’s potential impacts on inflation and global growth remain “highly unpredictable,” according to Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell.

“Central bankers can’t both bring inflation under control and provide a soft landing for economies and markets, which have been shaken by the conflict,” Mould said Thursday in comments emailed to The Washington Post. “In fact, they may well struggle to do either.”

Gold, an investor safe haven in times of turmoil, soared 1.8 percent Wednesday to trade around $1944.20 per troy ounce.

As Russia’s isolation from the Western world deepens with its intensifying attacks on Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned President Biden’s description of President Vladimir Putin as a “war criminal,” saying it was “absolutely unacceptable, inadmissible and unforgivable.”

In the past, Biden has called Putin a “KGB thug” and agreed in an interview last year that he was “a killer.” His description of Putin as a war criminal Wednesday followed reports of Russian forces shooting civilians, indiscriminately shelling residential areas, targeting hospitals and bombing the Mariupol Drama Theater. Local authorities said hundreds of civilians were sheltered in a basement of the theater and that word “children” was emblazoned in Russian in large white letters on the ground outside.

Peskov brushed off Biden’s comments. “Our president is a wise, farsighted and cultured international figure,” he said, adding that Biden had no right to speak as head of a state “that has been bombing people all over the world for years.”

He noted that the United States had dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, when he claimed that Japan was “already defeated and the bombing made no sense.” In fact, Japan refused to surrender before the bombings, which were carried out shortly after the U.S. War Department estimated that an invasion to end the war would cost the lives of hundreds of thousands of American troops and millions of Japanese.

Peskov said many Russians opposed to the war in Ukraine were “traitors” who would “disappear from our life.”

“Some quit their positions, others step down from active service, and some leave the country and move abroad” he said. “This is how the cleansing goes. Some break the law and will be punished consistent with court orders.”

Peskov also appeared to downplay reports of substantial progress in talks between Ukraine and Russia to end the war, saying that the Russian side “is making enormous efforts and demonstrates a much greater willingness than our Ukrainian counterparts to negotiate in an emergency mode.”

Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said that if Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky does not agree to Russia’s “absolutely acceptable” terms, “he will have to sign an act of capitulation later.”

Dmitry Medvedev, former Russian president and now deputy head of the Russian Security Council, blamed the Ukraine war and the crisis between Russian and the Western world on “Russophobia.” He called Western actions toward Moscow in recent years “disgusting, criminal and amoral” and said Russia was fighting for a new world order that would suit Moscow better.

“The United States and its satellites have been laying ground for hatred for Russia over the entire 30-year existence of the new Russian state,” he said in a Telegram post. “It is just that it has been masked by hypocritical, white-toothed smiles of politicians and diplomats who said one thing and did something completely different. In short, they were lying through their teeth to accommodate their own interests.”

Two years ago, a leaked FBI intelligence bulletin warned that a gap in U.S. rules aimed at fighting dirty money probably allows so-called threat actors to place funds with private investment firms. The FBI gave as an example an unnamed New York-based private equity company that took in more than $100 million from a Russian business with alleged ties to organized crime.

This loophole has worried authorities for years, because although banks and most securities brokers are required by law to identify the true owners behind investments and report any red flags, private equity firms, venture capital funds and hedge funds are not.

The result is a puzzling hole in the regulations designed to stop criminals and corrupt politicians around the world from accessing the U.S. financial system — a situation the private investment industry has repeatedly downplayed as it has successfully fended off reform attempts by Treasury officials and anti-corruption groups.

In 1941, when the Nazis were closing in on Kyiv, Gdalina Novitsky was 3 years old. She recalls her parents listening to the radio, trying to decide what to do. Like many children fleeing from Ukraine today, she had to part from her father, who went to fight in the Soviet army.

“I remember how he put on his military uniform and he cried, my mom cried, I cried,” said Novitsky, who now lives in Wheeling, Ill.

Leaving her grandmother, who was disabled and could not travel, Novitsky and her mother waited for a couple of days at the Kyiv train station. “We managed to get on a train going easterly; it had no schedule,” she recalled. “They were cattle cars. No water, no food, nothing.”

At station stops, her mother gave her a bowl to beg with. Some trains such as theirs were bombed; Novitsky remembers seeing one. “The train was on fire and human body parts were scattered all over.”

Russia says it has ordered a $117 million interest payment on two dollar-denominated bonds, according to news reports, but it remains to be seen whether that is enough to avoid default.

Whether the payment due Wednesday goes through depends on whether an American bank is allowed to process it, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Reuters. U.S. sanctions have frozen Moscow’s foreign currency accounts.

“The capability or incapability of meeting our obligations in foreign currency equivalent does not depend on us,” Siluanov said, according to Reuters. “We have the money, we have made the payment, now the ball is in the court, primarily, of the American authorities.”

The payment marks a crucial test of Russia’s solvency at a time when sanctions over the war in Ukraine have cut Moscow off from the global financial system. The country’s credit rating has been downgraded to “junk” by leading agencies amid concer