TOP HEADLINES 

• European Union states have reported the freezing of Russian Central Bank assets is far lower than expected. READ MORE BELOW

• The Russian Orthodox Church has let Christian Orthodox fathers down by supporting Moscow's attack on Ukraine, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of some 260 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, said in an interview. READ MORE BELOW

• Time is running out to get some 22 million tonnes of grain out of Ukraine ahead of the new harvest as Russia continues to blockade the country's Black Sea ports, according to a Ukrainian lawmaker. READ MORE BELOW

• A Russian-backed official said the first ship to leave the occupied Ukrainian port of Mariupol since pro-Russian forces completed its capture will leave in the coming days, according to TASS news agency.

• The German government hopes talks on a fresh round of EU sanctions against Russia will be completed soon but it will not be a topic at the forthcoming leaders' summit, a German official said.

• The Russian ruble fell sharply past 60 to the dollar from its strongest level in more than four years in volatile trade on Wednesday and bonds rallied after the central bank announced an extraordinary board meeting.

• Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said that Russia was trying to "blackmail" the international community by raising the possibility of an offer to unblock Black Sea ports in return for a relaxation of sanctions.

• Ukraine is battling to remain in control of a key highway to the front-line city of Sievierodonetsk, the country's defense ministry said.

• Swedish diplomats will discuss Turkey's demands during meetings in Ankara on Wednesday aimed at resolving Turkish reservations over Sweden and Finland's applications for NATO membership, Swedish Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson said.

• The European Commission has proposed making it a crime to break EU sanctions against Russia, a move that would allow the bloc's governments to confiscate assets of companies and individuals that evade restrictions against Moscow.

• The main Dutch journalists' union, Nederlandse Vereniging van Journalisten (NVJ), has filed a lawsuit challenging the EU ban on Russian state-backed media outlets as a violation of European citizens' own rights to freedom of information. READ MORE HERE

• Russian forces launched offensives on towns in eastern Ukraine on Wednesday, with constant mortar bombardment destroying several houses and killing civilians, Ukrainian officials said, as Russia focuses its attack on the industrial Donbas region.

IN DETAIL

Russian asset freeze surprise 

EU states have reported the freezing of $24.5 billion of assets of the Russian Central Bank, a figure that was expected to be much higher.

Russia has publicly said that Western sanctions led to the freezing of about $300 billion of its central bank's assets globally.

Of these frozen assets, only less than one-tenth is in the EU, according to information that the European Commission has collected from the 27 EU governments, EU Justice Commissioner Didier Reynders told a news conference.

The figure is dwarfed by the $100 billion frozen by the United States.

EU countries have also frozen about $10 billion of physical assets, such as yachts and villas, linked to oligarchs and officials with ties to the Kremlin, Reynders said.

Many EU governments have traditionally been cautious in fully enforcing EU sanctions, and some of them have declined to publicly say whether they have frozen Russian assets.

Orthodox leader lambasts Russian church

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, the spiritual head of 260 million Orthodox Christians worldwide, has attacked the support of the Russian Orthodox Church for Russia's military campaign in Ukraine.

In an interview aired on Greek state TV ERT, the Patriarch said he expected Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill to oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision to send forces into Ukraine and resign, if needed, in an act of opposition.

"It would not be possible for all churches not to condemn violence, war. The Russian church disappointed us. I did not want the Church of Russia and Brother Patriarch Kirill to be this tragic exception. I do not know how he can justify himself in his conscience," he said.

About 100 million Orthodox Christians are in Russia. Ukraine has about 30 million Orthodox believers.

Ukrainian MP in grain plea

Ukrainian MP Yevheniia Kravchuk said time is in short supply to transport 22 million tonnes of grain out of Ukraine ahead of the new harvest as Russia continues to blockade the country's Black Sea ports.

"We have about maybe a month and a half before we start to collect the new harvest," she told a reporter on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos, adding there was not sufficient space to store the fresh harvest.

Warnings of a global food crisis are growing as Russia and Ukraine together account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies, while Ukraine is also a major exporter of corn, barley, sunflower oil and rapeseed oil.

European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen has called for talks with Moscow on unlocking wheat exports trapped in Ukraine as a result of a Russian sea blockade.

Ukraine is expecting the new harvest to amount to some 70 percent of last year's crop as some of the fields are now under Russian control or have been mined, Kravchuk said.

"Grain is okay because we switched some of the fields into grain...sunflower which grows mainly in the south - it would be a big problem," she added, referring to the south of the country, where Russia has occupied much of the territory.

Kravchuk called for help in demining fields and for fuel support as farmers needed diesel for their tractors and Ukraine had lost much of its refining capacity due to Russian attacks.