NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukrainian forces are “gradually gaining ground” in their counteroffensive against Russia during an unannounced visit to Kyiv on Thursday. The Western alliance chief also said that Ukraine is “closer to NATO than ever before”. Read our blog to see how the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
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6:55pm: Russia to raise defence spending by almost 70% next year
Russia said Thursday that it plans to raise defence spending by almost 70 percent next year, funnelling massive resources into its Ukraine offensive to fight what it calls a "hybrid war" unleashed by the West.
With Moscow's "special military operation" now approaching another winter, both sides have been digging deep and procuring weapons from allies in preparation for a protracted conflict.
The announcement came as NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and the defence ministers of Britain and France visited Kyiv, where President Volodymyr Zelensky lobbied for more air defence systems.
“We need to get through this winter together, to protect our energy infrastructure and people's lives," Zelensky told Stoltenberg, warning of a fresh campaign of Russian attacks after last year's strikes left millions short of water and heating.
Ukraine's newly appointed defence minister Rustem Umerov, after meeting with his British counterpart Grant Shapps, said "winter is coming but we are ready".
6:30pm: Poland says none of its helicopters violated Belarusian airspace
Poland said none of its helicopters had violated Belarusian airspace, denying an earlier report from the Belarusian defence ministry that Polish aircraft had crossed the border on Thursday.
“The Operational Command unequivocally denies these reports. None of the Polish helicopters crossed the airspace of Belarus,” a spokesperson of the Operational Command of the Armed Forces told Reuters.
5:58pm: Poland says missile that killed two in 2022 was Ukrainian
A missile that killed two people in a Polish village in November, raising fears of a dangerous spike in the Ukraine conflict, belonged to Kyiv’s forces, according to Poland’s justice minister.
Two workers at a grain drying facility died in the blast in Przewodow, some six kilometres from the Ukrainian border, raising fears of an escalation in the war between Moscow and Kyiv.
But Warsaw and the NATO military alliance, of which Poland is member, later said the explosion was likely caused by a Ukrainian air-defence missile launched to intercept a Russian barrage.
Polish Justice Minister Zbigniew Ziobro on Thursday said an “investigation carried out by Polish prosecutors led to ... an unequivocal opinion... that this missile was Ukrainian”.
He said the finding was based on the “place where the missile was fired from”, adding that the projectile was of Soviet production.
Ziobro also said he regretted that “for months, there was no cooperation” from Ukraine over the probe.
5:55pm: Belarus says Polish helicopter violated its airspace
Belarus said a Polish helicopter violated its airspace on Thursday.
“Around 1520 (1220 GMT) the aircraft crossed the border of the Republic of Belarus, flew to a depth of up to 1.5 kilometres. At 1622, the helicopter repeatedly violated the state border, going 300 metres deep,” the Ministry of Defence of Belarus said in its Telegram channel.
Belarus, Russia’s closest ally, said it had scrambled military aircraft in response.
5:27pm: EU extends right for Ukrainians to stay to 2025
The European Union has extended the right of refugees from Ukraine to stay in the bloc by a year to March 2025.
The EU triggered its temporary protection directive days after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion to allow the millions of people fleeing Ukraine to remain.
“The prolongation of the protection status offers certainty to the more than four million refugees who have found a safe haven in the EU,” Spanish Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said.
The initial protection measure was set to run until March 2024. The measure gives Ukrainians in the EU access to the job market, medical care and education.
The sudden displacement of millions of Ukrainians last year represented the fastest-growing refugee crisis faced by Europe since World War II.
3:32pm: Putin says elections in annexed regions a step towards ‘full entry’ into Russia
President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that elections conducted this month in Russian-held parts of Ukraine marked a step towards their full integration into Russia.
The votes in the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions – all partly under Russia’s control following its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year – were denounced by Kyiv as illegal.
Russia said a year ago that it was annexing the four regions, in an act condemned as unlawful by most countries at the United Nations.
“This is, of course, a significant event, an important step towards the full entry of the new regions into the single legal, state space of our big country,” Putin told a meeting of newly elected governors, referring to the recent elections and describing them as fair.
3:13pm: Kazakhstan won’t help Russia evade sanctions, president says
Germany should not fear that Kazakhstan will try to help Russia circumvent Western sanctions imposed over its invasion of Ukraine, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said on Thursday after talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin.
Tokayev said Kazakhstan continued to call for talks between Russia and Ukraine on ending the war, now in its 20th month, and that it had no concerns about Moscow threatening its own territorial integrity.
The large former Soviet state in Central Asia shares a long border with Russia and is home to a large ethnic Russian minority.
1:42pm: Zelensky urges NATO to help Ukraine strengthen its air defences
President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday urged NATO to buttress his country's air defence systems ahead of expected Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy grid, during an unannounced visit from the bloc's chief Jens Stoltenberg.
"The Secretary General agreed to undertake efforts to help and to support us in this matter, to mobilise the member states of the alliance," Zelensky said during a joint press conference, adding that: "We need to get through this winter together, to protect our energy infrastructure and people's lives."
1:33pm: NATO chief says Ukraine ‘gradually gaining ground’ in counteroffensive against Russian forces
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg, on an unannounced visit to Kyiv, said on Thursday that Ukrainian forces were "gradually gaining ground" in their counteroffensive against Russian forces and that Ukraine is “closer to NATO than ever before”.
Speaking at a joint press conference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Stoltenberg also said Russian troops were fighting for Moscow's "imperial delusions".
Stoltenberg announced that NATO now had overarching framework contracts in place with arms companies worth €2.4 billion for key ammunition, including €1 billion in firm orders.
He said such contracts would allow NATO members to replenish their depleted stockpiles while also continuing to provide Ukraine with ammunition, a key factor in the war.
12:03pm: Russian shelling damaged thermal power plant in southern Ukraine, says grid operator
Russian shelling damaged a thermal power plant in southern Ukraine late on Wednesday, Ukraine's national grid operator said on Thursday.
State-run Ukrenergo gave no other details about the location of the plant or the extent of the damage.
"Yesterday evening a thermal power plant in the southern region was damaged as a result of massive enemy shelling," Ukrenergo said.
11:57am: Russia to hike defence spending by nearly 70 percent in 2024, according to finance ministry
Russia is set to hike defence spending by almost 70 percent in 2024, a finance ministry document published Thursday showed, as Moscow pours resources into its war in Ukraine.
The document said defence spending was set to jump by over 68 percent year-on-year to almost 10.8 trillion rubles ($111.15 billion), totalling around six percent of GDP – more than spending allocated for social policy.
11:17am: Ukraine’s FM Kuleba says grain exports row with Poland hurts both countries
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said an escalating grain exports dispute between Kyiv and Warsaw was detrimental to both countries in an interview published Thursday.
"We have conveyed clear signals to Poland about our commitment to a constructive solution to this situation. We don't need this grain war and neither does Poland," Kuleba told Interfax-Ukraine, warning the row could worsen ahead of Polish elections next month.
10:30am: UK and French defence ministers visit Kyiv
The UK and French defence ministers were in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, which is seeking more weapons to bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
"I've been back to Kyiv this week to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky what he needs to win," UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said of his first trip to the Ukrainian capital in that role.
French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu arrived in Kyiv on Thursday alongside several defence industry officials.
The visits came ahead of Kyiv's first Defence Industries Forum, where Ukrainian officials were set to meet representatives from over 160 defence firms and 26 countries.
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for more Western weapons, including longer-range missiles, to help break through Russian positions and launch strikes deep within Russian-controlled territory.
10:03am: France urges Turkey and Hungary to ‘deliver’ on Swedish bid to join NATO
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Thursday urged Turkey and Hungary to approve Sweden's stalled bid to join NATO.
"We would like to see Sweden in NATO and we would like to see Turkey and Hungary delivering on what they agreed," Colonna told reporters in Helsinki.
7:21am: Ukrainian air defences destroy more than 30 drones launched by Russia overnight
Russia launched a "massive" drone attack overnight and that more than 30 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been destroyed, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.
UAVs were intercepted over Black Sea coastal regions and also further inland, said Nataliya Gumenyuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian southern military command.
Russia "does not stop the pressure and searching for new tactics: namely, with the use of mass attacks", Gumenyuk said on the Telegram messaging platform.
"Tonight, several groups of strike UAVs were launched ... air defence worked along almost the entire southern direction – in Odesa, Mykolaiv regions. Also, much higher north – the enemy aimed its attacks on central Ukraine," she said.
"The consequences of the attack are being clarified now, because it was indeed a massive one. ... However, the air defence work was quite effective. Over 30 UAVs were destroyed."
Since July, when Moscow pulled out of a UN-brokered deal allowing safe grain shipments via the Black Sea, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine's grain-exporting infrastructure in the southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
1:02am: Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front, say military officials
Ukrainian troops held off determined attacks on Wednesday by Russian forces trying to regain lost positions on the eastern front, military officials said, while analysts suggested Kyiv's forces were also making progress in the southern theatre.
The Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive in June intending to recoup ground in the east and in the past two weeks announced the capture of two key villages, Andriivka and Klishchiivka, near the war-shattered city of Bakhmut.
Its forces are also trying to advance southward to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge established by Russia between annexed Crimea and positions that Moscow holds in the east.
Ilia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern group of forces, told national television: "We continue to repel intense enemy attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka. The enemy is still storming these positions with the hope of recapturing lost positions, but without success."
Key developments from Wednesday, September 27:
Talks with Ukraine about grain imports are going in a good direction, the Polish agriculture minister said on Wednesday, after a dispute between the two countries over Warsaw's decision to extend a ban.
Russian state media once again broadcast undated footage of Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov, whom Kyiv claimed to have killed in a missile attack targeting the fleet's headquarters in annexed Crimea. Although it is impossible to tell when the footage was recorded, its broadcast is likely meant to suggest that the naval commander is still alive.
Several hundred members of Russia’s Wagner private mercenary group have returned to eastern Ukraine to fight but are not having a significant impact on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday. “We have recorded the presence of a maximum of several hundred fighters of the former Wagner PMC (private military company),” said Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command. He added that Wagner fighters were scattered in different places and were not part of a single unit.
Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)
