At the UN general assembly conference, secretary general António Guterres said countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone after its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”
The US president, Joe Biden, says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine. No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.
Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged to step up efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine “through diplomacy and dialogue.”
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda used his address to say the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end and that it cannot be “converted into a frozen war.” He called for “restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for more action to resist climate change and said there was progress on protecting the Amazon rainforest. He called for work “to create space for negotiations” on the war in Ukraine.
The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: Air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield.” He noted that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war.
Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday. The defence minister, Grant Shapps, said: “Today we’ve demonstrated the UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine and set out more military support, including pledging tens of thousands more artillery shells to enable Ukraine to defend itself.”
A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported. A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack.
Russia said Ukraine was responsible for the explosion at a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine had fired a 9M38 missile from a Buk surface-to-air missile system that struck the city on 6 September, Reuters reports. She said: “Even if it was done unintentionally, it is obvious to everyone: the complete demilitarisation of the Kyiv regime is not just a requirement, but a vital necessity.”
Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.
Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
A high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged. Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.
Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has claimed on Tuesday morning Russian forces destroyed a column of armored vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne.
At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said. “Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges. He called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext.
Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday.
