Closing summary
Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the US on Sunday for a crucial visit to present Kyiv’s plan to end two-and-a-half years of war with Russia. The Ukrainian president will present his proposals – which he calls a “victory plan” – to the US president, Joe Biden, as well as presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump. After Washington, he is due to head to New York and the UN for a planned meeting of the security council tomorrow and a speech at the General Assembly on Wednesday.
The Russian foreign ministry said at least 56 civilians were killed and 266 injured during Ukraine’s seven-week-old incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region, covering the period up to 20 September 2024.
Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of holding some civilians against their will in the Russian region of Kursk, including 70-120 people in the town of Sudzha.
Russia appears to have suffered a “catastrophic failure” in a test of its Sarmat missile, a key weapon in the modernisation of its nuclear arsenal, according to experts. Experts have analysed images captured by Maxar on Saturday that show a crater about 60 metres (200 feet) wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. They revealed extensive damage that was not visible in pictures taken earlier in the month.
Thank you for following today’s latest news. This blog is closing now but you can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, said he sought talks with the west about Russia’s war on Ukraine, as he denied providing missiles to Moscow which he condemned for “aggression” during the conflict.
“We are willing to sit down with the Europeans and the Americans to have a dialogue and negotiations. We have never approved of Russian aggression against Ukrainian territory,” Pezeshkian told reporters as he attended the UN general assembly in New York.
Earlier this month, the US accused Iran of transferring ballistic missiles to Russia for its war in Ukraine, a charge Tehran has denied. Pezeshkian, a reformist who was elected unexpectedly in July, has signalled his government is ready to consider a resumption of talks over its nuclear programmes.
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Russian forces attacked the city of Kramatorsk and the village of Shakhove in the Donetsk region, killing one person and injuring at least 10 others, governor Vadym Filashkin said, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Seven people, including two children, were injured in the strike on Shakhove in the Pokrovsk district, in an attack that damaged 24 houses and three administrative buildings, he said.
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A child was among three civilians who were killed by Ukrainian shelling of a village in Russia’s Belgorod border region, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov has said.
Belgorod, a region more than 600km from Moscow, is just over half an hour’s drive from the border with Ukraine, making it a vital stop for Russian supply lines, but also uniquely vulnerable to attack.
It is adjacent to the Kursk region where Ukrainian forces pierced Russia’s western border last month in an incursion that Moscow’s forces are still fighting to repel.
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Images suggest Russia's new intercontinental ballistic missile suffered major test failure - experts
Russia appears to have suffered a “catastrophic failure” in a test of its Sarmat missile, a key weapon in the modernisation of its nuclear arsenal, according to experts.
Experts have analysed images captured by Maxar on Saturday that show a crater about 60 metres (200 feet) wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. They reveal extensive damage that was not visible in pictures taken earlier in the month.
The RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is designed to deliver nuclear warheads to strike targets thousands of miles away in the US or Europe, but its development has been hit by delays and testing setbacks.
“By all indications, it was a failed test. It’s a big hole in the ground,” Pavel Podvig, an analyst based in Geneva, who runs the Russian Nuclear Forces project, said. “There was a serious incident with the missile and the silo.”
Wow, @Maxar has captured a doozy of an accident during a test launch of a Russian RS-28 ICBM. It completely blew out of the test silo at Plesetsk cosmodrome. (left 21 Sep 2024, right 07 Sep 2024) pic.twitter.com/e2cUATfFYW
— Geoff Brumfiel (@gbrumfiel) September 22, 2024
Timothy Wright, research associate at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the destruction of the area immediately surrounding the missile silo was suggestive of a failure soon after ignition.
“One possible cause is that the first stage (booster) either failed to ignite properly or suffered from a catastrophic mechanical failure, causing the missile to fall back into or land closely adjacent to the silo and explode,” he told Reuters.
James Acton, nuclear specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, posted on X that the before-and-after satellite images were “very persuasive that there was a big explosion” and said he was convinced that a Sarmat test had failed. The Kremlin has referred questions on Sarmat to the defence ministry.
Earlier this month, Nato states Romania and Latvia saw Russian drones crash after breaching their airspace, prompting official calls for measures to act jointly to counter Russia air incursions.
The Dutch defence minister, Ruben Brekelmans, was asked about Russian incursions into airspace in an interview with Delfi, the Dutch media outlet. He said he condemns such violations, which he described as “dangerous” for their potential to escalate the conflict.
Brekelmans said Netherlands demonstrates its support to the Nato alliance by, for example, contributing F-35 fighter jets for “air policing” and deploying drones for surveillance.
He added:
I cannot make any specific statements yet about how we will deploy our systems, but we have to send a very clear signal and a very clear signal to Russia that these types of violations are not acceptable and Nato will act if necessary.
The UK government’s position on whether Ukraine would be given permission to fire Storm Shadow weapons in Russia “remains unchanged”, a spokesperson for the prime minister says.
We remain in constant contact with the Ukrainians and will always listen to their position. As you can expect at UNGA (UN General Assembly), we will be focused on a number of issues; that includes ongoing support for Ukraine in their defence against Russia’s aggression, but also a ceasefire in Gaza and a deescalation of tensions in Lebanon amongst others.
On Storm Shadow, she added:
When it comes to that, our position remains unchanged. I think, as the PM said following his trip to Washington just last week, our ongoing discussions on Ukraine are not about one specific bit of military equipment. They are broader discussions about strategy and about how we support Ukraine during what is a crucial period over the next few months and as we enter winter.
Prior to a meeting with the US president Joe Biden during that trip, officials had said the UK prime minister Keir Starmer would press for Washington to back his plan to let Storm Shadow be used to strike inside Russia.
As we reported in an earlier post, Russia has accused Ukrainian forces of holding some civilians against their will in the Russian region of Kursk, including 70-120 people in the town of Sudzha.
Asked about this claim, Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi told Reuters that Ukraine abides by international humanitarian law and does not target civilians.
Ukraine has accused Russia of seeking to illegally seize control of the strategically important Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait, as hearings opened at the Permanent Court of Arbitration in a high-stakes arbitration case between Kyiv and Moscow.
“Russia wants to take the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait for itself, and so it has built a great gate at the entrance to keep international shipping out while allowing small Russian river vessels in,” Ukrainian representative Anton Korynevych told a panel of arbitrators.
The gate he referred to is a bridge built by Russia across the Kerch Strait after the annexation of Crimea. The 19-kilometer (12-mile) bridge linking the Black and Azov seas carries road and rail traffic on separate sections and is vital to sustaining Russia’s military operations in southern Ukraine.
“The bridge is unlawful and it must come down,” Korynevych was quoted by the Associated Press as having told the arbitration panel.
Ukraine filed the case in 2016, two years after Russia annexed Crimea. It accuses Moscow of subsequently breaching a UN maritime treaty by building the bridge, barring Ukrainian fishermen from waters they traditionally fished, damaging the environment and plundering underwater archeological sites. Kyiv is seeking unspecified compensation.
Russia insists the arbitration court does not have jurisdiction and are arguing that the Sea of Azov and Kerch Strait constitute “internal waters” that are not covered by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, the treaty Ukraine alleges Russia is breaching.
“Ukraine’s accusations in this case are, of course, completely groundless and hopeless,” Russian Agent Gennady Kuzmin told the panel.
After Monday’s two opening statements, the panel hearings will continue for days behind closed doors. A final ruling could take years.
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As we reported in an earlier post, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has visited a Pennsylvania ammunition factory to thank the workers who are producing one of the most critically needed munitions for his country’s fight to fend off Russian ground forces. Here are some images of his visit:
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is expected to present a “victory plan” in the country’s war with Russia to the US president, Joe Biden, during his diplomatic visit to the US this week.
The plan, details of which Zelenskyy has so far publicly held back, appears to be a big push from the Ukrainian leader to try to persuade Washington and other allies to provide further and deeper aid to his country in an effort to force Moscow to end the conflict on terms acceptable to Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials have suggested that Russia could eventually be invited to a summit to discuss a resolution to the conflict under the new plan.
Asked about Zelenskyy’s initiative, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters earlier today:
We believe that one should not analyse media reports. If information about it appears in official sources we will of course scrutinise it. There is a lot of contradictory and unreliable information on it out there, so we are very cautious about this.
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Russia updates figures to say 56 civilians have been killed during Ukrainian offensive in Kursk region
In an earlier post, we cited the Russian foreign ministry as saying that 31 civilians had been killed during Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, which was launched on 6 August 2024. The figures provided by the ministry were as of 5 September 2024.
The ministry has now updated its figures, saying at least 56 civilians were killed and 266 injured during Ukraine’s seven-week-old incursion into Russia’s western Kursk region, covering the period up to 20 September 2024. We have not yet verified these figures.
It said 131,000 civilians had left the most dangerous areas of the region but accused Ukrainian forces of holding some civilians against their will, including 70-120 people in the town of Sudzha.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that his forces controlled 100 settlements in Kursk region over an area of more than 1,300 sq km (500 sq miles). Russian sources disputed this figure to Reuters and Russia says it has since taken back some villages in a counterattack.
Emmanuel Macron: Relations with Russia should be reconsidered after war in Ukraine
Relations with Russia should be reconsidered after its war in Ukraine is over, French President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday. He was speaking in Paris during a meeting for peace organised by the Catholic community of Sant’Egidio. You can watch the video here. The Kyiv Independent has the following report containing Macron’s translated remarks:
Speaking at an event in Paris, the French president urged people to imagine “tomorrow’s peace” in Europe in a new form, and in a new reality.
“We will have to think about a new form of organisation of Europe and rethink our relations with Russia after the war in Ukraine,” Macron said.
In the early months of Russia’s full-scale invasion, Macron was criticised over his calls to avoid “the humiliation” of Russia, but later he hardened his stance.
Paris has since delivered to Ukraine a number of long-range Scalp missiles, and Macron announced in February a coalition to supply Kyiv with “medium- and long-range missiles and bombs.”
Another of Macron’s initiatives, sending military instructors to Ukraine, has reportedly been supported by some countries but so far seen no development.
The French president said that building a new international order is “the biggest challenge” and that today it is “incomplete and unfair”.
“We need an order where some countries cannot block others, and where countries are represented with dignity, and therefore this should be done in much fairer bodies, such as the UN, the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund,” Macron added.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has been giving his regular briefing to journalists. Here are some of the highlights from what he said:
Peskov said he had no information about a test of Russia’s RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, after arms experts said on the basis of satellite imagery that it appeared to have failed in a test this month.
When asked about international chess governing body FIDE’s ban on Russian and Belarusian players ,the Kremlin said that Ukraine and the west had put pressure on FIDE.
Vladimir Putin will meet Mikhail Kovalchuk, the head of the Kurchatov nuclear research institute, on Monday.
The Kremlin said it will study Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s so-called “victory plan” if it sees official information on it. Details of the plan have not yet been released to the public.
Updated
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has called for an expanded role for the Brics bloc on world’s energy markets.
Russia, which is the world’s second largest oil exporter (behind Saudi Arabia) and has the biggest reserves of natural gas, hosts annual Energy Week International Forum later this week and it is expected to hold a meeting of Brics’ energy ministers.
“It is obvious that in the new geopolitical realities, cooperation in the energy sector should serve to strengthen national economies, help solve priority social problems, and improve people’s quality of life,” Putin was quoted by Reuters as having said in a letter to the forum’s participants and guests.
“It is crucial to agree on common principles for our countries in the just energy transition, and outline ways to strengthen the role of Brics in the global energy dialogue,” he said about the forthcoming meeting of Brics energy ministers.
In 2006, Brazil, Russia, India and China created the Bric group to challenge a world order dominated by the west. South Africa joined in 2010, making it Brics.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) became members at the beginning of this year. After the Brics expansion, the alliance accounts for 42% of the global oil and gas reserves.
Saudi Arabia has not yet officially joined the grouping, but Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has said that Russia had invited Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, to attend a Brics summit in the city of Kazan next month.
Ben Quinn is a senior reporter for the Guardian
Fake news websites registered in the UK and made to resemble trusted British outlets are allegedly spreading disinformation about western companies operating in Ukraine.
The suspected Russian propaganda operation has prompted calls by parliamentarians for a change in the law to force UK-registered news websites to reveal their ownership, as happens in the EU.
While the sites – londoninsider.co.uk and talk-finance.co.uk – are in English and have been registered in the UK, their output has been picked up and disseminated in Ukraine, where the UK’s media has a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness.
The use of the sites has been highlighted by a US firm, Sarn, which is working in Ukraine in the energy and military hardware sectors. It said articles on the two sites had falsely accused it of arms trafficking, judicial fraud and embezzlement.
Content on the sites appears to be AI-generated, while an analysis by a linguist engaged by Sarn suggested that the original text had been created by a Russian speaker.
You can read the full story here:
Russia says 31 civilians killed during Ukrainian offensive in Kursk region
Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk region had killed at least 31 civilians and injured 256 as of 5 September, the Russian foreign ministry has said. These figures have not yet been verified by the Guardian.
Kyiv launched its Kursk offensive on 6 August in a bid to pull Moscow’s forces away from eastern Ukraine, where the Russian army has captured a string of villages in recent months.
The offensive, which Volodymyr Zelenskyy said has drawn tens of thousands of Russian troops away from the frontline, is being supported by swarms of drones and heavy weaponry, including western-made arms.
Russia said 131,000 civilians had left the most dangerous areas of the Kursk region.
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Zelenskyy says the war should not end at Ukraine’s expense
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has given a wide-ranging interview to the New Yorker. In it he said that Donald Trump’s running mate JD Vance is “too radical” in his ideas of how to end the war in Ukraine.
Vance, who has criticised US aid packages to Ukraine and pushed for negotiations with Russia, suggested earlier this month that Trump’s plan to end the war could include the establishment of a special demilitarized zone between Ukraine and Russia.
Vance said that Ukraine would retain its sovereignty, but would have to give assurances to Moscow that it would not join Nato or any other allied institutions.
“The idea that the world should end this war at Ukraine’s expense is unacceptable. But I do not consider this concept of his a plan, in any formal sense,” the Ukrainian president said in his interview with the New Yorker which was published on Sunday.
“I don’t take Vance’s words seriously, because, if this were a plan, then America is headed for global conflict. It will involve Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Taiwan, China, as well as many African countries. That approach would broadcast to the world the following implicit rule: I came, I conquered, now this is mine,” he added.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Zelenskyy asked for his country to be admitted to the 32-member defensive alliance as soon as possible.
Jens Stoltenberg, the outgoing Nato secretary general, said Ukraine’s membership to Nato is not a “question of if, but when”, though he said Ukraine would not become a member during the war with Russia.
In the New Yorker interview, Zelenskyy said Trump, the Republican presidential candidate, does not know how to stop the war even if he thinks he does.
As we mentioned in the opening summary, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy began his visit to the US with a visit to the Scranton army ammunition plant, which produces components for artillery and mortar shells. He said in a post on X that he is grateful to American workers who are helping build “this incredible arsenal of global freedom”.
The Scranton plant is among the few facilities in the US that manufactures 155mm artillery shells, which are used in howitzer systems able to strike targets from a long distance. The plant is reported to have ramped up production of these shells in the last year. Ukraine has already received more than 3 million of them from the US.
During my visit to the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant, where components for artillery and mortar shells are produced, including 155 mm shells for Ukraine, I emphasized the dedication of the workers, which is truly inspiring—they are helping Ukraine stand strong in our fight for… pic.twitter.com/rs0vLZRlVU
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 23, 2024
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In Kherson, Russian shelling and airstrikes hit residential buildings, killing one 61-year-old woman and wounding seven people Sunday, governor Oleksandr Prokudin said. Russia controls part of the territory in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. They have both been regularly attacked by Russia during the war.
In an update on Telegram, the air force of the armed forces of Ukraine said that two guided air missiles and four drones were detected in Ukrainian airspace overnight.
Three of the drones were shot down by anti-aircraft defence in the Sumy region, while the other drone and two guided air missiles did not reach their targets, it added.
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Volodymyr Zelenskyy to present ‘victory plan’ to Biden, Trump and Harris on trip to US
Hello and welcome to the Ukraine live blog. I’m Yohannes Lowe and the time in Kyiv has just gone past 10:30am.
Here are the latest developments:
Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the US on Sunday for a crucial visit to present Kyiv’s plan to end two-and-a-half years of war with Russia. The Ukrainian president will present his proposals – which he calls a “victory plan” – to President Joe Biden, as well as presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and will also attend sessions at the UN general assembly. The visit comes after a summer of intense fighting, with Moscow advancing fast in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv holding on to swathes of Russia’s Kursk region. Kyiv has for weeks pressed the west to allow it to use delivered long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia – so far to no avail.
The Ukrainian president urged his partners to help achieve “a shared victory for a truly just peace”, in a post on X with his nightly video address. “This fall will determine the future of this war,” Zelenskyy said in the address, delivered from a plane. Ukrainian media later reported he landed in New York. He is also due to visit Washington later in the week.
The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, indicated that delicate negotiations with the White House to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia are ongoing, arguing it was a time for “nerve and guts”. The apparent encouragement to Biden comes just over a week after Lammy and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, visited the US president in the White House but failed to resolve the sticking point between two countries. Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool on Sunday, Lammy said it was “a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine”.
At least 16 civilians were injured, including a 15-year-old boy, on Sunday evening as a result of Russian airstrikes on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian officials said on Monday. Rescuers evacuated residents from several damaged apartment buildings, Ukraine’s interior ministry said on Telegram. The ministry said that according to preliminary information Russia used its KAB guided aerial bombs to strike Zaporizhzhia.
Russia launched new strikes in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv which hit high-rise apartment buildings, leaving at least 21 wounded in a second consecutive night-time attack, authorities said. The bombs fell on Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, north of the centre of Kharkiv, which is the second-largest Ukrainian city, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said.
A firefighter was killed by a Ukrainian drone in Russia-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian emergencies ministry said on Sunday. The drone’s explosives detonated when Vyacheslav Glazunov, 33, was extinguishing a fire in the Novoaidar district triggered by fallen drones, the ministry said on Telegram. Another two firefighters were injured, it added.
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