Canada will give an extra C$650 million ($482 million) in military aid to Ukraine over the next three years, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian Parliament on Friday during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The news came after Ukraine's military said on Friday its forces had "successfully" struck the headquarters of Russia's Black Sea navy in the Crimean port of Sevastopol. Read our live blog to see how all the day's events unfolded. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
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9:05pm: Zelensky says 'Moscow must lose' in front of Canadian Parliament
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged Canada on Friday to stay with his country to victory as he went to the Canadian Parliament seeking to bolster support from Western allies for Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.
Zelensky flew into Canada's capital late on Thursday after meetings with President Joe Biden and lawmakers in Washington. He spoke at the United Nations' annual meeting on Wednesday.
"Moscow must lose once and for all. And it will lose,” Zelensky said during his address in Parliament.
Zelensky said Canada has always been on the “bright side of history” in fighting previous wars and said it has helped saved thousands of lives in this war with aid. He also thanked Canadians for financial support and for making Ukrainians fleeing war feel at home in Canada.
7:48pm: Canada to provide extra C$650 million of military aid to Ukraine
Canada will give an extra C$650 million ($482 million) in military aid to Ukraine over the next three years, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told the Canadian Parliament on Friday during a visit by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
7:32pm: Ukraine's Zelensky bolsters war support in Canada trip
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Friday with close ally Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on a visit to Canada, the third leg in a tour aimed at bolstering international support for his country's struggle to repulse a brutal Russian invasion.
Zelensky, who landed late Thursday in Ottawa, earlier this week addressed the United Nations and stopped in Washington on Thursday for meetings with the US Congress and President Joe Biden, who pledged the imminent arrival of US tanks to boost Ukraine's arsenal.
Canada is home to the world's second largest Ukrainian diaspora and Zelensky, visiting parliament, expressed thanks for the backing given to Kyiv since Russian troops poured over the Ukrainian borders in February 2022.
"Thank you for your support. You've been with us from the first days of the full scale war" and "I hope that you stay with us to our victory," Zelensky said after chatting with a senator of Ukrainian descent who came wearing her grandmother's traditional garb.
6:36pm: One dead, 15 injured in strike on central Ukraine
One person was killed and 15 injured on Friday following a Russian missile strike on the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, authorities said.
"Fifteen are known to have been injured, one of them is a child," Dmytro Lunin, the governor of the central Poltava region which includes Kremenchuk, said in a statement. "One person died."
4:55pm: US will send Ukraine ATACMS long-range missiles, local news media says
US President Joe Biden has informed Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky that Washington will provide Kyiv with ATACMS long-range missiles, NBC News reported on Friday, citing three US officials and a Congressional official.
3:03pm: Russian soldier missing after Crimea attack
The Russian defence ministry said one of its servicemen was missing Friday after a Ukrainian missile struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea fleet in annexed Crimea.
The ministry earlier said the serviceman had been killed in the attack, before updating its statement to say the serviceman was in fact missing.
"Earlier today the Kyiv regime launched a missile attack on the city of Sevastopol," Moscow's defence ministry said on Telegram.
"One serviceman was not killed, but is missing," it said, updating its previous post on Telegram.
2:34pm: Russia plans huge defence spending hike in 2024
Russia plans a huge hike in defence spending next year, swelling to 6 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), up from 3.9 percent in 2023 and 2.7 percent in 2021 according to a Bloomberg News report.
Rising war costs are supporting Russia's modest economic recovery this year with higher industrial production, but have already pushed budget finances to a deficit of around $24 billion – a figure compounded by falling export revenues.
The government was due to discuss draft budget proposals on Friday.
2:19pm: Crimea hit by 'unprecedented' cyberattack
The Russian-annexed Crimean peninsula has been hit by an attack targeting its internet providers, an official from Crimea's Russian-backed administration said Friday.
"Unprecedented cyberattack on Crimean internet providers. We are fixing internet outages on the peninsula. All services are working to eliminate the threat," said Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Moscow-installed Crimea governor Sergei Aksyonov.
2:06pm: At least one person dead in Ukraine's attack on Russian naval HQ
At least one serviceman was killed Friday when a Ukrainian missile struck the headquarters of Moscow's Black Sea Fleet in annexed Crimea, Russia's defence ministry said.
"According to available information, one serviceman was killed," the defence ministry said in a statement, adding that five missiles had been shot down by air defence systems.
1:00pm: Russia hopes to rejoin 'Olympic family', says Kremlin
The Kremlin said on Friday it hoped Russia could once again become part of the Olympic community despite sanctions against Russian athletes over Moscow's offensive in Ukraine.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has recommended allowing athletes from Russia and Moscow's ally Belarus to compete as individual neutrals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
"We hope that in the end reason will prevail, that the idea of Olympism will triumph and that we will again be reintegrated into the Olympic family," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
"In the end, it's the very idea of Olympism that will suffer, and is already suffering" from the restrictions, Peskov said.
Russia has said Moscow will not be boycotting the 2024 Games and every Russian athlete is free to choose whether or not to compete under a neutral banner.
12:57pm: Ukraine launches a missile strike on Russia’s Black Sea Fleet headquarters, Russian official says
Ukraine carried out a missile strike Friday on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet, a Russian official said. Images on social media showed large plumes of smoke said to be coming from Sevastopol harbour in annexed Crimea.
The Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, didn’t offer any details, saying only that emergency services have been dispatched to the site of the strike and there was no information about casualties.
Razvozhayev warned Sevastopol residents that “another attack is possible,” and urged them not to leave buildings or come to the city center.
“Those who are near the fleet headquarters, head to the shelters if you hear the siren,” he wrote. He also said that firefighters were battling a blaze at the site of the attack, and more emergency forces were being brought in.
Ukraine did not immediately claim responsibility for the attack.
12:44pm: Russia repression 'unprecedented in recent history' says UN expert
Repression in Russia has soared since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, reaching levels not seen since Stalinist times, a top United Nations expert warned Friday.
"The level of repression against the civil society, independent media, and generally anybody with a dissenting voice ... is unprecedented in recent history," Mariana Katzarova told reporters in Geneva.
Presenting the findings of her first report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights situation in Russia lamented Moscow's "enormous crackdown" on critics since launching its war in February 2022.
"Civic society in Russia has been closed by the authorities," she told reporters, adding that the "repression is very sophisticated", with new laws presented virtually every week "to stifle" any form of criticism or dissent.
Katzarova said the situation was not yet comparable to the level of the repression seen during the Soviet Union's Stalinist era, when millions of people were incarcerated in the Gulag labour camp network. More than a million people are believed to have died in the camps, although the final death toll is unknown.
12:30pm: Russia jails activist over posts criticising Russian forces and calling for Putin's death
Russia handed a long jail term to a political activist on Friday over social media posts critical of Moscow's military operation in Ukraine.
A spokesman for a military court in the central Russian city of Yekaterinburg confirmed to AFP the activist Richard Rouz had been sentenced to eight years in jail.
He was detained in April last year after reposting a video that accused Russian forces of abuses in Bucha, a town outside Ukraine's capital that was occupied for several weeks, the OVD-Info rights monitoring group said.
Authorities accused him of spreading illegal disinformation and then opened a terror-related case against Rouz, 38, after finding a post that called for President Vladimir Putin to be killed to end hostilities in Ukraine.
His wife Marya Rouz was detained in April 2022 and released pending trial. She has since then fled to Poland, OVD-Info said.
The monitoring group says some 20,000 people in Russia have been detained for speaking out against the conflict.
11:58am: Kremlin says 'friction' between Ukraine and Europe 'inevitable'
The Kremlin said Friday it was unavoidable that tensions would grow between Kyiv and its European allies amid an escalating dispute between Ukraine and Poland sparked by disagreements over grain exports.
"There are certain frictions between Warsaw and Kyiv," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. "We predict that these frictions between Warsaw and Kiev will increase. Friction between Kyiv and other European capitals will also grow over time. This is inevitable."
10:34am: Ukraine mounting coordinated assaults in Donbas, says Russian official
Ukrainian forces have mounted coordinated assaults on several villages in the eastern Donetsk region and are heavily shelling the city of Bakhmut, a Russian-installed official in the region said Friday.
"Over the past 24 hours in the Krasnolimansk direction, the enemy took a number of actions and conducted combat reconnaissance in several directions at once," Denis Pushilin said on social media.
He listed several villages in the north of Donetsk near the city of Lyman, which is under Ukrainian control, and claimed the assaults were suppressed by Russian forces. He said the town of Bakhmut was “under chaotic shelling".
Pushilin also said Ukrainian forces are massing assault battalions north of the town that once had an estimated population of 70,000 people.
10:30am: Ukraine says Russian 'energy terror' has begun ahead of winter
Ukraine's Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Friday that Russia has restarted a systemic campaign of aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, but that his country's air defence systems were better prepared for the onslaught than last year.
"We understand that the stage of energy terror in this heating season has already begun," Shmyhal said, in comments carried by the news agency Interfax-Ukraine. "We are much better prepared and stronger than we were last year," he added.
9:02: Ukraine says ship carrying wheat leaves port for Egypt
A ship carrying wheat has left a Ukrainian port and was heading to Egypt, the second such trip since Russia reimposed its Black Sea blockade in July, a minister said Friday.
The vessel left Chornomorsk after being loaded with 17,600 tonnes of grain, Infrastructure Minister Oleksandr Kubrakov said on social media platform X (formerly Twitter).
5:52am: Zelensky arrives in Canada for first visit since Russia's full-scale invasion began
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived in Canada Thursday night from the United States to rally support for his country as it fights the ongoing Russian invasion.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau greeted Zelensky as he stepped off his plane in Ottawa, as seen on Canadian TV, travelling from Washington for his first visit to Canada since the war started in February 2022.
2:51am: Zelensky will address Canadian Parliament on Friday
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address the Canadian Parliament on Friday as he continues his efforts to shore up support from Western allies for Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.
Zelenskyy was scheduled to arrive at Ottawa’s airport late Thursday after meeting with US President Joe Biden and lawmakers in Washington, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office said. Trudeau planned to greet Zelensky and also to speak in Parliament in Ottawa on Friday.
It is Zelensky’s first visit to Canada since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He previously addressed the Canadian Parliament virtually after the war started.
12:10am: Biden: First US Abrams tanks to reach Ukraine 'next week:'
The first US M1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Ukraine "next week," US President Joe Biden said Thursday, boosting Kyiv's forces as they battle Russian troops in a slow-moving counteroffensive.
"Next week, the first US Abrams tanks will be delivered in Ukraine," Biden said at the White House, standing alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who is on his second visit to the United States since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of his country in February 2022.
Biden also said he had "approved the next tranche of security assistance for Ukraine," which the Pentagon later valued at $325 million. It includes air defence missiles, ammunition for HIMARS precision rocket launchers, anti-tank weapons, and artillery rounds.
But the package does not feature the long-range ATACMS missiles that Kyiv has repeatedly requested.
Key developments from Thursday, September 21:
Poland will no longer arm Ukraine, instead focusing on its own defence, the Polish prime minister said on Wednesday, a few hours after Warsaw summoned Kyiv's ambassador amid a row over grain exports. "We are no longer transferring weapons to Ukraine, because we are now arming Poland with more modern weapons," Mateusz Morawiecki said, in response to a question from a reporter on whether Warsaw would continue to support Kyiv despite the grain exports disagreement.
The first grain ship to sail from Ukraine since Russia reimposed its Black Sea blockade in July reached Istanbul on Thursday, marine traffic monitors said. Ukrainian officials said the Palau-flagged Resilient Africa vessel was carrying 3,000 tonnes of wheat when it left Ukraine's Chornomorsk port on Tuesday.
The first US M1 Abrams tanks will arrive in Ukraine "next week," US President Joe Biden said Thursday, boosting Kyiv's forces as they battle Russian troops in a slow-moving counteroffensive. "Next week, the first US Abrams tanks will be delivered in Ukraine," Biden said at the White House, alongside his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, who is on his second visit to the United States since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Read yesterday’s liveblog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
(France 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)
