Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 580

Fighting continues on the front lines in the east and south [Alex Babenko/AP Photo]

Here is the situation on Tuesday, September 26, 2023

Fighting

• Ukraine claimed it killed the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet and dozens of officers in last week’s missile attack on Moscow’s naval headquarters in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. “Thirty-four officers were killed, including the commander of the Black Sea fleet. Another 105 occupiers were wounded,” Ukraine’s special forces said.
• Russian missile, drone attacks and shelling killed six people in Ukraine and caused “significant damage” to infrastructure at the Black Sea port of Odesa. Oleh Kiper, the Odesa region governor, said storage facilities were hit, which contained almost 1,000 tonnes of grain.
• Russia said it repelled more Ukrainian air attacks on Crimea and in the border regions of Belgorod and Kursk.
• The Ukrainian military’s National Resistance Center said Russian-installed officials in the occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhia were preparing to carry out a military mobilisation in the regions.

Houses destroyed during the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian armed forces in recently liberated Klishchiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region [Alex Babenko/AP Photo]

Diplomacy

• Russian occupiers tortured Ukrainians so brutally that some of their victims died and forced families to listen as they raped women next door, a United Nations-mandated investigative body said. Erik Mose, the chair of the Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva that his team had collected further evidence that suggested Moscow’s use of torture was “widespread and systematic” and that its soldiers “raped and committed sexual violence against women of ages ranging from 19 to 83 years” in occupied parts of Kherson province.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban told parliament Budapest would not support Ukraine on any issue in international affairs until Kyiv restored the “former rights for ethnic Hungarians on its territory”. There are about 150,000 ethnic Hungarians in the country.
• Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said it was “deeply embarrassing” and “clearly unacceptable” that 98-year-old Ukrainian veteran Yaroslav Hunka had been hailed as an independence hero and given a standing ovation during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit to parliament. Hunka is alleged to have fought for the Nazis during World War II. Anthony Rota, the speaker of Canada’s House of Commons, earlier apologised for the recognition given to Hunka.

Weapons

• Zelenskyy said United States-made Abrams tanks had arrived in Ukraine and were “being prepared to reinforce our brigades”.