Closing summary
Seven EU countries have ordered ammunition under a landmark EU procurement scheme to get urgently needed artillery shells to Ukraine and replenish depleted western stocks, according to the EU agency in charge.
Top US general Mark Milley will retire on Friday after a four-year tenure in the position. Milley’s tenure included providing military assistance to Ukraine’s defence against the invasion by Russia in February 2022.
Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine autumn conscription campaign, calling up 130,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the government website showed.
The UK government on Friday imposed an asset freeze and travel bans on officials in the annexed Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Crimea as part of its broader sanctions against Russia.
Vladimir Putin reportedly met Andrei Troshev, formerly a top Wagner mercenary commander, to discuss how voluntary fighting units are used in the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Friday.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, said that “very difficult questions” would need to be answered before the EU could start membership talks with Ukraine.
Romania is moving air defences closer to its Danube villages across the river from Ukraine where Russian drones have been attacking grain facilities, and is adding more military observation posts and patrols to the area, two senior defence sources told Reuters.
Updated
Joe Biden has called Gen Mark Milley “unflinching in the face of danger” after it was announced on Friday that the top US general would retire after a four-year tenure (see earlier post at 15.33).
The US president said he “once ran across a bridge booby-trapped with mines to stop two battle tanks evacuating wounded troops from driving across it.”
“Mark, your partnership has been invaluable to me,” Biden said.
In a ceremony at Joint Base-Myer Henderson Hall near Washington, with marching bands and a red-coated fife-and-drum corps, Milley handed over command to air force chief Gen Charles Q. Brown.
Milley’s tenure included the killing of Islamic State head Abu Bakr al Baghdadi in 2019 and providing military assistance to Ukraine’s defence against the invasion by Russia in February 2022.
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