We’re now closing the live blog. Here’s a summary of today’s developments.
Nine people were killed and 16 injured, among them two generals, in a Ukrainian airstrike on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters in Crimea, according to the head of Ukrainian military intelligence.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Ukraine’s peace formula is “completely not feasible” adding that the war would be resolved on the battlefield if Kyiv and West stuck to the plan as a basis for negotiations.
Lavrov said Russia left the Black Sea Grain Deal because promises to Russia had not been met. On the latest proposals by UN secretary general to revive the deal Lavrov said: “We don’t reject them, they are simply not realistic.”
Lavrov said he will go to Pyongyang next month for more negotiations following agreements reached by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un.
Three successive commanders of one of Russia’s most prestigious airborne regiments have either resigned or been killed since its invasion of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said, which it said highlighted “extreme attrition and high turnover”.
Russian spies are using hackers to target computer systems at law enforcement agencies in Ukraine in a bid to identify and obtain evidence related to alleged Russian war crimes, according to Ukraine’s cyber-defence chief.
Norwegian police have arrested a former commander of the Wagner mercenary group on suspicion that he attempted to illegally re-enter Russia after seeking asylum in Norway earlier this year, Andrei Medvedev’s lawyer said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy held an impromptu meeting with the head of the Sudanese sovereign council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, where they discussed Russia-funded armed groups.
Lavrov told the UN General Assembly the “time has come for mutual trust building” between Armenia and Azerbaijan and says Russian troops “will certainly help with this”.
Azerbaijani soldiers and Russian peacekeepers are working jointly to disarm separatist fighters in the ethnically Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani army spokesman has said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has awarded two volunteers from Poland Ukrainian state awards.
Ukraine war will be resolved on the battlefield if Kyiv and West stick to peace plan - Lavrov
There is more detail coming through on Lavrov’s dismissal of Ukraine’s proposed peace plan.
“It is completely not feasible,” he said of the 10-point peace blueprint promoted by Kyiv.
“It is not possible to implement this. It’s not realistic and everybody understands this, but at the same time, they say this is the only basis for negotiations.”
He said the conflict would be resolved on the battlefield if Kyiv and the West stuck to that stance.
Lavrov to go to Pyongyang next month
Lavrov said he will go to Pyongyang next month for more negotiations following agreements reached by Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, Reuters reported.
In his address to the UN General Assembly, Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov did not directly discuss his country’s war in Ukraine.
He did, however, allude to what Russia perceives as Nato’s improper encroachment.
The rest of the planet is sick of it, Lavrov argued: “They don’t want to live under anybody’s yoke anymore.”
That shows, he said, in the growth of such groups as Brics — the developing-economies coalition that currently includes Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa and recently invited Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to join next year.
He added:
Our future is being shaped by a struggle, a struggle between the global majority in favour of a fairer distribution of global benefits and civilised diversity and between the few who wield neocolonial methods of subjugation in order to maintain their domination which is slipping through their hands.
Here’s more detail on Lavrov’s attack on the West as reported by the Associated Press.
Lavrov denounced the United States and the West as self-interested defenders of a fading international order, but he didn’t discuss his country’s war in Ukraine in his speech to the UN General Assembly.
He said:
The US and its subordinate Western collective are continuing to fuel conflicts which artificially divide humanity into hostile blocks and hamper the achievement of overall aims.
They’re doing everything they can to prevent the formation of a genuine multipolar world order.
They are trying to force the world to play according to their own self-centered rules.
Lavrov said Russia left the Black Sea Grain Deal because promises to Russia had not been met.
Referring to the latest proposals by the UN secretary general to revive the Black Sea Grain Deal:
We don’t reject them, they are simply not realistic.
Updated
Ukraine's peace formula 'completely not feasible' - Lavrov
More from Lavrov. He told a press conference Ukraine’s peace formula is “completely not feasible”.
Updated
Here’s more from Reuters on Sergei Lavrov’s address to the UN General Assembly.
Lavrov accused the West of trying to force themselves as mediators between the two countries, which he said was not needed.
He said:
Yerevan and Baku actually did settle the situation.
Time has come for mutual trust-building. There are Russian troops who will certainly help this.
The ethnic Armenian leadership of breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh said on Saturday that the terms of their ceasefire with Azerbaijan were being implemented.
Work was proceeding on the delivery of humanitarian aid and evacuation of the wounded, the leadership added.
A snap from Reuters:
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, has told the UN general assembly the “time has come for mutual trust building” between Armenia and Azerbaijan and says Russian troops “will certainly help with this.”
Updated
Azerbaijani soldiers and Russian peacekeepers are working jointly to disarm separatist fighters in the ethnically Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azerbaijani army spokesman has said.
Spokesman Anar Eyvazov told reporters in Shusha, a district on the edge of the rebel stronghold Stepanakert:
We are in close cooperation with the Russian peacekeepers, conducting the demilitarisation [of the separatists].
We have already seized weapons and ammunition.
This comes three days after Azerbaijan staged a lightning offensive into the enclave, forcing the rebels to sue for peace and agree to disarm.
Russia deployed several thousand peacekeepers to the region in the wake of a brief but brutal 2020 war in which Azerbaijan reclaimed large parts of the territory and its surroundings, Agence France-Press reported.
Russia had been a traditional ally of Armenia but refused to enter the latest fighting, with Moscow concentrating on its war with Ukraine.
The separatists agreed to disarm under a ceasefire agreement reached on Thursday.
Eyvazov said the disarmament process “can take time” because some of the rebels were based in remote mountain districts.
“The priority is the mine clearing and demilitarisation,” he said.
Separately, Russia said it had delivered more than 50 tonnes of food and other aid to Karabakh, Reuters reported.
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has awarded two volunteers from Poland Ukrainian state awards.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, he wrote:
While in Lublin on my way back to Ukraine, I was honored to award two prominent Poles, volunteers, Bianka Zalewska and Damian Duda, Ukrainian state awards.
Bianka is a journalist for TVN Discovery Poland who has helped provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians and transport wounded.
Damian is a civilian volunteer and medic who gathered a team of medics to save our wounded soldiers near the frontline. He created a fund to assist medics, provide training, and provide vital medical assistance.
I thank Poland for its invaluable support and solidarity that helps defend freedom of our entire Europe!
While in Lublin on my way back to Ukraine, I was honored to award two prominent Poles, volunteers, Bianka Zalewska and Damian Duda, Ukrainian state awards.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 23, 2023
Bianka is a journalist for TVN Discovery Poland who has helped provide humanitarian aid to Ukrainians and transport wounded… pic.twitter.com/96Jl2h7gsu
Here are some images coming to us over the wires.
Updated
Summary
Here’s a quick roundup of the key developments so far today.
Nine people were killed and 16 injured, among them two generals, in a Ukrainian airstrike on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters in Crimea, according to the head of Ukrainian military intelligence.
Three successive commanders of one of Russia’s most prestigious airborne regiments have either resigned or been killed since its invasion of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence said, which it said highlighted “extreme attrition and high turnover”.
Russian spies are using hackers to target computer systems at law enforcement agencies in Ukraine in a bid to identify and obtain evidence related to alleged Russian war crimes, according to Ukraine’s cyber-defence chief.
Norwegian police have arrested a former commander of the Wagner mercenary group on suspicion that he attempted to illegally re-enter Russia after seeking asylum in Norway earlier this year, Andrei Medvedev’s lawyer said.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy held an impromptu meeting with the head of the Sudanese sovereign council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, where they discussed Russia-funded armed groups.
Updated
The US president, Joe Biden, had decided to provide Ukraine with long-range army tactical missile systems (ATACMS) before Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to the US, according to a report in the Financial Times – with a source saying the administration held off on announcing it for strategic reasons.
The newspaper cites a source as saying that the administration chose not to announce the decision publicly to avoid tipping off Russia, prompting its forces to move their supply lines further back from the front line.
Biden told Zelenskiy that Washington would supply Ukraine with a small number of ATACMS, it was reported by NBC News on Friday.
The FT reported on Saturday that its sources say that Washington will send a version of the missiles armed with cluster munitions, rather than a single warhead.
Updated
A bit of further context on that meeting between Zelenskiy and Sudan’s Abdel Fattah al-Burhan.
This meeting comes days after CNN reported that Ukraine special services were most likely behind drone strikes against the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) near Khartoum, who are believed to have close ties with the Russian mercenary Wagner group. The Sudanese army has been embroiled in a bitter conflict with the RSF since April this year over control of the capital and other parts of Sudan.
CNN spoke to an unnamed Ukrainian military source who when asked if Kyiv was behind a spate of attacks on the RSF, said that “Ukrainian special services were likely responsible”.
However, CNN said a high-level military source from Sudan told them he had “no knowledge of a Ukrainian operation in Sudan.” Another Sudanese military source told CNN that Wagner had moved arms to the RSF near the border with Chad, days before the strikes.
Sudan hasn’t publicly commented on the reports.
Updated
Zelenskiy meets with head of Sudanese sovereign council
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has announced that he held an impromptu meeting with the head of the Sudanese sovereign council, Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, where they discussed Russia-funded armed groups.
“We discussed our common security challenges, namely the activities of illegal armed groups financed by Russia,” Zelenskiy wrote on Telegram. The meeting took place in Ireland’s Shannon airport.
He thanked Sudan, which is engaged in a deadly civil war, for its support of Ukraine’s territorial integrity.
Western diplomats and media have said the Wagner mercenary group, which has operated in Ukraine throughout Russia’s invasion, is also present in Sudan, although Wagner denies this.
Updated
Russia has accused Ukraine of launching another missile attack on Sevastopol in Crimea on Saturday, a day after the attack on the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet.
The regional governor says Sevastopol was put on air raid alert for about an hour early on Saturday after debris from intercepted missiles fell near a pier.
Ferry traffic in the area was also stopped and later resumed.
Updated
Alexei Navalny’s team has set up new headquarters for the Anti-Corruption Foundation in Vilnius, after the organisation was designated “extremist” in summer 2021, rendering all its activities illegal.
Navalny remains locked in a Russian jail cell and received a 19-year sentence in a new trial held inside prison earlier this month. In exile, his team now face the challenge of directing engagement with their investigations into meaningful opposition – a “dilemma that all Russian opposition political forces are now facing”.
Updated
Ukraine’s prosecutor general Andriy Kostin said on Saturday he had met the director of the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Todd Robinson.
Kostin said the bureau was a strategic partner, “particularly in the areas of international crime accountability and prosecution system reforms”.
The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (@StateINL) has steadfastly stood by Ukraine as a strategic partner, particularly in the areas of international crime accountability and prosecution system reforms. Delighted to meet again with Director Todd D.… pic.twitter.com/06b0cG94oT
— Andriy Kostin (@AndriyKostinUa) September 23, 2023
Updated
Here’s a bit of background on the ex-Wagner commander Andrei Medvedev, who has been arrested by Norwegian police.
When and how did he get to Norway? He arrived in Norway in January after crossing Russia’s Arctic border with the country. He spoke of running as Russian guards fired shots at him.
Why did he say he was seeking asylum? He said it was because he feared for his life after witnessing the killing and mistreatment of Russian prisoners taken to the frontline in Ukraine.
What developments have there been since? In May, posted a video on YouTube saying that he wanted to return to Russia even though he believed it could pose a risk to his life, describing himself as “some kind of a boy in a big game” that he no longer wanted to be part of.
Norwegian police arrest ex-Wagner commander for trying to illegally re-enter Russia
Norwegian police have arrested a former commander of the Wagner mercenary group on suspicion that he attempted to illegally re-enter Russia after seeking asylum in Norway earlier this year, the man’s lawyer is reported as saying on Saturday by Reuters.
Police said in a statement late on Friday that a man in his 20s had been taken into custody for attempting to illegally cross the Russian border, but did not name him.
Andrei Medvedev escaped Russia in January to Norway. His lawyer, Brynjulf Risnes, told Reuters that his arrest was due to a misunderstanding.
“He was up there to see if he could find the place where he crossed (into Norway in January). He was stopped when he was in a taxi. He was never near the border ... It was never his intention to cross the border (into Russia),” Risnes said.
Updated
Ukrainian forces have broken through in the southern village of Verbove, according to the general leading Ukraine’s counteroffensive along the southern front.
“On the left flank [near Verbove] we have a breakthrough and we continue to advance further,” Brig Oleksandr Tarnavsky told CNN on Friday, though he acknowledged that the troops were making slower progress than expected.
“Not as fast as it was expected, not like in the movies about the second world war,” he said. “The main thing is not to lose this initiative (that we have). And, well, not to lose it in practice, with actions.”
It follows gains by Ukrainian forces in early September. Tarnavsky told the Observer then that forces had breached Russia’s first defensive line near Zaporizhzhia following weeks of painstaking mine clearance.
Updated
Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, will visit Moscow in the next few weeks, according to an Iraqi foreign ministry statement reported by Reuters.
The foreign minister, Fuad Hussein, is quoted as making the statement during a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.
Updated
Ukraine strikes Russian Black Sea fleet HQ - video report
Updated
Andrey Kortunov, an adviser to the Russian foreign ministry and director of Russian international affairs council, has been on the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme discussing the strike on Russian navy’s Black Sea HQ.
Kortunov emphasised the “psychological” importance of long range missiles being used in the strike. “I think psychologically it’s important because it’s a long range missile - its destruction power is pretty significant. But militarily, I don’t think it really makes that big a damage – after all it didn’t hit any really critical military targets and the damage at least according to the reports we received is quite limited.”
Is this rattling Russian people, he is asked. “Yes, I think it does have an impact on the Russian population. Paradoxically, I think it strengthens the position of the leadership because what Russians see right now is that it’s not just Putin’s war – it’s their war and it has an impact on the civilian population because at least some of these missiles hit not just military targets but residential areas, like the drone attacks that we saw in Moscow.
“Definitely it has an effect of political mobilisation – we don’t know how long this factor might last for,” he said, acknowledging this is a view based on “anecdotal” evidence.
Kortunov said that “both sides have to make concessions” but that it is difficult to make the case for this because they are “diametrically opposed” to each other. “Once you start talking about [that] you will be labelled as a traitor,” he said.
Updated
Hello, this is Clea Skopeliti taking over the blog from my colleague Mark Gerts.
It’s almost a year on since explosions damaged the Nord Stream pipelines. AFP has looked at the investigations since the incident on 26 September 2022, which destroyed a key route for Russian gas exports to Europe and further fuelled geopolitical tensions.
Here’s a reminder, courtesy of AFP, of what we know:
Late last September, a series of underwater blasts ruptured three of the four pipelines that make up Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, spewing gas into the Baltic Sea.
Russian energy giant Gazprom had in August already halted flows through Nord Stream 1, the main conduit for Russian natural gas to Germany, amid disputes over the war in Ukraine.
The newly completed Nord Stream 2 twin pipelines never opened as Berlin pulled the plug on the project days before Russian troops entered Ukraine on 24 February 2022.
The €10bn ($10.6bn) Nord Stream 2 had long been opposed by Ukraine, the US and eastern European countries who feared it would give Russia too much influence over Germany’s energy security.
Who opened investigations? Germany, Denmark and Sweden, a the leaks happened in their exclusive economic zones.
What have they found? German federal prosecutors seized objects from a sailing yacht in January and found traces of explosives.
Meanwhile, Sweden’s public prosecutor said the “primary assumption is that a state is behind it”.
What has Ukraine said? The New York Times reported in March that US officials had seen information suggesting it was done by a “pro-Ukrainian group”, without Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s knowledge. Zelenskiy has repeatedly denied Ukraine was behind the sabotage.
Could it be a false flag? Andreas Umland, an analyst at the Stockholm Centre for Eastern European Studies, views Russia as “the most likely” culprit. The Kremlin has denied responsibility.
Updated
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and his South Korean and Japanese counterparts have expressed “serious concern” over the discussion of military cooperation between Russia and North Korea, including possible arms trade, South Korea’s foreign ministry has said.
North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, made a weeklong visit to Russia earlier this month and discussed military cooperation with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
US and South Korean officials have expressed concern that the summit was aimed at allowing Russia to acquire ammunition from the North to supplement its dwindling stocks for its war in Ukraine.
The South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, said on Wednesday that if Russia helped North Korea enhance its weapons programmes in return for assistance for its war in Ukraine, it would be “a direct provocation” and Seoul and its allies would not stand idly by.
Updated
In Ukraine, the second summer of the invasion has been a season of unbearable goodbyes: to teachers, artists and loved ones, writes Oleksandr Mykhed in the Guardian.
“If anyone still thinks that Ukraine is regaining the occupied territories too slowly, they should remember that for every de-mined and liberated metre of our free country, the highest price has been paid by our soldiers,” Mykhed writes.
“The pantheon of our national myth is being formed before our eyes. Our friends, teachers, brothers are already in it. And the only thing I dream of is that the living will take their places in the pantheon after victory.”
Read the full piece here:
Russian activist jailed for eight years over Bucha video
Russia has handed a long jail term to a political activist over social media posts critical of Moscow’s military operation in Ukraine.
A spokesman for a military court in the central 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, OVD-Info said.
The group said she fled to Armenia, where she was detained and threatened alongside her son with extradition. She was released and has since 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. Several high-profile political opposition figures have also been given long jail terms for protesting the conflict.
Russian hackers targeting war crimes investigations – Kyiv cyber defence chief
Russian spies are using hackers to target computer systems at law enforcement agencies in Ukraine in a bid to identify and obtain evidence related to alleged Russian war crimes, Ukraine’s cyber defence chief has told Reuters.
Yurii Shchyhol, head of the State Service of Special Communications and Information Protection of Ukraine, which handles cyber defence, has claimed the hackers, working for Russia’s GRU and FSB intelligence agencies, have stepped up digital intrusion campaigns targeting the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office and departments documenting war crimes.
There’s been a change in direction, from a focus on energy facilities towards law enforcement institutions which had previously not been targeted that often.
“This shift, towards the courts, prosecutors and law enforcement units, shows that hackers are gathering evidence about Russian war crimes in Ukraine” with a view to following Ukraine’s investigations, he added.
The espionage activity will be flagged in an upcoming report by the service, due to be published on Monday.
The report, a copy of which was reviewed by Reuters, says hackers were also trying to gather intelligence on Russian nationals arrested in Ukraine, with a view to “help these individuals avoid prosecution and move them back to Russia”.
Russia’s foreign ministry and the FSB have not responded to requests from Reuters for comment. Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency could not be reached for comment.
Shchyhol claimed his department saw evidence that Russian hackers were accessing private security cameras within Ukraine to monitor the outcome of long-range missile and drone strikes.
We have documented several attempts to gain access to video cameras near the facilities they attacked, and to systems that provide information about the stability of the energy network.
“You need to understand that the cyber war will not end even after Ukraine wins on the battlefield,” Shchyhol added.
Updated
'Extreme attrition and high turnover' among Russia's senior ranks – MoD
Three successive commanders of one of Russia’s most prestigious airborne regiments have either resigned or been killed since its invasion of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence has said.
In its latest intelligence update, the MoD lists 247th Guards Air Assault Landing Regiment commanders Col Vasily Popov and Col Konstantin Zizevsky as having died since February 2022, while Pytor Popov resigned.
“The experience of the 247th highlights the extreme attrition and high turnover in Russia’s deployed military, even amongst relatively senior ranks,” the MoD concludes.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 23 September 2023.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) September 23, 2023
Find out more about Defence Intelligence's use of language: https://t.co/uGdKwpElNZ…
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/FJilo1TNmi
Ukrainian forces 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 on 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.
Bakhmut was captured by Russian forces in May after months of brutal fighting but Ukrainian forces immediately began pushing back around its flanks and have recaptured several destroyed villages.
“The situation in [Bakhmut] remains hot, [the city] itself is under chaotic shelling,” Pushilin said in the video statement on social media.
Pushilin also said Ukrainian forces are massing assault battalions north of the town that once had an estimated population of 70,000 people.
Generals injured in strike on Russian navy's Black Sea HQ
Nine people were killed and 16 injured, among them two generals, in a Ukrainian airstrike on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters in Crimea, according to the head of Ukrainian military intelligence.
Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of Ukraine, told the Voice of America that “among the wounded is the commander of the group, Col Gen [Alexander] Romanchuk, in a very serious condition. The chief of staff, Lt Gen [Oleg] Tsekov, is unconscious.”
A Ukrainian missile strike hit the headquarters of Russia’s Black Sea fleet in Sevastopol on Friday. Footage posted on social media showed clouds of white smoke billowing from the rooftop of the building.
Soon after the strike Russia’s defence ministry said that one military serviceman was missing as a result of the assault.
Budanov did not confirm reports about the alleged death of the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Adm Viktor Sokolov.
“The number of casual military servicemen who are not employees of the headquarters is still being determined. These are military personnel who are on duty, security, and so on — they are not included in the list that I announced to you,” Budanov was quoted as saying by Voice of America.
Opening summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Mark Gerts with the latest.
Our top story this morning: nine people were killed and 16 injured, among them two generals, in a Ukrainian airstrike on Russia’s Black Sea naval headquarters in Crimea, according to the head of Ukrainian military intelligence.
Kyrylo Budanov told the Voice of America that “among the wounded” in the missile strike on Sevastopol on Friday is “the commander of the group, Col Gen [Alexander] Romanchuk, in a very serious condition. The chief of staff, Lt Gen [Oleg] Tsekov, is unconscious.”
But Budanov did not confirm reports about the alleged death of the commander of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, Adm Viktor Sokolov.
More on that shortly. In other developments:
A Russian missile strike on civilian infrastructure in Kremenchuk in the central Poltava region of Ukraine killed one person and injured 15 others, the regions’ governor, Dmytro Lunin, said on Friday via Telegram. He said one child was among the injured and that Ukrainian air defences downed one of the missiles launched.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has bolstered military aid to Ukraine following a visit to Canada, with Ottawa promising an extra C$650m ($482m) over the next three years. Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said the aid included money for 50 armoured vehicles. He will also send F-16 trainers for pilots and maintenance so Ukraine is able to maximise its use of donated fighter jets.
Zelenskiy thanked Canada for its military support, and hailed the historic and communal ties between the two countries, in an impassioned speech at the Canadian parliament on Friday. “You’re always on the bright side of history … I have no doubt that you will choose the side of freedom and justice,” the Ukrainian president said.
The US president, Joe Biden, has told Volodymyr Zelenskiy that the US will provide a small number of long-range missiles to help in Ukraine’s fight against Russia, three US officials and a congressional official told NBC News on Friday. The officials did not confirm when the missiles would be delivered.
The Russian deputy prime minister, Alexander Novak, held a meeting with Russian oil company managers on Friday to discuss the domestic fuel market, the government said. Russia temporarily banned exports of petroleum and diesel to all countries outside a circle of four ex-Soviet states with immediate effect, the government said on Thursday, without a specified end date.
Updated
