As the time approaches 8pm in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, here is a round-up of the day’s headlines from the war.
It is too early to say whether Ukraine’s summer offensive has failed, the head of the US military has said. Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Gen Mark Milley said: “That offensive kicked off about 90 days ago. It has gone slower than the planners anticipated. But that is a difference between what Clausewitz called war on paper and real war. So these are real people in real vehicles that are fighting through real minefields, and there’s real death and destruction, and there’s real friction. And there’s still a reasonable amount of time, probably about 30 to 45 days, worth of fighting weather left.”
Ukraine said air defence systems had destroyed 25 out of 32 Iran-made Shahed drones launched by Russia, mainly on Kyiv and the surrounding region. Reuters witnesses heard at least five blasts across Kyiv, and Ukrainian media footage showed a number of cars damaged. “Drones came onto the capital in groups and from different directions,” Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said on Telegram.
Russian air defence forces destroyed a Ukraine-launched drone over the Bryansk region on Sunday morning, the defence ministry said. The ministry’s statement on Telegram did not report any damage or casualties, Reuters reported. The Bryansk region in south-west Russia borders Ukraine.
Ukraine’s head of military intelligence, Kyrylo Budanov, last night spoke at the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv, which gathered Ukrainian and international policymakers to discuss the progress of the war. Budanov had this to say on Russia’s tactics: “In terms of creativity and flexibility, we still have an edge over them, they are rather outdated. But they are adapting, they are trying to change tactics, to alter the way they use forces, they miserably fail with their strategy, but their tactics do have some improvements.”
The G20 summit in Delhi ended on Sunday as India handed over the bloc’s presidency to Brazil, while both the US and Russia praised a consensus that did not condemn Moscow for the war in Ukraine but called on members to shun the use of force. The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, asked the group’s leaders to hold a virtual meeting in November to review progress on policy suggestions and goals announced at the weekend, Reuters reported. “It is our responsibility to look at the suggestions that have been made to see how progress can be accelerated,” he said in a statement.
Russia praised a G20 summit declaration that stopped short of directly criticising Moscow for the war in Ukraine and said the bloc’s leaders had acted in the interest of conflict resolution as deliberations headed into a second day on Sunday. The group adopted a consensus declaration in Delhi on Saturday that avoided condemning Russia for the war but called on all states not to use force to take territory. Ukraine earlier called it “nothing to be proud of”.
The White House national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, has become the latest figure to praise the G20 summit declaration. The world’s biggest economies adopted a consensus declaration in Delhi on Saturday that avoided condemning Russia for the war, but highlighted the human suffering the conflict had caused and called on all states not to use force to grab territory.
Vladimir Putin can attend next year’s G20 summit in Rio de Janeiro without fear of arrest, the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has said as he took leadership of the forum. Speaking at this year’s meeting in Delhi, Lula – who has controversially tried to position himself as a peacemaker between Moscow and Kyiv – said the Russian president would be welcome to attend the November 2024 event. “What I can tell you is that, if I’m Brazil’s president, and if he comes to Brazil, there’s no reason he’ll be arrested,” the leftwinger told the Indian news group Firstpost.
Ukraine has blamed Russia for the deaths of two foreign aid workers who were reportedly killed in eastern Ukraine on Sunday, as Russian shelling hit a van carrying a team of four working with a Ukrainian NGO, while dozens of Russian drones targeted Kyiv and wounded at least one civilian. Road to Relief said Anthony Ihnat, a Canadian, died in the attack, along with Spanish aid worker Emma Igual,who studied at the University of California at Berkeley.
Ruben Mawick, a German medical volunteer, and Johan Mathias Thyr, a Swedish volunteer, were seriously injured. The four volunteers were trapped inside the van as it flipped over and caught fire after being struck by shells near the town of Chasiv Yar, the organisation said on its Instagram page, according to AP.
The Romanian foreign ministry has called in the head of Russia’s mission in Bucharest to complain about the discovery of more fragments of a Russian drone thought to have been used in an attack on Ukraine. Romanian government minister Iulian Fota said he was unhappy about the apparent violation of Romania’s airspace. It is the second discovery of its kind in Romanian territory this week.
The South Korean president, Yoon Suk-yeol, said on Sunday that the country would provide an additional $2bn in aid to Ukraine starting in 2025, in addition to the $300m previously pledged for next year, Yonhap news reported. Yoon made the comment at a session of the G20 summit held in Delhi, India.
Russia will return to the Black Sea grain deal “the same day” as Moscow’s conditions for export of its own grain and fertilisers to the global markets are met, the country’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters on Sunday. Russia quit the deal in July, a year after it was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey, complaining that its own food and fertiliser exports faced obstacles and that insufficient Ukrainian grain was going to countries in need.
Ukraine’s newly nominated defence minister, Rustem Umerov, has called on Kyiv’s partners to increase deliveries of heavy weapons, amid a long and difficult counteroffensive against Russian forces. “We are grateful for all the support provided … we need more heavy weapons,” Umerov said in an embargoed speech released on Saturday.
Kyiv residents fear a property grab by developers, with the war not diminishing the appetite for prime property in the city, or halting the scramble to get hold of empty plots for construction. While developers seek to take advantage of Russia’s invasion, it has also spurred opposition to their plans.
The International Atomic Energy Agency warned of a potential threat to nuclear safety after a surge in fighting near the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The UN atomic watchdog said its experts at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant reported hearing explosions over the past week.
That’s all for today, thank you for following along.
Russia has begun reinforcing its military base on its border with Finland, according to satellite images posted by the Finnish news website Yle.
The images appear to show that Moscow has built new warehouses to store and service military vehicles, and equipment has gone up at the military depot in Petrozavodsk and the Alakurtti military base.
These are the first visible signs that Russia has begun investing in the readiness of its border bases near Finland after many years of inactivity, Yle reported. The Finnish defence minister, Antti Häkkänen, said they did not present an immediate threat to his country’s security.
The improvements may be connected to Russia’s intention to supply equipment to the Ukrainian front from the Petrozavodsk base. A retired Finnish major told Yle that a warehouse there looked as if it had been built for maintenance.
Updated
