Closing Summary
It is slightly past 11pm in Kyiv. Here is a wrap-up of the day’s key events.
Romania has found new fragments of a drone similar to those used by the Russian army near its border, according to its officials. Helicopters from the Romanian air force were deployed to the eastern county of Tulcea with specialist teams where the fragments were spread over an area of “several dozen meters”, the Romanian defense ministry said. Reuters reports preliminary analyses of the first two drone fragments have shown they did not explode in Romania, a Nato member, and were not carrying explosives.
The US ambassador to Russia visited jailed US citizen Paul Whelan on Wednesday and reiterated Washington’s support to bring him back to the US, the state department said on Wednesday. Whelan, a former marine, was arrested in 2018 in Russia. In 2020, he was convicted on espionage charges and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
The US state department on Wednesday said that the Biden administration “won’t hesitate” to impose additional sanctions on Russia and North Korea if they establish further new arms deals. “We have taken a number of actions already to sanction entities that brokered arms sales between North Korea and Russia and we won’t hesitate to impose additional sanctions if appropriate,” state department spokesperson Matthew Miller said during a briefing.
During a White House press briefing on Wednesday, national security council spokesperson John Kirby expressed concerns over the upcoming talks between Russia and North Korea. “We continue to urge North Korea to meet its public commitments not to support Russia’s war in Ukraine … There will certainly be repercussions,” Kirby said.
An award-winning Russian journalist living in exile in Europe was hacked using Israeli spyware made by NSO Group, according to a joint investigation by the Citizen Lab and Access Now. Galina Timchenko was hacked on or around 10 February, at a time when she was based in Berlin, Germany, marking the first time that an independent Russian journalist – whose media outlet has been targeted by Moscow and declared an “undesirable organisation” – is known to have been hacked with spyware.
In a speech delivered to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said that Russia’s war in Ukraine “is the most immediate and acute threat to the international order enshrined in the UN charter and its core principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, and independence”.
A Russian-installed court in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region jailed two Ukrainian soldiers for 29 years each, Russia’s investigative committee said on Wednesday, after it accused them of killing three civilians. Moscow has repeatedly sentenced captured Ukrainian soldiers to long jail terms, in court proceedings that Kyiv does not recognise on Russian-occupied territory.
Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un on Wednesday discussed the possibility of sending a North Korean cosmonaut into space, the RIA news agency quoted Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov as saying. Speaking after the Russian president and North Korean leader concluded talks at the Vostochny cosmodrome in Russia’s far east, Peskov also said that the foreign ministers of the two countries would meet next month in North Korea.
More than 100 port infrastructure facilities have been damaged in Russian attacks on Ukrainian ports since 18 July, Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandr Kubrakov, said on Wednesday. He also said Ukrainian grain exports had fallen by almost 3m tonnes a month since 18 July – one day after Russia quit the UN- backed Black Sea grain export deal.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said on Wednesday that his forces were maintaining “active defence” in the face of Ukraine’s counteroffensive and that Moscow had no choice but to win. Shoigu said the autumn campaign was now under way and acknowledged in comments to a reporter for Rossiya-1 state TV that the situation on the front was difficult in places.
The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said a major series of policy reviews will be launched to ensure the 27-nation bloc can still function properly as it invites in new members in coming years. Von der Leyen said that the EU must prepare to grow to more than 30 members, the Associated Press reports. Ukraine, Moldova and countries in the western Balkans are among those in line.
Kim Jong-un has pledged to support all of Russia’s decisions as he met Vladimir Putin during a rare trip outside North Korea. Speaking at Russia’s Vostochny cosmodrome, Kim said “Russia has risen to a sacred fight to protect its sovereignty and security. We will always support the decisions of President Putin and the Russian leadership … and we will be together in the fight against imperialism.”
That’s it from me, Maya Yang, as we wrap up the blog for today. Here is a parting piece by the Guardian’s Andrew Roth on the significance of Wednesday’s bilateral meeting between North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Updated
Romania has found new fragments of a drone similar to those used by the Russian army near its border, according to its officials.
Helicopters from the Romanian air force were deployed to the eastern county of Tulcea with specialist teams where the fragments were spread over an area of “several dozen meters”, the Romanian defense ministry said, Reuters reports.
“The crew of an IAR 330 Puma helicopter of the Romanian air force ... [identified] fragments that could have come from a drone, dispersed over an area of several dozen metres,” it added.
Reuters reports preliminary analyses of the first two drone fragments have shown they did not explode in Romania, a Nato member, and were not carrying explosives.
“No one has attacked us,” Romanian prime minister Marcel Ciolacu told reporters. “Some pieces of a drone that was hit by the Ukrainian army fell. It did not have explosives or anything damaging,” he added.
A Nato spokesperson said that Romania’s ambassador has updated its allies about the findings and that there is no indication of “any intentional attack by Russia against allied territory”.
“Nato stands in solidarity with our ally Romania,” he said.
Updated
