Closing summary
Here’s a wrap-up of the day’s key events:
Russian President Vladimir Putin has arrived in the Chinese city of Tianjin for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) security summit, which is aimed at countering western influence in global affairs.
China’s President Xi Jinping personally welcomed several leaders to the summit, including Putin, the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, and the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Xi is expected to hold talks with Putin later on in the week.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country’s forces are planning new strikes deep into Russia after he met with his top general, Oleksandr Syrsky. Zelenskyy said Moscow’s forces are suffering heavy losses around Pokrovsk, the strategically important logistics hub in eastern Ukraine that Russia wants to seize control of.
Senior White House officials have accused some European leaders of prolonging Russia’s war in Ukraine by convincing Zelenskyy to hold out for a better deal with Moscow, Axios reported.
Ukraine’s armed forces said on Sunday that Russian forces failed to gain full control of any major Ukrainian city over the summer as it hit back at Moscow’s claims of a successful summer offensive.
Thanks for following along today. We are now closing this blog. You can read all our Ukraine coverage here.
Updated
Investigation launched into ‘horrific murder’ of Ukrainian politician in Lviv
A Ukrainian former parliamentary speaker was shot dead in Lviv on Saturday, authorities said, as European foreign ministers met to discuss increasing pressure on Moscow to end its war against Ukraine.
Andriy Parubiy, a member of parliament who served as parliamentary speaker from 2016 to 2019 and a key figure in Ukraine’s 2013 pro-European Maidan revolution, was shot dead, prosecutors said.
A murder investigation has been launched and the president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, condemned the killing as a “horrific murder”.
Europe’s foreign ministers met in Copenhagen to discuss possible measures to force Moscow to the negotiating table. Speaking at a press conference after the meeting, the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said that Russia was “clearly not preparing for peace”.
“The European Union and all the member states support the diplomatic efforts to achieve peace and the end of Russia’s war. But it’s clear that Russia is not preparing for peace. It is the opposite: they are preparing for more war,” she said. Ministers also discussed the war in Gaza and the deepening humanitarian crisis there.
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