Closing summary
The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, and the British foreign secretary, David Lammy, held a press conference in Kyiv during which they denounced Russia’s “imperialism” in Ukraine and announced almost $1.5bn in further support for Ukraine.
Lammy described Russia’s actions in Ukraine as “fascism”, comparing it to his own ancestors’ experience of being enslaved. He said: “Putin’s barbaric actions are the latest example of a very old and evil story. One of my ancestors was taken from their home, enslaved, chained on a ship and forced to work for the profit of a foreign empire. He knew only too well what imperialism was … This is imperialism. This is fascism.”
Blinken said the $700m in extra aid for Ukraine was aimed at bolstering the energy grid that Russia has repeatedly pounded ahead of an expected difficult winter. The $325m in energy support in the package will help repair and restore Ukraine’s power generation facilities, provide emergency backup power and strengthen the physical security of energy infrastructure. Some $290m will fund food, water, shelter, health care and education programs for Ukrainians in need in the country and refugees outside the country. The remaining $102m will be used for mine-removal activities.
Lammy confirmed that the UK would provide another $782m in assistance and loan guarantees.
Earlier in the day the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, called for “strong decisions” to be made as he reiterated his call for permission to use long-distance missiles in Russia. Concern about escalation has been one of the reasons why permission has not been given to Kyiv to use western long-range weapons to strike targets inside Russia. But Blinken said escalation was “one of the factors that we always consider but it’s certainly not the only factor and it’s not necessarily a dispositive factor”.
Lammy said: “It is Putin who has escalated this week with the shipment of ballistic missiles from Iran and we’re seeing this new axis, Russia, Iran, North Korea. We urge China not to throw their lot in with this group of renegades.”
Three civilians were killed in Russian attacks on Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine.
Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, has said Moscow will destroy any new deliveries of long-range ATACMS missiles to Ukraine by the United States.
The Kremlin said today that it really did not like the way Vladimir Putin’s name was bandied around in the US presidential debate.
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araqchi, pushed back against western governments’ concerns a day after the US and others said Tehran has supplied ballistic missiles to Russia. “Iran has NOT delivered ballistic missiles to Russia. Period,” he wrote.
Updated
Pressed on Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s call for “strong decisions” on the use of UK-supplied weapons in Russia, foreign secretary David Lammy said: “We’ve had detailed conversations today with president Zelensky.
“We recognise that Ukraine is on the frontline of the fight for freedom, and also that over these last few weeks, we have seen a tremendous loss of life of innocent men, women and children here in Ukraine.”
He added: “We are concerned about the attacks on Ukraine’s energy. We are concerned about these glide bombs. We are concerned about the drones.
“We’re very concerned about the escalatory action that we’re seeing from Iran, particularly.
“We’ve looked at the breadth of things today, and as we’ve said, of course, I go back to Keir Starmer, able to assist him with some of the operational detail that we’ve learned from the Ukrainians today - you wouldn’t expect me to go into detail about that at this press conference, because I am not prepared to give Putin the advantage.
“But as the closest of allies, we look forward to discussions we will have, not just on Friday, but discussions I suspect that will go on over the next few weeks as we head also to the UN general assembly.”
