US president says he is ‘sick and tired’ of domestic political brinkmanship as Volodymyr Zelenskiy vows to fight on in speech released on Defenders Day

• See all our Ukraine coverage

Joe Biden has pressed congressional Republicans to back a deal to provide more aid to Ukraine, after provisions for Kyiv were left out of a bill to avoid a US government shutdown.

The US president said on Sunday he was “sick and tired” of the political brinkmanship, and that US support for Ukraine could not be interrupted “under any circumstances”. Republicans had pledged to provide Ukraine aid through a separate vote, he said.

Continue reading...

Joe Biden urges Congress to swiftly approve Ukraine aid left out of US government funding bill; Rishi Sunak rows back on defence minister’s suggestion that British troops could carry out training in Ukraine

• See all our Ukraine coverage

The US president, Joe Biden, has called on Congress to swiftly approve aid to Ukraine after it was left out of the deal . “We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said.

US senators from both major parties have issued a statement in support of Kyiv, saying Washington will continue to provide critical support to Ukraine after aid to the country was left out of the Congress deal averting a US government shutdown. The joint statement from six senators including Republican minority leader, Mitch McConnell, and Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer, said they welcomed the agreement but it left a “number of urgent priorities outstanding”.

Britain’s prime minister, Rishi Sunak, said there are no immediate plans to deploy military instructors to Ukraine , rowing back from comments made by his defence minister, Grant Shapps, who had suggested troops could carry out training in the country . “It might well be possible one day in the future for us to do some of that training in Ukraine,” Sunak said on Sunday . “But that’s something for the long term, not the here and now. There are no British soldiers that will be sent to fight in the current conflict.”

Shapps told the Sunday Telegraph that, particularly in the west of Ukraine “the opportunity now is to bring more things ‘in country’ , and not just training, but also we’re seeing [UK defence firm] BAE, for example, move into manufacturing in country. I’m keen to see other British companies do their bit as well by doing the same thing. So I think there will be a move to get more training and production in the country.”

Russia’s former president and deputy head of the security council, Dmitry Medvedev, said that moving training and production into Ukrainian territory would “turn your instructors into legal targets for our armed forces. Knowing full well that they will be mercilessly destroyed. And no longer as mercenaries, but precisely as British Nato specialists. These idiots are actively pushing us towards a third world war.”

Slovakia’s populist likely new prime minister, Robert Fico, who campaigned on a pledge to end military aid to Ukraine, has said his position “has not changed” after his party’s clear election win made him favourite to lead the country again. “People in Slovakia have bigger problems than Ukraine,” the Smer leader said.

Ukraine marked Defenders Day, honouring veterans and remembering soldiers killed in Russia’s invasion . “Tough times have made us strong. And the strong bring the times of victory closer. Step by step. Today, tomorrow, every day, every minute,” the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a brief address on Telegram.

Two purported Ukrainian drones struck Russian territory on Sunday , with social media footage showing one hitting a helicopter base in Sochi and another an aircraft factory in Smolensk. Possibly related to these attacks, Russian propagandist Margarita Simonyan called today for “a nuclear ultimatum” after a drone fell right in front of her family home in Adler, about 38km from Sochi.

Russian documents indicating a surge in military spending in 2024 suggest Moscow is preparing for “multiple further years of fighting in Ukraine” , the UK Ministry of Defence has said. In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said papers apparently leaked from Russia’s finance ministry suggested the country’s defence spending was likely to rise to about 30% of total public expenditure in 2024.

An International Monetary Fund team is to kick off meetings in Ukraine to discuss policy goals and challenges with government officials. Ukraine’s economy has suffered since Russia invaded in February 2022, with Kyiv relying heavily on western aid to finance social and humanitarian payments. Last week, the IMF said it had begun its second review of a $15.6bn multi-year loan program for the country. The four-year program for Kyiv is part of a $115bn global package to support the country’s economy during the war.

Continue reading...

The fate of democracy and aid for Ukraine undergird the October vote, which will decide whether the governing Law and Justice party secures an unprecedented third term in a row.

It seems likely Russia will target the grid with its missiles again, but engineers say they are better prepared now

• Russia-Ukraine war – latest news updates

On 25 February 2022, Oleksandr Danyliuk woke up to see Russian soldiers. “I went to bed. The next morning I peered outside my window. It was 6.30am. There were four Russian armoured vehicles opposite my house,” he recalled. Danyliuk, an engineer with Ukraine’s largest private electricity company, DTEK , said Moscow’s invasion took him by surprise.

Over the next four weeks a battle raged in his home city of Hostomel, a short drive from the capital, Kyiv. The fighting destroyed the neighbouring market. It also brought down numerous electricity cables and pylons, leaving civilians cold and in the dark. “For the first two days after the Russians left I wandered around in a daze. Then we got to work,” Danyliuk said.

Continue reading...

Kyiv expressed confidence in continued U.S. support for its war against Russia after Congress passed a stopgap funding bill that did not include money for Ukraine.

President says US support for Kyiv cannot pause ‘under any circumstances’ after aid not included in Congress agreement averting government shutdown

• What we know on day 585 of the invasion

Hello and welcome back to our coverage of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine , now at day 585. I’m Adam Fulton and here’s a look at the latest developments.

US president Joe Biden has called on Congress to swiftly approve aid to Ukraine after it was left out of the deal that averted a US government shutdown on Saturday.

A huge fire erupted at an oil pipeline in the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk on Saturday, injuring nine people , five of them critically, authorities said. The blaze near the village of Strymba caused an oil spill spanning 100 sq metres before it was extinguished. Footage shared on social media showed thick clouds of black smoke billowing out over the village. The cause of the rupture was not immediately clear, but local media outlets reported there had been a powerful explosion. The regional governor, Svitlana Onyshchuk, said two children and three adults were in critical condition with numerous burns.

A Ukrainian drone attack on Saturday in the southern Russian region of Bryansk injured one person and damaged windows and the roof of an administrative building, the region’s governor said. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram the incident occurred in Trubchevsk town. He earlier said a village in the region had been shelled by Ukrainian forces, damaging three homes.

Ukraine signed 20 agreements and memorandums with foreign partners on the manufacture of drones and the repair and production of armoured vehicles and ammunition at the first international Defence Industries Forum, which Kyiv organised with international producers. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he wanted to turn Ukraine’s defence industry into a “large military hub”, also announcing the creation of the Defence Industries Alliance.

The UK’s new defence secretary says he has held talks with army leaders about deploying British troops within Ukraine for the first time for a training program. Grant Shapps, who met Zelenskiy for talks in Kyiv this week, said the proposal being discussed would reduce the reliance on the UK and other Nato members’ bases.

Continue reading...

Robert Fico’s Smer party was ahead of rivals Progressive Slovakia in vote that could fuel fears about Slovakia’s future foreign policy orientation

Populist former prime minister Robert Fico’s Smer party is on course to win Slovakia’s election, garnering more support than its rival Progressive Slovakia in a dramatic knife-edge race.

With over 98% of districts reporting , Smer is set to take over 23% of the vote. Michal Šimečka’s Progressive Slovakia (PS) came second with over 16%, followed closely by Peter Pellegrini’s Hlas with 15%.

Continue reading...

Nine injured as blaze erupts at oil pipeline in western Ukraine; drone attack in southern Russia leaves one hurt

• See all our Russia-Ukraine war coverage

A huge fire erupted at an oil pipeline in the western Ukrainian region of Ivano-Frankivsk on Saturday, injuring nine people , five of them critically, authorities said. The blaze near the village of Strymba caused an oil spill spanning 100 sq metres before it was extinguished. Footage shared on social media showed thick clouds of black smoke billowing out over the village. The cause of the rupture was not immediately clear, but local media outlets reported there had been a powerful explosion. The regional governor, Svitlana Onyshchuk, said two children and three adults were in critical condition with numerous burns.

A Ukrainian drone attack on Saturday in the southern Russian region of Bryansk injured one person and damaged windows and the roof of an administrative building, the region’s governor said. Alexander Bogomaz said on Telegram the incident occurred in Trubchevsk town. He earlier said a village in the region had been shelled by Ukrainian forces, damaging three homes.

Ukraine signed 20 agreements and memorandums with foreign partners on the manufacture of drones and the repair and production of armoured vehicles and ammunition at the first international Defence Industries Forum, which Kyiv organised with international producers. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he wanted to turn Ukraine’s defence industry into a “large military hub” and also announced the creation of the Defence Industries Alliance.

Nato member Romania reported possible violations of its airspace during overnight drone attacks by Russia on infrastructure in neighbouring Ukraine. “Following the detection of groups of drones heading towards Ukrainian territory near the Romanian border,” residents in the Tulcea and Galati municipalities were alerted, the defence ministry said in a statement on Saturday. “The radar surveillance system … indicated possible unauthorised entry into national airspace, with a signal detected on a route towards the municipality of Galati.” The ministry said no objects so far appeared to have fallen on Romanian territory but the search would continue.

Vladimir Putin has signed a decree marking Saturday 30 September as “Reunification Day”, commemorating Russia’s illegal annexation of Ukraine’s Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. In a video address the Russian president said their accession to the Russian Federation a year ago was “a defining, truly historic and life-changing event”.

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev marked the anniversary by suggesting Russia may annex more of Ukraine . “Victory will be ours. And there will be more new regions within Russia,” said Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chair of Russia’s security council.

The Ukrainian air force shot down Iranian kamikaze drones overnight on Friday, the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said. In conjunction with anti-air defences, Ukrainian forces destroyed 30 Shahed drones within the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Vinnytsia regions.

Russia has been recruiting struggling Cubans to fight in Ukraine . The Havana government, a longstanding ally of Russia which says it is “not part” of the war, arrested 17 people last month in connection with a people-trafficking ring that lured Cubans to fight for Moscow. But a Reuters investigation has found recruits who volunteered to go to Russia to work for the military following overtures on social media from a recruiter.

Continue reading...

EU states have worked hard to secure supplies and storage – while the UK seems just to be hoping it stays mild

Europe will enter its second winter since turning off the taps to Russia’s gas pipelines with record-breaking reserves. By the end of summer, gas storage facilities were 90% full, two months ahead of schedule. But observers warn that the energy crisis is not over yet: Europe may have dramatically cut its reliance on Russian gas, but it has never been more exposed to price shocks in the global market.

For more than a decade, Russian gas pipelines were Europe’s biggest single source of imported gas. In the wake of the Ukraine invasion, these imports plunged by two-thirds from their peak in 2019. In their place Norway’s pipelines became Europe’s largest single source of gas.

Continue reading...