Here are the main developments as the war enters its 944th day.
Here is the situation as of Thursday, September 26, 2024.
fighting
- At least two people were killed and 19 injured in a Russian-directed bomb attack on the eastern Ukrainian city of Kramatorsk, regional governor Vadim Filyashkin said.
- Russia’s Defence Ministry said its troops had seized the Ukrainian villages of Hostre and Hryhorivka in the eastern Donetsk region, not far from the town of Vuhladar, which has long been a Ukrainian stronghold and had a population of 14,000 before the war. The General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a late evening report that eight armed clashes had taken place in the Vuhladar region. The region’s governor, Filyashkin, said Russian reconnaissance groups were in Vuhladar but that its troops had not occupied the town.
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The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 28 of the 32 Russian drones and four of the eight missiles during the overnight attack. Four missiles targeted the southern region of Odessa, its regional governor Oleh Kiper said. One missile fell in an open area causing a fire, while two trucks were also damaged. There were no reports of casualties.
Politics and diplomacy
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly to stand with his country and support “real, just peace” more than two and a half years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Zelenskyy targeted China and Brazil for promoting “half-baked compromise plans”, accusing them of playing to their own interests “at the expense of Ukraine”. Zelenskyy’s peace plan would require Russia to withdraw from Ukrainian territory it has occupied and bring war crimes to justice.
- US President Joe Biden said the US will announce initiatives to boost support for Ukraine and help the country rebuild from the damage caused by Russia’s invasion. Biden and Zelensky are due to meet at the White House on Thursday.
- Delivering his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said 600,000 Russian soldiers were “killed or wounded” in the invasion of Ukraine and questioned how Russia could “show its face” at the United Nations after treating its own citizens like “pieces of meat to be thrown into a grinding stone”.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that “forcing” Russia into peace would be a “fatal mistake.” He was responding to comments by Zelensky on Tuesday that Russia needed to force a peace deal. Peskov reiterated that Russia would only talk about peace on the condition that its “stability is ensured and the objectives of the special military operation are met,” using Moscow’s official language referring to the war.
- Former US President Donald Trump, who is campaigning for another term in November, said Ukraine should have made concessions to Russian President Vladimir Putin rather than going to war when it was invaded by its neighbour. The Republican presidential candidate claimed at a rally in North Carolina that “even the worst deal would have been better than the deal we have”.
Weapon
- Putin downplayed the extent of the Russian nuclear response, saying Moscow would treat any attack by a non-nuclear country backed by a nuclear power as a joint attack by the two countries. Putin did not directly mention Ukraine, which is urging its Western allies to allow it to use its conventional long-range weapons to strike military targets inside Russia.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced $375 million in new military aid for Ukraine, including HIMARS rocket launchers, Javelin missiles and light tactical vehicles. Blinken said the weapons would be deployed as soon as possible. The Biden administration is expected to notify Congress on Thursday of its intention to spend $5.5 billion in additional military aid to Ukraine in the coming months.
- IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian state-owned arms company Almaz-Antey, has set up a weapons program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in the war against Ukraine, according to the Reuters news agency, which cited two sources and project documents from a European intelligence agency. China’s foreign ministry told Reuters it was not aware of any such project, adding that Beijing has strict control measures on the export of drones or unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). Kupol, Almaz-Antey and the Russian Defense Ministry did not respond to the news agency’s requests for comment.
