Closing summary...
Here is a summary of the main events from today. You can still follow our live coverage of the UN general assembly here.
Leaders from Poland, Turkey, Brazil and the US have spoken at the UN general assembly conference. Ukraine’s Zelenskiy is due to address the conference.
At the UN conference, Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone after its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”
The US president, Joe Biden, says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine. No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.
Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged to step up efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine “through diplomacy and dialogue.”
Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda used his address to say the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end and that it cannot be “converted into a frozen war.” He called for “restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”
Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for more action to resist climate change and said there was progress on protecting the Amazon rainforest. He called for work “to create space for negotiations” on the war in Ukraine.
The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: Air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield.” He noted that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war.
Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday. The defence minister, Grant Shapps, said: “Today we’ve demonstrated the UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine and set out more military support, including pledging tens of thousands more artillery shells to enable Ukraine to defend itself.”
A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported. A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack.
Russia said Ukraine was responsible for the explosion at a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine had fired a 9M38 missile from a Buk surface-to-air missile system that struck the city on 6 September, Reuters reports. She said: “Even if it was done unintentionally, it is obvious to everyone: the complete demilitarisation of the Kyiv regime is not just a requirement, but a vital necessity.”
Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.
Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
A high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged. Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.
Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has claimed this morning Russian forces destroyed a column of armored vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne.
At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said. “Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges. He called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext.
Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday.
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Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, urged his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Tuesday to push Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and stress to Moscow the importance of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity
In an interview with Reuters, Cleverly called on Wang Yi to “impress upon Russia the complete inappropriateness of their action.”
He said:
We know that President Xi has significant influence on the world stage, including with Vladimir Putin. I know that foreign minister Wang Yi will be traveling to Moscow and I hope that he will impress upon Russia the complete inappropriateness of their action. And I hope that China will call for Russia to withdraw.
China has made, I think, important messages about the respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, about the non-use of nuclear weapons.
We support those messages and we hope that those messages will be repeated when foreign minister Wang Yi visits Moscow.
China and Russia announced a “no limits” partnership shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
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Erdoğan says the UN’s security council has ceased to be a guarantor of world security, instead becoming “a battleground for the political strategies” of its five permanent members. “The world is bigger than five,” he says.
The Turkish leader says that Ankara has endeavored to keep Russia and Ukraine around the table since the beginning of the war, adding that “the war will have no winners”.
We will step up our efforts to end the war through diplomacy and dialogue on the basis of Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity.
Erdoğan warns that the failure to implement the Black Sea Grain initiative has “left the world facing new crisis”, but that Turkey has a new plan whereby another 1m tonnes of grain will be released to countries in dire need.
Read more from the general assembly here.
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Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, used his speech to call on “courageous and visionary” leaders to stand against the “imperial policy” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia.
Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine has led to “immense global problems” in its aftermath and tested the international world order, he said.
World peace has never been as threatened as it is today.
He cited Poland’s history of being invaded by Nazi Germany in September 1939 as why Warsaw “understands the tragedy of Ukraine better than any other country in the world”.
For the first time in a long time, Russians have shown the face we have known or hundreds of years. They believed that the nations around them should be subjected to them. We say no.
Russia believes that the old days of the empire that collapsed less than 20 years ago, that domination will again be a feature of our region. Well, it will not. Those days are over once and for all.
Duda said the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end that cannot be “converted into a frozen war”. “This can only be done by restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” he said.
He said Poland is engaged in initiatives to hold Russia accountable for violations of fundamental norms of international law, and that is “strongly” supports the work of the international criminal court and the international court of justice.
This came from our UN general assembly blog, which you can find here.
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Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday.
According to Reuters, after a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) in Germany, the defence minister, Grant Shapps, said:
Today we’ve demonstrated the UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine and set out more military support, including pledging tens of thousands more artillery shells to enable Ukraine to defend itself.
We have also set out how the UK will go further in the coming months in our priority support areas, including air defence and long-range strike capabilities, and training.
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The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged Concord Management and its owner with operating as unregistered investment adviser to their only client, a billionaire former Russian official, Reuters reports.
The Biden administration issued fresh Iran-related sanctions on Tuesday, targeting multiple people and entities in Iran, Russia, China and Turkey in connection with Tehran’s drone and military aircraft development.
The sanctions target seven individuals and four entities in the four countries that it said have “facilitated shipments and financial transactions” to the Iran Aircraft Manufacturing Industrial Company and its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and military aircraft efforts, the US Department of Treasury said in a statement.
The US Treasury undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian Nelson, said in a statement:
Iran’s continued, deliberate proliferation of its UAVs enables Russia, its proxies in the Middle East, and other destabilising actors to undermine global stability.
The United States will continue to take action against Iran’s UAV procurement networks, and encourages jurisdictions to exercise the due diligence necessary to prevent the export of these components to Iran.
Washington had earlier sanctioned five China-based companies and one individual over selling and shipping aerospace components, including parts used for drones, to the Iranian company, according to the Treasury.
US officials had said more sanctions on Iran were expected even as the two nations engaged in a swap this week with five Americans freed from Iran returning to the United States earlier on Tuesday, Reuters reports.
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The US president, Joe Biden, says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine.
No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.
He says Russia along bears the responsibility of the war in Ukraine, and that it alone has the power to end the war immediately.
Russia alone stands in the way of peace because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory. Russia will grow weary, allowed to brutalise Ukraine without consequence.
But ask you this: if we abandon the core principles of United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that there are protected if you allow Ukraine to be carved up? Is the independence of any nation security?
Biden says the US will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and freedom.
Read more from the general assembly blog here.
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The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, says the war in Ukraine “exposes our collective inability” to enforce the purposes and principles of the UN Charter.
Lula said:
We do not underestimate the difficulties in achieving peace, but no solution will be lasting if it is not based on dialogue.
I have reiterated that work needs to be done to create space for negotiations.
More from the UN general assembly live blog here.
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Here are some images of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at UN’s general assembly general debate today. He is due to talk at the session later this afternoon.
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Air defence continues to be Ukraine's 'greatest need', US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin says
The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia.
In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said:
First, the Kremlin abandoned the Black Sea green initiative. Then Russia’s took its assault on global food security to a new low, targeting grain supplies with airstrikes that has unleashed dangerous ripple effects in other countries and continents uninvolved in [Vladimir] Putin’s campaign of Imperial aggression.
So, air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield.
Austin noted, however, that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war. He called on leaders to donate air defence munitions as the country goes into the winter.
So at today’s meeting, I urged allies and partners to dig deep and donate whatever air defence munitions they can, as Ukraine heads into another winter of war.
Austin and Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, reiterated the US’s ongoing support for Ukraine.
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More from the UN general assembly live blog:
Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”
The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative.
The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security.
Around the world, new risks emerge as countries develop new weapons and nuclear disarmament is “at a standstill”, Guterres says.
Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart.
In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support.
In Afghanistan, the staggering 70% of the population needs humanitarian assistance with the rights of women and girls systematically denied in Myanmar, brutal violence, worsening poverty and repression and crushing hopes for a return to democracy.
The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, arrived in Iran on Tuesday for meetings to deepen Moscow’s defence ties with Tehran, Russian news agencies reported.
In a statement, the ministry said:
During the visit, the Russian defence ministry delegation will hold a number of talks with the republic’s military leadership.
This visit will contribute to strengthening Russian-Iranian military ties and will be an important stage in the development of cooperation between the two countries.
The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, will deliver his state-of-world address to open Tuesday opening of the general debate
You can follow his speech live on the general assembly blog.
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Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address world leaders at the 78th session of the United Nations general assembly, where world leaders convene in New York amid a backdrop of the war in Ukraine, high food prices, a series of climate-related catastrophes, new political crises in west Africa and Latin America and economic instability.
The US president, Joe Biden, Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will also speak at the event.
Follow our blog for live updates of the general assembly here.
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A Russian court on Tuesday declined to hear US reporter Evan Gershkovich’s latest appeal against his pre-trial detention in Moscow on spying charges, sending it back to a lower court because of procedural violations, the state news agency RIA reported.
Gershkovich, 31, was the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow correspondent when he was arrested on espionage charges and detained in late March during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg.
US authorities and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges, saying Gershkovich was simply doing his job, AFP reports.
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The EU’s executive arm on Tuesday proposed extending the right of refugees from Ukraine to stay in the bloc by a year to March 2025.
The temporary protection directive was triggered days after Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and it was set to run until March 2024, according to AFP.
The commission said it should “be prolonged as a necessary and appropriate response to the current, volatile situation, which is not yet conducive to the safe and durable return” of refugees.
The proposal will now need to be approved by all 27 EU countries. There is not expected to be any major opposition.
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Russia has said that Ukraine was responsible for the explosion at a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka this month that killed at least 17 people.
The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine had fired a 9M38 missile from a Buk surface-to-air missile system that struck the city on 6 September, Reuters reports.
Zakharova said:
Even if it was done unintentionally, it is obvious to everyone: the complete demilitarisation of the Kyiv regime is not just a requirement, but a vital necessity.”
The New York Times reported that evidence suggested the explosion had been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine.
Ukraine blamed Russia for the attack at the time, with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claiming it was evidence of the need to destroy “Russian evil”.
See 12:39 for more information from one of our correspondents.
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Ukrainian market explosion may have been caused by errant missile fired by Ukraine
A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported.
A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack.
Evidence collected and analysed by the New York Times however suggests the strike was “the result of an Ukrainian air defence missile fired by a Buk launch system” that failed to hit its intended target and landed in the bustling heart of Kostiantynivka instead. “Missile fragments, satellite imagery, witness accounts and social media posts, strongly suggests the catastrophic strike was the result of an errant Ukrainian air defence missile fired” it reported on Tuesday.
Security camera footage reviewed by the paper shows that “the missile flew into Kostiantynivka from the direction of Ukrainian-held territory, not from behind Russian lines”.
It said that as the sound of the approaching missile was heard, at least four pedestrians appear to simultaneously turn their heads toward the incoming sound in the direction of Ukrainian-held territory.
The newspaper has also released a video, featuring, moments before the strike, the missile’s reflection visible as it passes over two parked cars as it appears to travel from the north-west.
The New York Times said two independent military bomb-disposal experts, who asked to remain anonymous, said the fragments and damage at the strike site are most consistent with an 9M38, which is fired by the mobile Buk anti-aircraft system, and not with a Russian S-300.
You can read more of Lorenzo Tondo’s report from Kyiv here: Ukrainian market tragedy may have been caused by errant missile fired by Ukraine
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The Czech Republic has signed a letter of intent with Denmark and the Netherlands on financial support for deliveries of Czech weapons to Ukraine, the country’s defence ministry said on Tuesday.
The ministry said it would help cover supplies of additional tanks, howitzers, small arms, air defence capacities and forms of electronic warfare or ammunition. Reuters reports it said the first project would be the donation of modernised T-72EA tanks in the near future.
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Three killed in strike on Kupiansk
At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said.
“Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app.
He said in the message that emergency services were on site.
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The secretary of Russia’s security council, Nikolai Patrushev, on Tuesday discussed the situation on the Korean peninsula and in Ukraine with the Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi, Reuters reports Patrushev’s office said.
Citing the RIA news agency, Reuters also reported the men discussed military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing, it said. Earlier it was announced that Vladimir Putin will travel to meet Xi Jinping in Beijing in October.
In other diplomacy news, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, has urged Armenia and Azerbaijan to stop bloodshed in the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, where Azerbaijan began mass artillery strikes on Tuesday. My colleague Andrew Roth has reported on that development here.
Zakharova said Moscow’s peacekeepers in the region would continue their mission.
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South Korea’s foreign ministry said on Tuesday Russia should immediately halt moves to expand military cooperation with North Korea and vowed to take stern actions, Reuters reports.
Latvia’s government decided on Tuesday to close one of its two Belarus border crossing points in an attempt to prevent illegal immigration, the Latvian news agency Lets and broadcaster LSM reported.
Reuters reports staff from the Silene border station will be redeployed to guard the actual border in what Latvia’s border guard chief has described as “the most tense situation since 2021” due to an influx of people from Belarus.
In 2021, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania faced a political crisis when thousands of people began crossing from Belarus.
Belarus has been a staunch ally of Russia over its invasion of Ukraine, and has been accused of deliberately allowing people to transit its territory in order to apply migratory pressure at EU borders.
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Summary of the day so far …
Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.
Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
A high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged. Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.
Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has claimed this morning Russian forces destroyed a column of armored vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to address the UN general assembly in-person on Tuesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, telling reporters: “For us it’s very important that all our words, all our messages will be heard”. The Ukrainian president made the remarks during a visit to Staten Island university hospital, where Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for amputations.
Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges. He called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext.
Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will travel to Beijing in October for direct talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping.
Denmark’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, has said that his country is to donate another 45 tanks to Ukraine. The donation will consist of 30 Leopard 1 tanks and 15 T-72 tanks.
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Alexander Bogomaz, governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, has claimed on Telegram that Russian air defences have downed a Ukrainian drone over the region’s airspace.
Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide.
“The international community adopted the genocide convention to protect; Russia invokes the genocide convention to destroy,” Reuters reports Ukraine’s representative, Anton Korynevych, told judges.
He called on the international court of justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext.
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Interfax reports that Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, will travel to Beijing in October for direct talks with his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping. It cited Russia’s security council secretary, Nikolai Patrushev.
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Denmark’s defence minister, Troels Lund Poulsen, has said his country is to donate another 45 tanks to Ukraine. Reuters reports the donation will consist of 30 Leopard 1 tanks and 15 T-72 tanks, citing the Ritzau news agency.
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Two killed by overnight Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities
Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson.
Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.
Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.
Moscow has denied deliberately targeting civilians or civilian infrastructure, but as of July 2023 the UN had recorded 7,283 deaths and 13,725 civilians injured on territory controlled by Ukraine’s government.
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Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine, has claimed on Telegram this morning that Russian forces have destroyed a column of armoured vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne.
The claims have not been independently verified.
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Here are a couple more images of the aftermath of the drone strike in Lviv.
Citing the city’s mayor, Suspilne reports that the body of a man has been recovered from the rubble of the warehouse in Lviv struck overnight by a Russian drone attack.
Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday.
Reuters reports Bekhan Ozdoev, industrial director of the armament complex at Rostec, the Russian state corporation which controls much of the weapons industry, claimed production volumes for various types of weapons had increased from between two and 10 times.
And for some types of hardware, output had been boosted “by tens of times”, said Ozdoev. “We are going forward at cruising speed, smoke from all the pipes,” he said. He did not detail the total volume of weapons produced.
Rostec, which is sanctioned by western countries, is run by Sergei Chemezov, a close Putin ally. It controls 800 Russian civilian and defence entities and is by far Russia’s biggest arms producer.
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Ukraine’s emergency services have issued handout photos of the fire at the warehouse in Lviv damaged by an overnight drone strike.
There are reports from several sources on social media – including the exiled Ukrainian mayor of the city Ivan Fedorov – that the sound of explosions has been heard in occupied Melitopol.
In addition to the damage at warehouses in Lviv, Suspilne reports that a high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged.
Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported.
One confirmed injured in attack on warehouses in Lviv
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, reports that despite the warehouse fire caused by an attack on the city, all trollybuses and tram routes in Lviv are running as normal.
Earlier Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of the region, reported that a 26-year-old man was injured as the result of three hits on industrial warehouses. “I want to emphasise that these were ordinary industrial warehouses. Nothing military was kept in them,” he said.
Seven of the drones shot down by Ukraine overnight were in Lviv’s airspace.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com.
Ukrainian air defences destroyed 27 out of 30 drones launched by Russia overnight as well as an Iskander ballistic missile, the air force has said in a morning update on Telegram. A reconnaissance drone was also downed in the east of the country.
The report said the missile was launched from occupied Crimea at Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine, while the drones were destroyed in the south, central and west of the country.
In its latest update on the Ukraine war, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has looked at reports from Ukrainian military officials that the liberation of Klishchiivka and Andriivka south of Bakhmut may have rendered up to three Russian brigades “combat ineffective”.
Russia’s 72nd Motorized Rifle Brigade (3rd Army Corps), the 31st Guards VDV Brigade, and the 83rd Guards VDV Brigade “likely suffered heavy losses”, the thinktank writes, noting that another Russian commander has said that the commander of the VDV brigade was killed.
If recent Ukrainian advances south of Bakhmut resulted in the destruction of the 31st and 83rd VDV brigades’ combat capabilities, then the Russian command will likely laterally redeploy elements of another relatively elite formation to maintain critical elements of the Russian defense south of Bakhmut …
Lateral redeployments from elsewhere in Ukraine or substantial tactical redeployments of other VDV elements in the Bakhmut area would therefore indicate that recent Ukrainian advances have resulted in significant Russian losses.
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One cargo vessel carrying grain has left the Ukrainian Black Sea port of Chornomorsk for the first time since a grain deal collapsed, an industry source has said according to Reuters, in a test of Ukraine‘s ability to unblock its seaports for grain export.
Ukraine last month announced a “humanitarian corridor” in the Black Sea to release ships trapped in its ports since the start of war in February 2022 and to circumvent a de facto blockade after Russia abandoned a deal to let Kyiv export grain.
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Just as China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, has been meeting his counterpart in Russia, China’s vice-president, Han Zheng, has been meeting the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, on the sidelines of the UN general assembly in New York.
Wang has also just held talks with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, in Malta. The flurry of diplomacy has fuelled speculation that the US president, Joe Biden, could meet his Chinese counterpart, Xi Jinping, in November at an Asia-Pacific Economic conference in San Francisco.
“I think it’s a good thing that we have this opportunity to build on the recent high-level engagements that our countries have had to make sure that we’re maintaining open communications and demonstrate that we are responsibly managing the relationship between our two countries,” Blinken said in brief remarks at the top of his meeting.
AP reports:
Han told Blinken that US-China relations face “difficulties and challenges” that require both countries to show “more sincerity” and make additional efforts to “meet each other halfway.”
Blinken visited Beijing over the summer after cancelling a planned trip there in February following the shooting down of a Chinese surveillance balloon over US territory. Blinken was followed to Beijing by the Treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, the climate envoy, John Kerry, and the commerce secretary, Gina Raimondo.
“From the perspective of the United States, face-to-face diplomacy is the best way to deal with areas where we disagree and also the best way to explore areas of cooperation between us,” Blinken said. “The world expects us to responsibly manage our relationship. The United States is committed to doing just that.”
The White House said on Sunday that Sullivan’s meeting with Wang in Malta was intended to “responsibly maintain the relationship” at a time of strained ties and mutual suspicion between the rival powers. It said the pair had “candid, substantive and constructive discussions”.
The White House said Sullivan and Wang discussed the relationship between the two countries, global and regional security issues, Russia’s war in Ukraine and the Taiwan strait. They also discussed artificial intelligence, counternarcotic efforts and the status of detained US citizens in China.
However, after those talks, Wang travelled immediately to Russia for several days of security consultations with senior Russian officials.
China and Russia have grown closer as relations with the west have deteriorated for both. China is looking for support as it seeks to reshape the US-led international order into one that is more accommodating to its approach. Last month, it helped engineer an expansion of the Brics partnership, which invited six more countries to join what has been a five-nation bloc that includes China and Russia.
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Moscow and Beijing are closely aligned in their positions on the US and resolving the Ukraine conflict, the Russian foreign ministry said following talks between their top diplomats.
The statement came after China’s Wang Yi kicked off a four-day visit to Moscow with a meeting with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, the latest in a series of high-level contacts between the two strategic allies, AFP reports.
“The similarity of the parties’ positions regarding US actions in the international arena, including those of an anti-Russian and anti-Chinese nature, was stated,” Russia’s foreign ministry said.
“The parties discussed in detail the current state of affairs in Ukraine, noting the futility of attempts to resolve the crisis without taking into account Russia’s interests and, all the more so, without Russia’s participation,” it added.
Wang also told Lavrov about the content of talks he held over the weekend with US president Joe Biden’s national security adviser ,Jake Sullivan, the statement said.
According to a Chinese state media readout, Wang reiterated Beijing’s position paper on the Ukraine conflict, which called for peace talks but was met with scepticism by the US and Nato when it was released earlier this year.
Wang told Lavrov the plan “takes into account the security concerns of all parties and is conducive to eliminating the root causes of the conflict”, according to China’s Xinhua.
“A permanent good-neighbourly friendship, comprehensive strategic cooperation, and mutually beneficial cooperation between China and Russia will continue to contribute to the development and revitalisation of each country,” he added.
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Zelenskiy arrives in New York ahead of UN address
Volodymyr Zelenskiy is set to address the UN general assembly in-person on Tuesday for the first time since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, telling reporters: “For us it’s very important that all our words, all our messages will be heard.”
The Ukrainian president made the remarks during a visit to Staten Island university hospital, where Ukrainian soldiers have been treated for amputations.
In 2022, Zelenskiy sent a pre-recorded speech to the UN in which he said: “We can return the Ukrainian flag to our entire territory. We can do it with the force of arms, but we need time.”
Zelenskiy will also attend a UN security council meeting on Ukraine on Wednesday, but was unclear on whether he would remain seated at the 15-member body’s horseshoe-shaped table if Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, speaks.
“And if in the United Nations still ... there is a place for Russian terrorists, the question not to me I think, it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations,” he said. “I’m not sure that we will choose the format.”
Asked whether he’d stay in the room to listen, Zelenskiy said: “I don’t know how it will be, really.”
Full report:
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Opening summary
Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine with me, Helen Livingstone.
A man has been seriously injured and a “major” fire sparked at a warehouse in the west Ukrainian city of Lviv after a Russian attack, the regional governor has said.
In a Telegram post, Maxim Kozitsky said a woman was also pulled uninjured from the rubble. The airforce had previously alerted that drones were heading towards the city. No further detail was immediately available.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has arrived in New York ahead of the UN general assembly, heading straight from the airport to a hospital to visit wounded Ukrainian soldiers.
“For us, it’s very important that all our words, all our messages, will be heard by our partners,” he said after the visit. “And if in the United Nations still – it’s a pity, but still – there is a place for Russian terrorists, the question is not to me. I think it’s a question to all the members of the United Nations.”
Zelenskiy is due to address world leaders at the UN general assembly on Tuesday and speak at a UN security council meeting about Ukraine on Wednesday.
In other key developments:
Moscow and Beijing are closely aligned in their positions on the US and resolving the Ukraine conflict, the Russian foreign ministry said following talks between their top diplomats on Monday. The statement came after China’s Wang Yi kicked off a four-day visit to Moscow with a meeting with Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.
The commander of Ukrainian ground forces hailed the recent recapture of two eastern villages, Andriivka and Klishchiivka, as an important breakthrough. Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi said it had enabled Kyiv’s troops to breach Russian lines near the shattered city of Bakhmut.
The Ukrainian government has dismissed six deputy defence ministers following the appointment of a new defence minister earlier this month. The government gave no reason for the dismissals. Those removed from their post included Hanna Maliar, who has frequently issued public updates on Russia’s war against Ukraine. The Kyiv Post reported that such dismissals are standard when the head of a ministry changes, and that some may be reappointed.
Ukraine said it has filed lawsuits at the World Trade Organization against its three EU neighbours – Poland, Slovakia and Hungary – over their bans on Ukrainian grain imports. The central European countries went against a decision by the European Commission last week to end the import ban.
Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, late Monday, striking an industrial district, Mayor Ihor Terekhov said. “There is information about hitting an industrial zone in the city’s Kholodnohirsky district,” Terekhov said on Telegram. There was no immediate information on casualties or damage.
The office of the Brazilian presidency has confirmed reports that president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva will meet Zelenskiy on the sidelines of the UN summit on Wednesday. Lula has advocated the creation of a group of nations to mediate an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine, but in May he stated that both Moscow and Kyiv were to blame for the conflict, angering Kyiv, the US and European states that back Ukraine.
A Russian man who has lived in Hong Kong has been taken into US custody and charged with smuggling large quantities of American-made, military-grade microelectronics to Russia, the US Department of Justice said. Maxim Marchenko and two unnamed Russian co-conspirators are accused of using his shell companies to conceal the fraudulent procurement of so-called OLED micro-displays.
Russia called a Ukrainian case alleging that Moscow abused the genocide convention to justify its invasion last year an “abuse of process,” as lawyers for Moscow sought to have judges at the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, throw it out.
People’s rights in Russia have “significantly deteriorated” since Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine last year, a top UN expert said. UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Russia, Mariana Katzarova, said “the situation had already been on a steady decline over the past two decades”.
A drone carrying explosives that landed in the Bulgarian town of Tyulenovo was destroyed in a controlled explosion, the defence ministry said. The drone landed on Sunday evening in the Black Sea town situated 70km from the Romanian border and across the sea from Crimea.
Georgia’s security services accused a former minister of plotting from Ukraine to overthrow the Black Sea nation’s government by organising mass unrest. In a statement, it said former deputy interior minister Giorgi Lortkipanidze’s plan “would involve a rather large group of Georgian fighters in Ukraine and a part of Georgian youth”.
One injured and 'major' fire sparked after Russian attack on Lviv
A “major” fire has been sparked at a warehouse in Lviv and a man has been seriously injured after a Russian attack on the western Ukrainian city, the regional governor has said.
In a Telegram post, Maxim Kozitsky said a woman was also pulled uninjured from the rubble. The airforce had previously alerted that drones were heading towards the city. No further detail was immediately available.
Lviv, close to the Polish border, is seen as one of Ukraine’s safest cities but it has experienced more attacks recently. Three people were killed by air strikes in August.
Several waves of drones buzzed overheard starting around 0130 GMT and an AFP journalist heard numerous explosions and movements of heavy vehicles through the streets during the nightly curfew, the news agency reported.
The Ukrainian air force said drones were attacking the city and air defences operating.
Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, wrote on Telegram that “as a result of an attack, an industrial warehouse is burning in one of Lviv’s districts”.
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