Donald Trump took no apparent action at the passing of his latest deadline for Vladimir Putin to come to the negotiating table with Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He was “very disappointed” in the Russian ruler, and was planning on “doing something to help people live”, said the US president, without any specifics. He was speaking on the radio show of Scott Jennings, a US conservative pundit.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that Russia was engaged in a new troop buildup in certain sectors of the frontline and still launching strikes on Ukrainian targets. “Now we see another buildup of Russian forces in certain sectors of the front. [Putin] refuses to be forced into peace … Russia continues to launch strikes. Of course, we will respond to this,” said the Ukrainian president in his nightly address.
European allies are ready to contribute to postwar security guarantees for Ukraine and waiting for tangible American support, Emmanuel Macron’s office said on Tuesday. The French president and the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, are due on Thursday to jointly chair a meeting of the “coalition of the willing”. The French foreign minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, and his US counterpart, Marco Rubio, had a phone call on Tuesday. The US “backstop” sought by the coalition could involve intelligence, logistical support and communications.
Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has repeated the well-worn Kremlin line that any peace deal must recognise “new territorial realities” – referring to Russia’s illegal occupation of Ukrainian territory – and Moscow’s demand that it somehow be part of postwar “security guarantees” to Ukraine despite being the invader. Lavrov said he expected talks between Russian and Ukraine to continue. Vladimir Putin has refused bilateral talks with Ukraine’s president that Trump promised to organise.
Ukrainians paid tribute to prominent politician Andriy Parubiy as he was buried on Tuesday after being gunned down in a daytime attack on Saturday, the second assassination in the western city of Lviv in just over a year. Ukrainian police, who have detained the alleged gunman, said on Monday they suspected Russian involvement.
In courtroom footage, the alleged assassin, a Ukrainian man, admitted to shooting Parubiy, a 54-year-old sitting lawmaker, and described it as “my personal revenge” against the state. The suspect said he wanted to be included in a prisoner exchange with Russia to find the body of his son, a Ukrainian soldier who was killed, adding that he had not been recruited by Moscow for the murder. A Lviv court has put the man in custody for 60 days pending investigation.
Russia launched a sweeping overnight air attack on Ukraine, injuring at least four railway workers in the central region of Kirovohrad and prompting Poland to scramble defence aircraft, Ukrainian and Polish authorities said on Wednesday morning. Air raid alerts sounded for hours across Ukraine, with explosions heard in nine of its 24 regions, from Kyiv to Lviv and Volyn in the west, Ukrainian officials and media said. Nato member Poland activated its own and allied aircraft to ensure safety, its armed forces command said, posting: “The Russian Federation once again is carrying out strikes on targets located on the territory of Ukraine.
Five people were injured and 28 houses damaged in the Znamianka community in the region of Kirovohrad, Ukraine’s emergency services said. Public transport in the western city of Khmelnytskyi faced “significant schedule disruptions” after the attack, its administration said, with the regional governor flagging fires and damage to residential buildings among others.
About 2,000 North Korean soldiers are estimated to have been killed fighting for Russia against Ukraine, according to South Korean intelligence. In April, the South’s national intelligence service “said the number of war dead was at least 600. But based on updated assessments, it now estimates the figure at about 2,000”, lawmaker Lee Seong-kweun told reporters after a briefing from the spy agency. Lee said the intelligence service believed Pyongyang planned to deploy another 6,000 soldiers and engineers to Russia and 1,000 had already arrived.
Ukraine will never agree to legalise the Russian occupation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and an immediate withdrawal of Russian troops is the only way to guarantee safety, the Ukrainian foreign ministry has said. Vladimir Putin said in China that Moscow was ready to cooperate with the US at the plant, seized in the first weeks after Moscow’s February 2022 invasion. “The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is and will remain an integral part of the sovereign territory of Ukraine. Any attempts by Russia to question this fact are legally null and void and politically pointless,” the Ukrainian foreign ministry said.
Ukraine boosted its electricity exports by 60% from July to August despite its power system being under continued drone and missile attacks by Russia, the Ukrainian ExPro consultancy said on Tuesday. ExPro provided no explanation; market sources said long, sunny days have allowed more solar power to be produced. Ukraine exported power mostly to Hungary and some to Moldova.
