September 18, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine has moved here.

Russia hit an industrial area of the northeastern city of Kharkiv, the mayor of the city, said in a Telegram post on Monday.

“Kharkiv is again under attack from Russian missiles. According to preliminary information, the central part of the city is under attack,”  Ihor Terekhov said.

Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the region’s military administration, also reported explosions in the city, noting that no casualties have been reported so far. According to Syniehubov, the Kholodnohirsky District of the city was targeted.

Earlier, Ukraine’s Air Force reported a threat of a ballistic missile attack in the Kharkiv region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky arrived Monday in New York for the United Nations General Assembly. He is set to meet with several world leaders to push for support as Ukraine presses ahead with its counteroffensive against Russian forces.

Zelensky is also scheduled to meet with President Joe Biden and US lawmakers in Washington, DC, later this week.

Meanwhile, fighting continues in the eastern part of the country after Ukrainian troops recaptured two key villages near Bakhmut.

Here’s what else to know:

The Justice Department announced charges Monday against a Russian citizen accused of helping to smuggle US-sourced electronics with military applications to individuals in Russia.

The defendant, Maxim Marchenko, helped to run a procurement network to obtain dual-use, military-grade microelectronics from an American company to send to Russia, according to the US government.

Prosecutors allege that Marchenko’s role in the scheme was to maintain front companies in Hong Kong that a procurement network would use to pay American companies for their technology. 

The procurement network, according to court documents, smuggled micro-displays that could be used in civilian life — for medical imaging, video games and digital cameras — or could be used for military rifle scopes, night vision goggles, thermal optics and other weapons systems. 

After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the American company decided to stop sending its technology to Russia. To circumvent both the company’s prohibition and tightening US export controls, the Justice Department alleges Marchenko and his two co-conspirators, both of whom are not named but are identified as Russian nationals, falsely told both government agencies and the American company that the displays were being sent to China for scientific research.  

Members of the alleged conspiracy to ship the micro-displays acknowledged they were evading government scrutiny, prosecutors say, sending messages to one another that they need to “support the legend that… we know nothing about Russia.” 

Marchenko is charged with several conspiracy charges, smuggling goods from the United States and wire fraud. He was arrested Monday, according to court documents, and is being held in custody.  

He has not yet entered a formal plea, and his attorney has declined to comment.  

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited Ukrainian soldiers who are undergoing rehabilitation in New York following his arrival to the United States on Monday. 

“Right from the airport I am going to visit our soldiers who are undergoing treatment and rehabilitation in America,” Zelensky wrote in a Telegram post. 

The Ukrainian president is in the country for the UN General Assembly where he is expected to meet with several world leaders and push for more aid.

Germany will provide Ukraine with an additional 400 million euros ($427 million) worth of weapons and aid, according to Defense Minister Boris Pistorius.

“We are supplying additional ammunition: explosive ammunition, mortar ammunition, mine rockets,” he said in an interview with prominent German newspaper BILD, published Monday. 
“But we also have our eye on the approaching winter: We will send clothing, but also electricity and heat generators. In total, the package will be worth 400 million euros,” Pistorius added. 

The package will not include long-range Taurus missiles, the minister said, as the government has not yet decided whether to send them to Kyiv.

Ukrainian officials had urged Germany to provide them with the Taurus weapons for the country’s self-defense. Germany, however, is hesitant about delivering long-range cruise missiles fearing they could be used for attacks on Russian territory. 

Ukraine’s largest private energy company is preparing for winter, anticipating that Russia will attack the country’s energy infrastructure as power needs spike during extremely difficult cold weather, its CEO said Monday.

Ukrainian military intelligence has indicated Russia is preparing for winter attacks on energy infrastructure again, DTEK CEO Maxim Timchenko.

“They are stockpiling missiles for it,” he told CNN on his visit to New York ahead of this week’s UN General Assembly session.

To prepare for these anticipated attacks, Ukraine needs air defense to protect all power stations, Timchenko said. Without it, all infrastructure restoration and protection in place will be of no use.

He acknowledged that while a Patriot Missile System at every power station was the ideal, it was unlikely to happen. So he hopes that Ukraine can have these air defense systems protecting a larger area which includes the stations.

Russia has strategically shelled Ukraine’s power infrastructure, temporarily but repeatedly cutting off electricity, heat and water to millions. This campaign left Ukraine’s energy grid teetering on the brink of collapse, forcing constant repair work which involved scouring the world to find compatible parts.

DTEK’s infrastructure has also come under fire. Five of its thermal power turbines were destroyed considerably since the war began. Two of them were restored, Timchenko told CNN, adding that two others will be restored in 2024. However, one was attacked and destroyed beyond restoration, he said.

The answer to preventing this damage, Timchenko says, lies in building renewable energy infrastructure because it’s harder to destroy.

A thermal power generation system producing 200 megawatt of power, for example, requires a big turbine and one boiler to burn coal and gas. “It’s usually the size of a room. If it’s hit by a missile, then it’s all destroyed in one moment,” he explained, adding that depending on the level of damage, it could take a month or a year to restore. “The same capacity of 300 megawatt, if it’s wind, you build 50 turbines 100 meters from each other. If you destroy one, the others still operate.”

The company is working on building a 500-megawatt wind power plant to boost the country’s energy sector following Russian air strikes.

The launch of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022 had suspended the project that had been underway for seven months prior, because it was about 100 kilometers (or about 62 miles) from the front lines. But in May 2022, officials decided it was time to continue to the project despite Russian missiles flying overhead, and construction began in August 2022.

“It is a good indication of the bravery and courage of the Ukrainian people, but also that investment can be made in Ukraine even during war,” Timchenko said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will meet with Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for the first time in person on Wednesday, a spokesperson said. The leaders are both in New York for the United Nations General Assembly meetings.

The meeting will take place at 4 p.m. ET, the Brazilian Presidency spokesperson Cynthia Ribeiro said. The spokesperson gave no further details.

People familiar with Zelensky’s plans previously said he has several meetings with other world leaders during his time in New York.

More broadly, the Ukrainian president is planning to use an in-person appearance at the annual meeting to appeal for more support for Ukraine as it continues to wage a counteroffensive against Russia.

CNN’s Jennifer Hansler, Kevin Liptak and Melanie Zanona contributed reporting to this post.

Ukraine’s Commander of Land Forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, released a video hailing the soldiers who recaptured the villages of Klishchiivka and Andriivka near the embattled eastern city of Bakhmut, saying their advance had succeeded in breaking a Russian defensive line.

“I am on the front line with our soldiers who are holding the line and continuing to move forward. I thanked them for their steady advance and the liberation of Klishchiivka and Andriivka from the occupiers,” Syrskyi said in a video posted on Telegram on Monday.

“As a result of the successful actions of our troops, the enemy’s defense line was broken, which it tried to close by throwing all available reserves into the battle,” Syrskyi said on Telegram in a separate post, adding that Russian forces had not given up trying to recapture the lost territory, conducting “numerous counterattacks from different directions.”

He cautioned more widely that the “overall situation in the eastern sector remains difficult.”

“The enemy does not abandon its intentions to resume offensive actions in the Kupiansk and Lyman directions,” he said, referencing two towns both held by Russia for six months before being liberated by Ukraine almost exactly a year ago.

Russia’s economy has withstood “unprecedented external pressure” from the West, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Monday.

He described the economic situation in the country as “stable and balanced” and praised the resilience of Russia’s economy.

“In general, we can say that the stage of recovery of the Russian economy is complete,” Putin said in a speech via videolink at a meeting focused on the draft federal budget for 2024–2026. “We have withstood absolutely unprecedented external pressure, the sanctions onslaught of some ruling elites in the so-called Western bloc - some ruling elites in individual countries that we call unfriendly.”

According to Putin, Russia’s GDP has reached the level last seen in 2021, and now the government is set to create conditions for “further stable and long-term development.”

Putin further disclosed that oil and gas budget revenues in July-August nearly recovered to last year’s levels and continued actively growing.

However, Russia’s ruble last month plunged to 17-month lows, sinking at one point to less than a penny. Russia’s central bank responded by calling an emergency meeting and spiking interest rates to stem the bleeding. The United States has steadily imposed sanctions on Russia and the US official said Washington plans to continue doing so in a bid to ramp up pressure.

Recently, Putin denounced the West’s sanctions campaign at an economic summit held in South Africa. The West has imposed heavy sanctions on Moscow, targeting oligarchs, imposing a price cap on oil, banning imports of Russian oil and gold, targeting military equipment and limiting exports of key technology that feed the wear machine.

CNN’s Matt Egan contributed reporting to this post. 

Bulgaria’s Defense Minister says he assumes a drone that washed up on his country’s shores is “related to the war that Russia launched against Ukraine,” but added it was not possible to say conclusively whose drone it was and where it had come from.

A team was on-site in Tyulenovo early Monday morning after the drone was found the previous evening, Teodor Tagarev told CNN affiliate Nova TV. Tyulenovo lies on the Black Sea, more than 200 kilometers (about 130 miles) south of Ukraine.

The drone, which he speculated had possibly fallen into the water before being washed ashore, had carried an 82 mm high-explosive mortar. Video on the Reuters news agency showed the explosives later being detonated by army officials.

The minister said he did not know how long the drone had lain undiscovered, but said it was not the first such remnant of the war to turn up outside the conflict’s borders.

A fifth vessel has left Odesa port and is heading along a temporary Black Sea corridor established to evacuate vessels that became trapped when the war began, according to a statement from the Ukrainian government Monday.

According to the statement, “The bulk carrier PUMA (Cayman Islands) left the Odesa seaport this morning and is now heading to the Bosporus through the established corridor of ship traffic. The vessel is loaded with 16,000 tonnes of metal and 14,000 tonnes of rapeseed.”

The Ukrainian government outlined that the vessel arrived at the Odesa port on February 19, 2022 and said could not leave due to “the outbreak of hostilities and the closure of the relevant areas of the Black Sea.”

More details: The temporary Black Sea corridor is being used to evacuate vessels that were in the Ukrainian ports of Chornomorsk, Odesa and Pivdennyi at the time of the full-scale invasion, according to the statement. 

Four vessels had already used the temporary corridor since August 15, the statement said.

The Ukrainian government also stated that it is considering using the temporary corridor for “civilian vessels carrying non-military cargo, including grain, mainly to Africa and Asia” due to the “blocking of the Grain Initiative and the growing global demand for Ukrainian products.”

Ukraine filed lawsuits against Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia over a ban on imports of its agricultural products, Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko said in a statement Monday. 

“It is crucially important for us to prove that individual member states cannot ban imports of Ukrainian goods. That is why we are filing lawsuits against them with the World Trade Organization (WTO). At the same time, we hope that these countries will lift their restrictions and we will not have to settle the matter in courts for a long time,” Svyrydenko said.

The lawsuit comes after the European Union said on Friday that it planned to suspend a temporary ban on the export of Ukrainian wheat, maize, rapeseed and sunflower seed to Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, Romania and Slovakia. The measure was put in place to counter the risk of farmers in these countries being undercut by a bottleneck of cheap Ukrainian grain.

However, Poland, Hungry, and Slovakia said they would defy it. CNN has reached out to Poland’s Ministry of Agriculture, Hungary’s Ministry of Agriculture, and Slovakia’s Ministry of Agriculture for comment.

Ukraine calls this situation “a violation by the three EU countries of their international obligations.” It asked the EU members “to coordinate and harmonize trade policy, as it is within the exclusive competence of the EU,” according to the statement. 

Ukraine trade representative Taras Kachka told Politico that such acts of defiance show a lack of unity within the bloc and pose a “systemic concern.”

“I think that all the world should see how member states in the EU behave towards trade partners and their own Union, because it can influence other states as well,” Kachka said.

Spain’s agriculture minister has warned that the move by Poland, Slovakia and Hungary may be illegal. 

“The fact that any member country — I’m not judging one member country, but any member country — takes unilateral action restricting what is the access to the single market, seems to me something that is out of the law,” Luis Planas Puchades told reporters on his way into a meeting of EU agriculture ministers in Brussels.

Puchades said it will be for the European Commission to judge whether the unilateral bans are illegal, adding that commission representatives will brief the ministers on potential follow up action on Monday afternoon. 

CNN’s Niamh Kennedy contributed reporting to this post.

Editor’s note: The post was updated with details of the lawsuit.

Ukraine’s new defense minister Rustem Umerov began the week by cleaning house, dismissing seven key officials from their posts as part of his mandate to bring a new approach to the role.

The dismissals were reported by cabinet minister Oleh Nemchinov. Umerov later wrote on social media that the ministry was “rebooting.”

Here’s what else you should know:

Seven high-ranking officials have been dismissed from the Ukrainian defense ministry, cabinet minister Oleh Nemchinov said Monday, the biggest shakeup of personnel at the top of Ukraine’s defense establishment since its leader was ousted earlier this month.

Six of Ukraine’s seven deputy defense ministers were fired, as was the country’s state secretary for the ministry, a position that is seen as more administrative.

The comes in the wake of a number of corruption scandals involving the ministry – and a little more than two weeks after Oleksii Reznikov lost his job as defense minister. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Reznikov was being replaced in order to bring “new approaches” to the post. The president has since tapped Rustem Umerov as his replacement.

Though Reznikov was not implicated in any of the scandals, they still appeared to damage him by association.

Before Russia’s full-scale invasion, rooting out corruption was the top priority for Zelensky’s administration. His promise to do so was one of the reasons for his unprecedented political success.

Zelensky, a former comedian, had zero political experience at the time of his election in 2019. But he managed to tap into the nation’s deep-rooted disappointment and disgust over rampant corruption.

It’s unclear whether the dismissals on Monday were connected to allegations of corruptions or were part of the new leadership cleaning house, though Umerov hinted at the latter in a Facebook post.

“Rebooting. We started. We continue. (The) Ministry continues to work as usual,” Umerov wrote.

CNN has reached out to the Ministry of Defense for comment.

The Russian government possesses no information on the health of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, whose health has been the subject of speculation in recent days, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday.

On Saturday, a Ukrainian intelligence official said that Kadyrov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a vocal supporter of the war in Ukraine, was gravely ill.

A video shared on Kadyrov’s official channel on the messaging app Telegram showed him outdoors with a caption: “I strongly advise everyone who cannot distinguish truth from lies on the Internet to take a walk in the fresh air and put their thoughts in order. The rain is wonderfully invigorating.”

CNN cannot independently verify claims about Kadyrov’s health.

New reports concerning Kadyrov emerged Monday. Alexey Venediktov, a prominent journalist who led the now-defunct Echo of Moscow radio station, said on Telegram that Kadyrov was undergoing hemodialysis at the Central Clinical Hospital in Moscow due to “renal failure.”

When asked about Kadyrov’s reported arrival in Moscow and whether he met with Putin, Peskov said he had nothing to say and there were no meetings between the two individuals.

Some background: There have been persistent reports, including from some former Chechen officials, that Kadyrov has had liver and kidney problems.

In March, Kadyrov said he had taken a number of medical tests which showed that he was absolutely healthy.

“And if anyone doubts this, then you need to change the eyes that are deceiving you,” he said at the time.

Kadyrov’s Telegram channel has been active, but he’s not been seen in public recently. A video of the Chechen leader attending a meeting was posted to his Telegram channel on September 12, but it’s unknown when it was filmed.

The arrival of US soldiers for a peacekeeper training exercise in Armenia has rankled the Russian government, which has for decades acted as the sole security guarantor for the former Soviet republic. The 10-day “Eagle Partner” exercise, which began last Monday, involves 85 US and 175 Armenian soldiers and aims to prepare the Armenians to take part in international peacekeeping missions.

The exercise, while small in scale, is the latest in a series of what Russia’s foreign ministry has deemed “unfriendly actions” taken by its traditional ally.

Armenia recently sent humanitarian aid to Ukraine for the first time, and its parliament is set to ratify the International Criminal Court’s Rome Statute – meaning it would be obliged to arrest Russian President Vladimir Putin if he were to set foot in the country, which Russia has long viewed as its own backyard.

Armenia’s flirtation with new international partners has been spurred by its frustration that Russia has been unable or unwilling to defend it against what it sees as aggression from neighboring Azerbaijan, and has raised questions about Russia’s ability to retain its hold on countries and conflicts across the former Soviet empire.

Read more about Armenia’s geopolitical balancing act here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in December 2022.

Related article Is one of Russia's oldest allies slipping from the Kremlin's orbit? | CNN

Ukraine’s counteroffensive agains Russian forces has been a success, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

In an interview with CNN, Zelensky aide Mykhailo Podolyak cited having broken through Russian’s first line of defense as a reason of optimism in Ukraine’s fight against the Kremlin – a military power that, Podolyak explained, “everyone was afraid of” before Moscow’s full-scale invasion.

“Even Russian officials like Putin say that they are repelling Ukraine’s offensive operations. They don’t talk about their counteroffensive, they only talk about Russia’s defensive war.”

After weeks of anticipation, Ukraine’s counteroffensive began in June but got off to a slower-than-expected start, facing tough resistance from Russian troops. Kyiv’s forces have in recent weeks notched some important gains on the front lines.

Podolyak added that Ukraine was preparing to fight to liberate Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in violation of international law in 2014.

More aid needed: Podolyak said Ukraine needs from its Western partners more air support, particularly F-16 fighter jets; long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian-controlled territories; and ammunition.

Russian attacks damaged recreational infrastructure in a Danube River port, a Ukrainian official said Monday.

Oleh Kiper, head of the Odesa regional military administration, said a fire broke out following the attacks on Vylkove in Odesa’s Izmail district.

Earlier Monday, Ukraine’s military said Russia targeted civilian infrastructure in Odesa with a “massive” missile and drone attack.

Ukrainian air defenses destroyed 11 attack drones over Odesa, Kiper said.

There were no civilian casualties, he said. 

Volodymyr Zelensky will make the case for a speedy victory over Russia in his addresses to the United Nations and in his meeting with US President Joe Biden this week, a senior adviser to the Ukrainian president said.

In an interview with CNN Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said Zelensky would use the platforms to explain “why this war should have a fair ending,” and “that helping Ukraine is an investment in stability, in global rules, in the restoration of international law.” 

Zelensky will also stress that “this war can be accelerated if there is a sufficient amount of weapons for Ukraine,” Podolyak said.

World leaders are meeting in New York starting Monday for the UN General Assembly.

Aside from an address to the assembly, Zelensky also has plans to hold several meetings with other world leaders in New York, according to people familiar with the plans. After that, the Ukrainian president is set to go to Washington to meet with Biden.

Ukraine has liberated 300 square kilometers (115 square miles) of territory from Russia since the start of its summer counteroffensive, but minimizing casualties as troops move forward in tough conditions has been its priority, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said.

In an interview with CNN Senior International Correspondent Frederik Pleitgen, Maliar said Kyiv’s counteroffensive has progressed slower than anticipated but that pace was designed to save troops’ lives.

“Contrary to the military science, Ukrainians risked and started an offensive when the enemy had more weapons and more people,” she said. “Military science tells you have to do it when you have superiority. That is not possible in our situation. We have to fight as it is.

Maliar also claimed the Russians were losing up to eight times as many troops as the Ukrainians in the east of the country. CNN could not independently verify her claim, but Western officials and independent analysts believe Moscow has consistently suffered heavier losses.

Maliar also reiterated the counteroffensive “is going according to the plan,” but said Ukraine needed additional international support and repeated Ukrainian calls for more weapons and ammunition.

“Ukrainian people are very grateful for all the support from Western countries. We realize that our victories are impossible without the help from the West,” she added. 

Despite the difficulties, Maliar believes in Ukraine’s ultimate success.  

“We believe in our victory. We are on our land, there is no falling back. We will defend our country till we liberate all of our territories,” she said.

Russia targeted civilian infrastructure in Ukraine’s southern Odesa region with a “massive” missile and drone attack on Monday morning, Ukraine’s military said.

In a statement on Facebook, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said the consequences of the attack remained unclear.

Ukraine’s Air Force said air defenses destroyed 18 out of 24 attack drones headed toward the Mykolaiv and Odesa regions.

It also said it destroyed all 17 cruise missiles launched from Russia’s southwest Volgograd region. The missiles were destroyed in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk, Poltava and Khmelnytskyi regions, it said. 

A 72-year-old man and an elderly woman were killed as a result of Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region overnight into Monday, according to a local official.

Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson region military administration, said three others were injured, including a 60-year-old man and a 63-year-old woman.

Last week, Prokudin said the regional government would issue mandatory evacuation orders for families with children who live along the Dnipro River due to Russian shelling. 

From Monday, the curfew in the region will be from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. local time, he added. 

Dnipro attacks: Meanwhile, Ukraine shot down two cruise missiles over Dnipropetrovsk overnight, according to Serhii Lysak, head of the region’s military administration. 

There were no reports of casualties.

World leaders are meeting in New York starting Monday for the United Nations General Assembly meetings.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is planning to use an in-person appearance at the annual meeting to appeal for more support for Ukraine as it continues to wage a counteroffensive against Russia.

Aside from an address to the assembly, Zelensky also has plans to hold several meetings with other world leaders in New York, according to people familiar with the plans. After that, the Ukrainian president is set to go to Washington and meet with US President Joe Biden.

Here’s what else to know:

Other key headlines from the war:

China’s top diplomat Wang Yi is expected to discuss the war in Ukraine with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Monday as he begins a visit to Russia.

Wang will visit the country from September 18 to 21, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. 

He is expected to meet Lavrov to discuss “a wide range of bilateral cooperation issues,” which include a “detailed exchange of views on issues related to a settlement in Ukraine,” according to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry last week.

The scheduled meeting comes on the heels of a closely watched summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, which the United States has warned could lead to Pyongyang supplying Moscow with munitions for its war in Ukraine.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un received body armor and drones as parting gifts while wrapping up a trip to Russia that has alarmed the West over the potential for military cooperation between Moscow and Pyongyang.

The send-off capped a rare, six-day visit that saw Kim hold talks with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, raising the possibility North Korea could provide Russia with weaponry to aid its invasion of Ukraine.

On Sunday, Kim left the eastern city of Vladivostok, where he inspected warplanes, toured an airfield and visited a Pacific Fleet frigate, to return to Pyongyang in his heavily-armored private train following a grand farewell ceremony, Russian and North Korean state media reported.

Traveling more than 4,000 kilometers (2,400 miles) across eastern Russia, the North Korean leader was given the red carpet treatment throughout his trip, much of which was spent visiting military sites.

North Korea is heavily sanctioned and is in need of everything from energy to food to military technology.

Parting gifts: As Kim left, the governor of the far eastern Russian region of Primorye gave him a bulletproof vest and a set of drones, Russian state news agency TASS reported.

Kim was also presented with five attack drones produced in the same region, as well as a Geranium-25 aircraft-type reconnaissance drone, TASS added. A set of special clothing that is invisible to thermal imaging cameras was an additional gift.

Following a farewell ceremony that included a red carpet and honor guards, Kim was seen boarding his personal train, which left Artyom railway station while Russian officials waved, in a video published by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Read more here.

Ukraine has recaptured Klishchiivka, a key village in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday.

Zelensky’s office posted a picture on social media earlier in the day, indicating Kyiv’s forces had liberated this key area that has been critical to Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the east. 

In the photo, five soldiers are holding flags and posing for the camera in front of a church, geolocated by CNN as the Church of the Intercession in the center of the village. 

The area southwest of Bakhmut has been a focus for Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the east throughout the summer, and Zelensky will be keen to highlight this apparent success when he meets with world leaders, among them United States President Joe Biden, on his upcoming trip to the US this week for the United Nations General Assembly. 

In a separate video release also filmed in front of the church, one of a group of six soldiers standing together declares the liberation of Klishchiivka has been completed. 

The sound of artillery explosions can be heard throughout the short clip, some sounding no more than 500 meters away, which the soldier seems to acknowledge, saying, “the enemy does not give up attempts to re-capture [the village], using all possible means of fire. But we are standing firm and confident.” 

The video shows the church has suffered massive damage during months of fighting, including the loss of its green cupola. 

The announcement that Klishchiivka had been recaptured came two days after Ukraine’s forces claimed Andriivka, a small hamlet immediately to the south.  

With the summer counteroffensive now well into its fourth month, Ukraine has come under increasing pressure to convince key Western partners that Russian forces can be pushed back.

The scene looks almost lunar. Drone videos covering more than a thousand miles of the Ukrainian front line show great craters of earth, scooped from the ground by unseen barrages.

Artillery has dominated the war in Ukraine. But nearly 18 months in, a significant gap still remains between the shells Ukraine wants and how fast European and American factories can supply them. And concerns are rising that Europe’s patchwork of arms manufacturers is ill-suited to meet these needs.

Away from the front, Ukraine’s war has become a numbers game: who can acquire, make and resupply more tanks, bullets, and, most of all, artillery shells.

Amid their counteroffensive, Ukrainian guns are firing up to 6,000 rounds daily, Ukrainian MP Oleksandra Ustinova told CNN, but the military wants to shoot more than 10,000. Even that is a fraction of the 60,000 shells that Russia was using at the peak of its barrages this year, per an Estonian and Ukrainian government analysis.

All in all, Kyiv needs some 1.5 million artillery shells annually, according to the CEO of one of Europe’s largest arms manufacturers, Rheinmetall.

By July, the US had supplied more than 2 million artillery rounds to Ukraine since the 2022 invasion, the Pentagon said. The European Union has supplied at least a quarter of million this year, in addition to bilateral donations directly between individual member states and Ukraine. The United Kingdom, too, has also donated ammunition.

But in February 2023, Europe-wide production of artillery ammunition had a maximum capacity of 300,000 shells annually, Estonian defense officials estimated. The best-case scenario of an increase to making 2.1 million shells annually is still years away from being realized.

With European stocks depleted and existing production lines overwhelmed, ammunition buyers are keen to get their hands on whatever’s available. In an interview with CNN, the CEO of shell casing manufacturer Europlasma described the buyers’ message as: “We’ll take all you can make.”

Read the full story here.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has warned that the war in Ukraine could be long, as Kyiv’s counteroffensive against Russia continues to make only marginal gains.

Ukraine’s allies have sought to accentuate campaign gains in recent weeks, but it has been underway for months with no major breakthroughs. The fall will bring changing conditions on the ground and the possibility that Russia will once again try to pummel Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

“Most wars last longer than is expected when they first start. Therefore, we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost published Sunday.

“We are all wishing for a quick peace. But at the same time, we must recognize: If President [Volodomyr] Zelensky and the Ukrainians give up the fight, their country would not exist anymore. If President [Vladimir] Putin and Russia laid down their weapons, we would have peace,” the NATO chief said.

On the possibility of Putin using nuclear weapons in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said: “Putin’s nuclear rhetoric is dangerous and ruthless, but NATO is prepared for every threat and challenge.

“The point of NATO is to prevent war — not least nuclear war. We have a credible deterrent.”

Kyiv’s NATO bid: The NATO chief reiterated that it is just a matter of time before Ukraine joins the alliance.

“Ukraine will become a member of NATO — all allies have made that clear,” he said, adding that Ukraine will need safety guarantees when the war ends, otherwise “history could repeat itself.”

Read more here.