September 7, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Ukraine news here or read through the updates below.

Ukraine has submitted an official proposal to Turkey to operate a “grain corridor” in the Black Sea without Russia’s participation, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said Thursday.

Bodnar noted in an interview with Ukrainian media that cargo vessels are already sailing through the territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey without restrictions.

Four vessels have passed through a temporary corridor since Ukraine’s Naval Forces announced new temporary routes for civilian vessels moving to or from the Black Sea on August 10. This came after the United Nations-brokered grain deal broke down on July 16.

Also, UK insurance firm Lloyd’s of London is in discussion with the United Nations to provide coverage for shipments if a new Black Sea grain corridor agreement can be reached, CEO John Neal told Reuters. 

Here are the other developments:

Ukraine has already started shipping grain through Croatian seaports, a top official said on Thursday.

Ukraine has been exploring alternative shipping routes after Russia pulled out of a deal in July that allowed Ukrainian ships to navigate safe passage through the Black Sea to Turkey’s Bosphorus Strait in order to reach global markets.

“After all, Russia continues to launch missile strikes on the grain infrastructure on the Black Sea coast, which significantly limits the possibilities of domestic grain exports,” Ukraine’s Economy Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said during the Three Seas Initiative summit in Bucharest.

“Ukrainian grain has already been exported through Croatian ports. Thank you for this opportunity. Although this trade route is niche, it is already popular,” Svyrydenko added.

Earlier this month, Russian forces attacked Ukrainian port facilities on the Danube River used for food exports. 

“We are ready to develop it, expanding the possibilities of the transport corridor. We believe that this logistics route will play an important role in bilateral trade between our countries even after the war,” according to Svyridenko.

Svyrydenko did not give further details on how much grain had already been shipped through Croatian seaports.

Vasyl Bodnar speaks during an exclusive interview on 32nd Independence Anniversary of Ukraine, in Ankara, Turkey on August 18.

Ukraine has submitted an official proposal to Turkey to operate a “grain corridor” in the Black Sea without Russia’s participation, Ukrainian Ambassador to Turkey Vasyl Bodnar said Thursday.

Bodnar noted in an interview with Ukrainian media that cargo vessels are already sailing through the territorial waters of Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey without restrictions.

Four vessels have passed through a temporary corridor since Ukraine’s Naval Forces announced new temporary routes for civilian vessels moving to or from the Black Sea on August 10. This came after the United Nations-brokered grain deal broke down on July 16.

Bodnar said that Ukraine expects Ankara and Kyiv to communicate on the issue in the coming days or “within the framework of the UN General Assembly, in order to understand how to move forward.”

Earlier this week, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that Russia will be ready to consider reviving the grain deal “as soon as all the agreements on lifting restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products are fully implemented.”

Bodnar called lifting restrictions against Russia “absolutely wrong path” and said that the international community “shouldn’t give into Russian blackmail.”

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said Thursday that the UN “continues to engage at all levels to make sure that both Ukrainian exports of food and fertilizer and Russian Federation exports of food and fertilizer can go out.” 

Russian air defense systems intercepted two drones over the country’s southwestern region of Bryansk on Thursday.

One of the drones, which was aimed at an “industrial facility” in the city of Bryansk, “was suppressed by the electronic warfare,” the region’s governor, Alexander Bogomaz, said in a post on Telegram.

However, the drone hit an administrative building during the fall and caused a fire, he said. There were no casualties and the fire was extinguished, Bogomaz said.

Another drone was shot down by Russian air defense forces while approaching a district in the Bryansk region.

That attack didn’t leave any casualties or damage, the governor said, adding that “operational and emergency services are on site.”

Bryansk neighbors northern Ukraine and eastern Belarus, Moscow’s close ally that helped facilitate Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. The area has been previously targeted by Ukrainian forces.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken saw first-hand one of the sites of atrocities committed by occupying Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

The top US diplomat visited a school in Yahidne, about two hours north of Kyiv, where Russian soldiers imprisoned Ukrainian residents, tortured them and let multiple die.

Valeriy Polhui, a survivor of the imprisonment, described how 127 people had been held in the dank small room in the basement for nearly a month. Ten people died in this room, he told Blinken, and we were forced to take bodies out “above the heads of children.”

Polhui said that if a person died before noon, the Russians “allowed the body to be removed from the premises.”

“If a person died in the afternoon, the evening, they wouldn’t let the body out,” he said.

Everybody but the elderly were forced to stand or to sit, but could not lay down because the room was so cramped, he described. The youngest child imprisoned there was a month and a half old, Polhui said. 

The Ukrainian prisoners would plead with the Russians to let the children get air, “and kids started to faint,” the Russians “would answer — ‘what did you want? this is a war.’ Even when they would beg that somebody was on the brink of death, “they would say, ‘OK, let him or her die.’”

When the Russians eventually allowed mothers to bring their children outside for air, “the kids wouldn’t even open their eyes because they so got used to the dark,” he described.

“This is just one building in one village in one community in Ukraine and this is a story that we’ve seen again and again and again,” Blinken said after seeing the school.

The United States and Britain have sanctioned an additional 11 “cybercriminals” accused of being members of the Russia-based cybercrime group Trickbot.

The sanctioned individuals include “key actors involved in management and procurement for the Trickbot group, which has ties to Russian intelligence services and has targeted the US Government and US companies, including hospitals,” the US Treasury Department said in a statement Thursday.

The sanctions targeted individuals — including administrators, managers, developers and coders — who have assisted the Trickbot group in its operations, the Treasury said. 

In addition to focusing on entities in the US, the gang also targeted hospitals, schools, local authorities and businesses in the UK, Britain’s Foreign Office said in a statement Thursday. 

Today’s announcement comes in a line of joint UK-US sanctions against ransomware actors in February this year. The total number of group members sanctioned is now 18, according to the UK government.

Volodymyr Zelensky during a joint press conference with Prime Minister of Denmark Mette Frederiksen in Kyiv, on September 6.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he is determined this month “to achieve several very specific results in our work with partners,” including new weaponry, although he didn’t offer specific details.

“Our diplomatic efforts to unite even more countries to restore peace on our entire land. We are preparing more global pressure on Russia,” he said in his nightly address.

Zelensky also said “security” was the main topic of his phone calls with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu earlier in the day.

US soldiers train with an Abrams M1 tank in Nowa Deba, Poland, on April 12.

The United States Defense Department is pushing back against Russian claims that the depleted uranium rounds that the US announced it would send Ukraine would cause an increase in cancer and other diseases.

Singh said that the munitions are “standard-issue” antitank rounds used with the Abrams tanks that the US is sending to Ukraine.

The new US military assistance package was announced by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken while he was in Kyiv on Wednesday. The depleted uranium munitions were part of the aid for the first time, a US official told CNN.

The munitions are mildly radioactive because they are made from dense metal, a byproduct from fuel production for nuclear power plants. They can be fired from the US-made Abrams tanks that are expected to arrive in Ukraine this fall.

Singh said she would let the Ukrainians announce when the rounds have arrived.

Why is it controversial?: The International Atomic Energy Agency – the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog – has said that depleted uranium is “considerably less radioactive than natural uranium,” but urged caution when handling.

While depleted uranium does not significantly contribute to the background radiation that soldiers and civilians encounter, it can pose a danger if it enters the body. When depleted uranium munitions strike a tank’s armor, it can ignite and produce uranium dusts or aerosol particles, which, if inhaled, can enter the bloodstream and may cause kidney damage.

CNN’s Christian Edwards and Natasha Bertrand contributed reporting to this post.

The Olympic rings are seen in front of the Hotel de Ville City Hall in Paris on March 14.

Russia as a country has no place at the 2024 Paris Olympics, French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday, adding that discussions should be held about how to deal with some athletes, who “may also be victims of this regime.”

“The real question that the Olympic world will have to decide is what place to give to these Russian athletes, who have sometimes prepared for a lifetime [for the games], and may also be victims of this regime,” Macron added, acknowledging that Russian athletes may hold different views on the war.

Macron said that “the Olympic world” has to hold discussions about this and guarantees to give. He added that Ukraine must be part of this dialogue and that ultimately, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) will be the one making the decision. 

In March, the IOC outlined guidelines that could allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals. 

“We are ready to boycott the Olympic Games in Paris if the Russian Federation and Belarus are allowed to participate in the competition,” Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said in a post on Telegram in August.

“We expect the IOC to make the right decision and resolutely remove the aggressor from the Olympics,” Shmyhal added.

The White House on Thursday increased pressure on House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy to approve its request to tie aid for Ukraine with increased disaster relief funding ahead of a government funding showdown.

The push comes as tension among Republicans in Congress is mounting while lawmakers face an end-of-month deadline to avoid a government shutdown. The White House has called on Congress to pass a short-term spending bill to keep the government running while congressional leaders hash out major differences.

The White House is also pressing Congress to fulfill Biden’s supplemental funding request, which asks for more than $24 billion in additional funding to support Ukraine and $16 billion in disaster relief funds.

While the White House wants those two funding items passed together, McCarthy is considering breaking them apart, according to GOP sources, setting up a showdown not just with the White House but also with Senate Republicans.

Leaders in the Senate want to see the Ukraine aid and disaster relief funding tied to a short-term funding resolution, but the GOP remains sharply divided on Ukraine aid as some hardliners in the House have demanded it be stripped out.

Read more about the funding issues

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to the media in London in January.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will discuss circumventing Russia’s “continued Black Sea grain blockade” at the G20 summit this weekend, according to a Downing Street spokesperson. 

Ahead of traveling to the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi on Thursday, Sunak spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on the phone. 

“President Zelenskyy updated on Ukraine’s counter-offensive and ongoing military requirements, and the Prime Minister pledged the UK’s steadfast support and commended Ukraine’s armed forces for their progress on the battlefield,” according to a Downing Street spokesperson. 

Moscow withdrew from the Black Sea grain deal in July.

Sunak also said the UK would continue to drive forward plans for long-term security support for Ukraine. 

“President Zelenskyy thanked the Prime Minister for the UK’s continued solidarity, and the leaders agreed to remain in close contact,” the statement added. 

CEO of Lloyd's of London John Neal poses for a photo in New York, US, on October 11, 2019.

UK insurance firm Lloyd’s of London is in discussion with the United Nations to provide coverage to Ukrainian grain shipment if a new Black Sea grain corridor agreement can be reached, CEO John Neal told Reuters in an exclusive interview Thursday. 

“Are we happy and able to continue to provide insurances in the event that a corridor can be re-operated and can be re-established? The answer to that is yes,” Reuters quoted Neal as saying. 

Lloyds did not dispute the CEO’s comments, telling CNN in a statement:

UN spokesperson Farhan Haq said, “No, no comment from us,” when asked by CNN about the discussion.

More on the agreement: The initiative collapsed in July after Russia withdrew from the deal, which allows Ukraine to export vital grains through the sea’s ports. 

Russia said it was forced to pull out of the deal and that guarantees made about its own agricultural and fertilizer exports had not been upheld. 

Turkey has been making efforts to revive it. Russian President Vladimir Putin told his Turkish counterpart, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, this week that Russia will be ready to consider reviving the grain deal “as soon as all the agreements on lifting restrictions on the export of Russian agricultural products are fully implemented.” 

Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called the demands that Russia has put forward “blackmail” in an interview on Monday, according to state news agency Ukrinform. 

CNN’s Mariya Knight contributed reporting to this post.

Russia has moved most of its units training in Belarus to other areas and no longer has enough ground forces in place to launch an offensive from its ally’s territory, a Ukrainian border official said Thursday.

“Russia does not have a necessary strike group on the territory of Belarus that would be ready and able to invade the territory of Ukraine,” Andrii Demchenko, a spokesperson for the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine, said during a briefing in Kyiv.

Some independent analysts have said Russia moved the units from Belarus to the northeastern front in Ukraine, between the besieged city of Kupiansk and nearby Kreminna.

Remember: Belarus is one of Russia’s most steadfast allies. It helped Russia launch its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, allowing the Kremlin’s troops to enter the country through the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) Ukrainian-Belarusian border to the north of Kyiv.

Other actions near the border: Demchenko said Russia is regularly shelling the Ukrainian regions of Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv, which lie just east of Belarus along Ukraine’s northern border with Russia.

In those areas, “the enemy is also trying to use sabotage and reconnaissance groups to try to enter the territory of Ukraine,” the border official said. “Most of these attempts are recorded in Sumy region.”

Ukraine recently announced measures to fortify its northern border, as well as ban certain activities close to the border.

Ukrainian soldiers enter the embattled village of Robotyne, Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine, in this screengrab taken from a handout video released on August 25.

Accounts from the front lines in southern Ukraine suggest further incremental gains for Ukrainian forces amid constant artillery, mortar and rocket fire from both sides.

Geolocated videos show a wasteland of shell holes, abandoned trenches and wrecked military hardware in the area between Robotyne, Verbove and Novoprokopivka — a triangle of villages that hold the key for Ukrainians to getting closer to Tokmak, an important hub for Russian defenses.

Here’s where the situation stands in and around each of the three villages:

Novoprokopivka: There was an advance in this direction and Ukraine captured several Russian positions east of this settlement, according to an unofficial Telegram account of soldiers of the Ukrainian 46th separate airmobile brigade. “Currently, the success is being secured and counterattacks are being repelled,” the Telegram channel said Thursday, adding that the effort to capture the heights near Novoprokopivka is underway.

This area is just 3 kilometers (1.9 miles) south of Robotyne.

Verbove: The 46th airmobile brigade suggested a harder fight around this area, saying there “was an attempt to gain ground to the north and northwest. Controlling the heights in these areas could strengthen the position of our units in the area of the settlement.”

The channel, which has frequently proven accurate in the past, said that Russian planes continue to bombard rear positions and artillery and drones on both sides were constantly working. In this situation, “it is hardly possible to expect a sharp change in the situation in anyone’s favor in the near future,” the channel said.

Robotyne: Ukrainian forces “got Robotyne at a very high price. But the capture of this settlement opens the gates to Tokmak,” according to a soldier with the callsign “Bruce”, commander of the 47th Brigade’s reconnaissance unit.

What’s Russia saying: Russian-appointed official in control of occupied parts of Zaporizhzhia, Yevgeniy Balitsky, gave a different account of the situation, claiming that Moscow’s forces “inflicted massive fire damage” on Ukrainian forces, including loss of soldiers and equipment. A Russian military blogger also claimed that several enemy attacks had been repelled.

What does independent analysis show: “Ukrainian forces have advanced along the trench line west of Verbove,” the Institute for the Study of War says, citing geolocated footage. It also noted claims by Russian military bloggers that Ukrainian forces were now trying to break through in the direction of Novoprokopivka. 

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg speaks during the European Parliament Foreign Affairs Committee meeting on September 7, in Brussels, Belgium.

NATO has so far seen no indication of an intentional Russian attack on Romania, said the military bloc’s head Jens Stoltenberg, after the Romanian government on Wednesday said wreckage found on its soil may be Russian drone parts. 

“We don’t have any information indicating any intentional attack by Russia and we are awaiting the outcome of the ongoing investigation,” Stoltenberg told lawmakers at the European Parliament Thursday. 

Romanian Defense Minister Angel Tilvar said on Wednesday that wreckage found on Romanian soil may have come from a Russian drone that was targeted at a Ukrainian port on the opposite bank of the Danube.

The alliance has increased its vigilance and is closely monitoring the situation, according to the NATO chief. 

Some background: Ukraine’s Danube ports have come under heavy and prolonged Russian bombardment in recent weeks, as Moscow targets Ukraine’s grain storage facilities and infrastructure after allowing the Black Sea grain deal to lapse in July. 

Many of the strikes have landed just across the border from Romania, a NATO member. Romania’s defense ministry condemned an attack earlier this week “in the strongest possible terms,” calling it “unjustified and in deep contradiction with the rules of international humanitarian law.”

There were further drone attacks on the Ukrainian side of the river in the early hours of Wednesday, one of them killing an agricultural worker, according to a Ukrainian official.

CNN’s Monica Sarbu in Bucharest contributed reporting to this post.

Twenty new diplomats and staff members arrived at the Russian embassy in North Korea as part of a personnel rotation on September 7, according to a Facebook post from the embassy. It comes amid US reports that North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un may meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Russia to discuss an arms deal.

These staffers are the first to join the embassy since the height of the Covid pandemic. The post said in the past year, the embassy was staffed by 18 people. “It was very difficult for us, but we made it!” 

The post welcomed the new staff members. “There is a lot of work ahead, the country is setting new tasks for us. Let’s work, brothers!” it said.

More context: Kim and Putin’s meeting could secure a potential deal to supply Moscow with weapons for its war on Ukraine, according to the US government.

The National Security Council warned Monday that arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are “actively advancing,” after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Pyongyang in July in an attempt to convince it to sell artillery ammunition to Moscow.

South Korea’s National Intelligence Service said Tuesday it is “closely monitoring… the possibility of Kim Jong Un visiting Russia soon.”

The United States has decided to send controversial depleted uranium munitions to Ukraine for the first time, as part of a new aid package worth more than $1 billion announced Wednesday.

The 120mm rounds can be fired from the US-made Abrams M1 tanks and are set to arrive on Ukraine’s frontlines this fall, which both Washington and Kyiv hope will help Ukrainian forces to build on recent hard-earned gains in their ongoing counteroffensive.

But the munitions are mildly radioactive, raising queries about their safety and the risk they could pose to civilians, and drawing fierce criticism from Moscow.

Here’s what you need to know about depleted uranium munitions – and why their use has sparked questions.

What is it? Depleted uranium is what is left over when most of the highly radioactive isotopes of uranium have been stripped out of the metal for use in nuclear fuel or nuclear weapons. It is far less radioactive than enriched uranium and unable to produce a nuclear reaction. But depleted uranium is extremely dense, making it a highly effective projectile. It has the ability to tear through the armor of enemy tanks, as it becomes sharper on impact with a target.

Why is it controversial? The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) – the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog has urged caution when handling it. Citing studies done on the health of military personnel exposed to depleted uranium, the agency said that while depleted uranium does not significantly contribute to the background radiation that soldiers and civilians encounter, it can pose a danger if it enters the body. When depleted uranium munitions strike a tank’s armor, it can ignite and produce uranium dusts or aerosol particles, which, if inhaled, can enter the bloodstream and may cause kidney damage.

Deputy Pentagon press secretary Sabrina Singh told CNN on Wednesday that the US is confident the Ukrainians would use the munitions responsibly.

Previous reporting from CNN’s Jessie Gretener and Darya Tarasova.

A drone attack caused an explosion in the vicinity of Russia’s Southern Military headquarters in Rostov-on-Don on Thursday, according to social media videos geolocated by CNN. The explosion took place less than a mile from the military’s building on Budonnovskiy Prospekt in the southwestern city.

Elsewhere, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken is concluding his two-day trip to Ukraine with a trip to a de-mining center.

Below are the latest updates:

Elon Musk attends the Viva Technology conference at the Porte de Versailles exhibition centre in Paris, France, on June 16.

Elon Musk secretly ordered his engineers to turn off his company’s Starlink satellite communications network near the Crimean coast last year to disrupt a Ukrainian sneak attack on the Russian naval fleet, according to an excerpt adapted from Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire titled “Elon Musk.”

Musk’s decision, which left Ukrainian officials begging him to turn the satellites back on, was driven by an acute fear that Russia would respond to a Ukrainian attack on Crimea with nuclear weapons, a fear driven home by Musk’s conversations with senior Russian officials, according to Isaacson.

The new book from Isaacson, the author of acclaimed biographies of Steve Jobs and Albert Einstein, provides fresh insights into Musk and how his existential dread of sparking a wider war drove him to spurn Ukrainian requests for Starlink systems they could use to attack the Russians.

Read the full CNN exclusive story here.