Nato chief: prepare for ‘a long war in Ukraine’
Jens Stoltenberg has warned there will be no swift end to the Ukraine war, in an interview published on Sunday, as Kyiv pushes on with its counteroffensive against Russia, Agence France-Presse reports.
“Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group.
“Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.”
Kyiv launched its counteroffensive in June, pushing back against entrenched Russian positions in the south and east, but it has made limited gains.
“We are all wishing for a quick peace,” said Stoltenberg.
“But at the same time we must recognise: if president [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist.
“If president Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.”
On Ukraine’s ambitions to join the alliance, Stoltenberg said: “There is no doubt that Ukraine will eventually be in Nato.”
Kyiv had “moved closer to Nato” at a summit of the alliance in July, he said, according to AFP.
“When this war ends, we need security guarantees for Ukraine. Otherwise, history could repeat itself,” he added.
At the July summit in Vilnius, Nato leaders agreed that Ukraine could join the alliance once certain conditions are met, and US and German officials made it clear that these would include Kyiv carrying out reforms to protect democracy and the rule of law.
Key events
Canada will contribute C$33 million (£19.6 million) to a British-led partnership that is buying air defense equipment for Ukraine to help it fend off Russian missile and drone attacks, defence minister Bill Blair said on Sunday.
In a statement, Blair said the contribution was part of the C$500 million worth of military aid for Kyiv that prime minister Justin Trudeau announced in June.
Canada, home to one of the world’s largest Ukrainian diasporas, is a vocal supporter of Kyiv. Since Russia invaded in February 2022, Ottawa has committed over C$8 billion in aid, including around C$1.8 billion in military assistance.
The partnership, which also includes the United States, the Netherlands and Denmark, aims to buy hundreds of short- and medium-range air defence missiles and associated systems.
Russia and Ukraine will square off before the International Court of Justice on Monday in a case that centres around claims by Moscow that its invasion of Ukraine was done to prevent genocide, Reuters reports.
Ukraine brought the case to the United Nations’ highest court just days after the Russian invasion on last year. Kyiv argues Russia is abusing international law by saying the invasion was justified to prevent an alleged genocide in eastern Ukraine.
Russian officials continue to accuse Ukraine of committing genocide.
Russia wants the case to be thrown out and objects to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The hearings, set to run until 27 September, will not delve into the merits of the case and are instead focused on legal arguments about jurisdiction.
Moscow says Ukraine is using the case as a roundabout way to get a ruling on the overall legality of its military action. Ukraine has already cleared one hurdle as the court decided in its favour in a preliminary decision in the case in March last year. Based on that, the court ordered Russia to cease military actions in Ukraine immediately
In the hearings the court will also hear from 32 other states, all supporting Ukraine’s argument that the court has jurisdiction to move the case forward
“It is looking fairly positive for the court to find it has jurisdiction,” Juliette McIntyre, a law lecturer at the University of South Australia and ICJ watcher, said.
While Russia has so far ignored the ICJ’s orders to stop its military actions and the court has no way of enforcing its decisions, experts say an eventual ruling in favour of Ukraine could be important for any future reparations claims.
McIntyre said:
If the court finds there was no lawful justification under the Genocide Convention for Russia’s acts, the decision can set up a future claim for compensation/
The United Nations’ 1948 Genocide Convention defines genocide as crimes committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”
There are reports from Russia about two further drone attacks in addition to the ones reported earlier near the capital.
Another drone was downed in Russia’s Voronezh region, local governor Aleksandr Gusev and the ministry of defence said. According to Gusev, there were no casualties or damage.
Authorities in Tula region also reported a drone crashing on the grounds of a logistics centre, though there were no casualties or serious damage to infrastructure.
Attacks deep inside Russia, far from the front lines, have also increased in recent months.
Russia said it had thwarted a coordinated Ukrainian attack on Crimea early on Sunday, while drones also targeted Moscow, disrupting air traffic in the capital, and caused a fire at an oil depot in the southwest of the country.
The North Korean leader, Kim Jong Un, received five explosive drones, a reconnaissance drone and a bulletproof vest as gifts from a regional governor on his visit to Russia, the official TASS news agency said.
Kim’s first official visit abroad since the coronavirus pandemic has fanned western fears that Moscow and Pyongyang will defy sanctions and strike an arms deal.
On Saturday he met the Russian defence minister in Vladivostok, where he inspected state-of-the-art weapons including a hypersonic missile system, AFP reports.
TASS said the “leader of the DPRK received five kamikaze drones and a ‘Geran-25’ reconnaissance drone with vertical takeoff”, using the official name of North Korea.
TASS said the governor of the Primorye region, which borders China and North Korea, also “offered Kim Jong Un a set of bulletproof protection” and “special clothing not detectable by thermal cameras”.
Kim’s extended tour of Russia’s far eastern region, which began on Tuesday, has focused extensively on military matters, as evidenced by his own officer-dominated entourage, a symbolic exchange of rifles with Vladimir Putin and a tour of a fighter jet factory in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
Moscow is believed to be interested in buying North Korean ammunition to continue fighting in Ukraine, while Pyongyang wants Russia’s help to develop its internationally condemned missile programme.
The Kremlin has said no agreement has or will be signed.
Kim also met North Korean students studying in Vladivostok on Sunday.
The North Korean news agency KCNA has described the atmosphere during Kim’s visit as “fervent and warm” and said a “new era of friendship, solidarity and cooperation” was opening between North Korea and Russia.
The train with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on board has left the railway station in Russian far eastern city of Artyom, wrapping up his visit to Russia, Russian news agencies reported on Sunday.
The distance from Artyom to Khasan station on the border with North Korea is more than 200km (124 miles).
Here’s a roundup of the key things we learned from the Putin-Jong-un summit:
My colleague Julian Borger has written that drama over Ukraine at the general assembly and security council will distract the world body from the failures in its sustainable development goals
This year’s UN general assembly is supposed to be about the global south, addressing the social and economic development issues that many of the world’s poorer countries felt were forgotten last year in the uproar over Ukraine.
That was the intention at least, but the global rifts caused by Russia’s invasion still threaten to take centre stage. The US and its western allies have acknowledged that they cannot take the broad support of the bulk of UN members for granted in opposing Moscow’s war without paying greater attention to the priorities of the UN’s Group of 77 (G77), a loose coalition of developing countries.
The coming “high-level week” at the general assembly will start with a two-day meeting on sustainable development goals (SDGs). These 17 goals – such as the eradication of poverty and hunger, and the universal provision of good healthcare and education – were set out by UN member states in 2015, with a goal for their achievement by 2030.
This general assembly marks the halfway point in their progress, and the world is on track to meet only 12% of the targets. Half a billion people are likely still to be living in poverty in 2030. Nearly 100 million children will not be in school. In some areas, progress has gone into reverse. This week’s summit on Monday and Tuesday is intended to refocus concerted international effort on them.
The greatest geopolitical drama of the week, however, is expected to spring from the presence of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who will address the general assembly in person for the first time. He will be among the first speakers, appearing on Tuesday morning, not long after Lula and Biden (Brazil and the US are traditionally the first and second heads of state to address the assembly). On Wednesday, Zelenskiy will address a security council meeting on the war in Ukraine, which is also due to be attended by the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov.
That does not necessarily mean there will be a personal confrontation. Last year, Lavrov entered the council chamber to deliver his remarks and then left. But an unplanned close encounter is always possible.
Richard Gowan, the UN director at the International Crisis Group, described Zelenskiy’s decision to attend the general assembly in the flesh as a gamble at a time when there is growing pressure, especially from G77 states, to agree a ceasefire while just under a fifth of Ukrainian territory is under occupation.
“We shouldn’t underestimate the element of risk,” Gowan said. “If Zelenskiy goes to the general assembly and to the security council, and insists that Ukraine has to fight on, and that this is not a moment for diplomacy, I think that he will get a lot of pushback.”
Zelenskiy’s strategy in recent months, rather than allow his government to be portrayed as “against peace”, has been to launch his own initiative to pursue a settlement founded on the principles of the UN Charter, national sovereignty and territorial integrity that almost all UN member states claim to uphold.
Read the full piece here:
A series of Ukrainian drone attacks have struck Crimea, and drones also targeted Moscow, disrupting air traffic in the capital, and caused a fire at an oil depot in the south-west of the country, Russia’s defence ministry says.
One of the drones damaged an oil depot in southwestern Russia early on Sunday, sparking a fire at a fuel tank that was later extinguished, the regional governor said, according to Reuters.
Ukraine in recent days has launched a series of strikes on Russian military targets in occupied Crimea and the Russian Navy Black Sea Fleet’s facilities, seeking to undermine Moscow’s war efforts in the critical region.
Attacks deep inside Russia, far from the frontlines, have also increased, with Moscow’s mayor saying at least two drones were shot down in the capital region early on Sunday.
Reuters could not independently verify Sunday’s reports and there were no immediate comment from Kyiv.
Russian air defence systems destroyed at least six drones targeting Crimea from different directions, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday.
The report on the Telegram messaging app did not say whether there was any damage or casualties in the peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in a broadly condemned move in 2014, eight years before Moscow’s full-fledged invasion.
At about 1.45 am (2215 GMT Saturday) a drone was intercepted over Moscow’s Istrinsky district, the defence ministry said in a Telegram post.
“There was no damage or casualties at the site where the debris fell,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote in a separate Telegram post.
In southwestern Russia, the governor of the Oryol region, Andrei Klychkov, said on Telegram there were no casualties at the oil depot, either. He did not specify whether the depot was hit by debris or targeted by the drone.
Russian TASS state news agency reported that at least 24 flights were delayed at Moscow’s major airports – a frequent move by aviation authorities during drone strikes on the capital.
Back now to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s rare trip abroad to Russia, where the North Korean leader is continuing his now week-long train journey.
Reuters reports Kim and Russia’s defence minister discussed practical issues to boost military cooperation, North Korea’s state KCNA news agency said on Sunday, in what Pyongyang calls a “fresh heyday” for bilateral relations.
During his visit to Russia, Kim inspected Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers, hypersonic missiles and warships on Saturday, accompanied by Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu.
The trip by the North Korean leader comes as “a fresh heyday of friendship and solidarity and cooperation is being opened up in the history of the development of the relations between the DPRK and Russia,” state KCNA news agency said, using the initials for the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
Continuing his now week-long train journey, Kim will go to several food enterprises, Russia’s RIA news agency reported on Sunday.
Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Sunday, targeting chiefly the southern parts of the Odesa region and hitting an agriculture facility there, Ukraine’s Air Forces said on the Telegram messaging app, Reuters reports.
The Air Force said that Russia launched six Iranian-made Shahed drones and 10 cruise missiles, with Ukraine’s forces destroying six drones and six missiles before they hit their target, the Air Force said.
The situation in Odesa and its ports has been watched carefully by grain markets. Kyiv said on Saturday that two cargo vessels arrived there to use a temporary corridor to sail into Black Sea ports and load grain for African and Asian markets.
“Fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units, mobile fire groups and other means of attack were involved in repelling the air attack,” the Air Force said.
The extent of the damage was not immediately known and it was not clear what facility was hit. The Air Force said only that emergency services were on the site.
Reuters could not independently verify the report and there was no immediate comment from Russia.
The entire territory of Ukraine was under air raid alerts for several hours.
Nato chief: prepare for ‘a long war in Ukraine’
Jens Stoltenberg has warned there will be no swift end to the Ukraine war, in an interview published on Sunday, as Kyiv pushes on with its counteroffensive against Russia, Agence France-Presse reports.
“Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group.
“Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.”
Kyiv launched its counteroffensive in June, pushing back against entrenched Russian positions in the south and east, but it has made limited gains.
“We are all wishing for a quick peace,” said Stoltenberg.
“But at the same time we must recognise: if president [Volodymyr] Zelenskiy and the Ukrainians stop fighting, their country will no longer exist.
“If president Putin and Russia lay down their weapons, we will have peace.”
On Ukraine’s ambitions to join the alliance, Stoltenberg said: “There is no doubt that Ukraine will eventually be in Nato.”
Kyiv had “moved closer to Nato” at a summit of the alliance in July, he said, according to AFP.
“When this war ends, we need security guarantees for Ukraine. Otherwise, history could repeat itself,” he added.
At the July summit in Vilnius, Nato leaders agreed that Ukraine could join the alliance once certain conditions are met, and US and German officials made it clear that these would include Kyiv carrying out reforms to protect democracy and the rule of law.
Opening summary
Hello and welcome back to our rolling coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Christine Kearney and here’s an overview of the latest.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg has warned there will be no swift end to the Ukraine war, in an interview published Sunday, as Kyiv pushes on with its counteroffensive against Russia.
“Most wars last longer than expected when they first begin,” Stoltenberg said in an interview with Germany’s Funke media group.
“Therefore we must prepare ourselves for a long war in Ukraine.”
Meanwhile, Russia launched a combined drone and missile attack on Ukraine early on Sunday, targeting chiefly the southern parts of the Odesa region and hitting an agriculture facility there, Ukraine’s Air Forces said on the Telegram messaging app.
More on those stories shortly. In other news:
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The North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, inspected Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers and hypersonic “Kinzhal” missiles on Saturday, accompanied by Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu in Knevichi, about 30 miles (50km) from the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok. Shoigu saluted Kim and they discussed practical issues in stepping up military cooperation.
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North Korea may be able to boost Russia’s supply of artillery munitions for the war in Ukraine, but that is not likely to make a big difference, the top American military officer said as he arrived in Norway for Nato meetings. The head of the US military, Gen Mark Milley, said the recent meeting in Russia between Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin will probably lead North Korea to provide Soviet-era 152mm artillery rounds to Moscow. But he said it was not yet clear how many or how soon, AP reported.
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Russia on Saturday denied a Ukrainian claim to have recaptured the devastated eastern village of Andriivka, a stepping stone on the way to the city of Bakhmut. “The enemy … unsuccessfully trying to oust Russian troops from the population centres of Klishchiivka and Andriivka,” the Russian defence ministry said in its daily briefing.
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Ukraine will be able to conduct more attacks on Russian ships, a Ukrainian minister who has played a key role in building the country’s drone industry told Reuters after a recent series of sea raids. “There will be more drones, more attacks, and fewer Russian ships. That’s for sure,” the digital transformation minister, Mykhailo Fedorov, said in an interview on Friday.
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Russia will probably be able to build a significant stockpile of air-launched cruise missiles and use them to target Ukrainian infrastructure over the coming winter, the UK Ministry of Defence says. In its latest intelligence update, the ministry said air-launched cruise missiles (ALCMs) – particularly the modern AS-23a Kodiak – were at the heart of most of Russia’s long-range strikes against Ukraine’s national energy infrastructure between October 2022 and March 2023.
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A body has been found in Ukraine in the search for a British man who was reported missing a month ago. Daniel Burke, 36, from south Manchester, was reported missing on 16 August by family who had not heard from him believing that he had travelled to Ukraine. Officers searching for Burke have been informed by Ukrainian authorities that they have found a body.
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Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said on Saturday they planned to sell about 100 Ukrainian properties, including one belonging to the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Vladimir Konstantinov, speaker of the Crimean parliament, said the nationalised properties would be sold “soon” and the authorities had held the first eight auctions for the properties of Ukrainian business figures, Reuters reports.
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Donald Trump enjoyed hearing that he had drawn praise from the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, the former US president and frontrunner for the 2024 Republican White House nomination has said. Told during a recorded interview with the new NBC Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker that Putin had fawned over his stance on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Trump replied: “I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right.”
