Neither the Austrian, nor the Czech government is willing to bow to Ukraine’s demands and extradite Ukrainian men who have fled the war-torn country. “That would be a massive interference in our sovereignty, we would never do that,” a spokesman for the Austrian Interior Ministry said to Exxpress on September 7th. “Such a request would likely contravene Czech law, making it impossible to approve it,” the Czech Justice Ministry stated in the Prague Monitor.
Ukraine called the joint declaration that came out of the G20 Leaders’ Summit this weekend ‘nothing to be proud of,’ after the document failed to label Russia as an aggressor in the war, but banned the use of nukes.
The G20 leaders, including President Joe Biden and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, standing in for Russian President Vladimir Putin, were gathered in New Delhi for the annual meeting.
The host, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, pushed for there to be a joint communique produced at the meeting, after last year’s G20 Leaders’ Summit in Bali concluded without one due to there being a lack of consensus on the Russian invasion.
Ukraine has little more than 30 days left of fighting before the weather hinders its counter-offensive, the top-ranking US military officer says.
Speaking to the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Gen Mark Milley said colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to manoeuvre.
He admitted the offensive had gone more slowly than expected. But he said: “There’s still heavy fighting going on.
“The Ukrainians are still plugging away with steady progress.”
#Ukraine: A Russian AMN-590951 multipurpose armored vehicle was destroyed by a FPV loitering munition of the Ukrainian 63rd Mechanized Brigade near Kreminna, #Luhansk Oblast.
Only two vehicles of this type were documented as destroyed before, making this the third one. pic.twitter.com/16KyL0y8SH
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 10, 2023
Elon Musk said he refused a request to activate his Starlink satellite network in the Crimean port city of Sevastopol to aid a drone attack on Russia’s fleet there.
He said he feared that agreeing would have made his company complicit in a “major” act of war and an “escalation” in the conflict following Russia’s invasion.
Elon Musk told his engineers to switch off a Starlink satellite communications network near the coast of Crimea last year due to fears that a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s naval fleet could trigger a nuclear response from President Putin, a new biography has revealed.
Ukraine has used SpaceX-made Starlink satellite terminals to keep its military forces connected even as Russia has destroyed phone and internet networks. Yet as Ukrainian submarine drones armed with explosives approached the Russian fleet in the Black Sea, they suddenly lost connectivity and “washed ashore harmlessly”, according to Walter Isaacson’s new biography of the eccentric billionaire, entitled Elon Musk. An excerpt was published yesterday by CNN.
President Zelensky has condemned a “deliberate” attack on Ukraine’s “peaceful city” of Kostyantynivka.
At least 17 people, including a child, were killed in the blast, which took place on a busy market street in the middle of the day – a rarity.
Kostyantynivka, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, is near the front line.
Ukraine has named a Russian helicopter pilot that it said defected last month over his opposition to Moscow’s invasion after flying across the border in a “long-term special operation” led by Kyiv.
Kyiv’s Main Intelligence Directorate – the intelligence wing of Ukraine’s defence ministry – identified the pilot as 28-year-old Maxim Kuzminov, who served in the “319th separate helicopter regiment” based in Russia’s Far Eastern Primorye region.
The Cuban foreign ministry says it has uncovered a human trafficking ring aimed at recruiting Cubans to fight for Russia in its war in Ukraine.
It said that Cubans living in Russia and “even some in Cuba” had been “incorporated into the military forces taking part in the war in Ukraine”.
Cuba is a close ally of Russia, but it stressed in its statement “it does not form part of the conflict in Ukraine”.
There has not yet been a response from Russia.
High prices, corporate rivalries and a shortage of spare parts hobbled efforts this spring to set up a new repair facility in Poland for Ukraine’s Leopard tanks — and in some cases have limited the usefulness of the donated Western vehicles, CBC News has learned.
Poland, Germany and Canada began discussions back in the spring to set up a maintenance hub for dozens of armoured vehicles donated to the embattled Eastern European country.
The sophisticated main battle tanks were touted in western capitals as a war-winning strategy — one that would help Ukrainians turn the tide and drive Russian troops out of the country.
#Ukraine: A Ukrainian Challenger 2 tank was destroyed near Robotyne, #Zaporizhzhia Oblast. A damaged T-64BV and two destroyed IMVs can be seen too.
This is the first confirmed loss of this tank in Ukraine and is also the first one ever destroyed by enemy action. pic.twitter.com/hFWkYQ8XSV
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 5, 2023
The removal of the defense minister highlights the enduring challenge of corruption in Ukraine, which has emerged as a rare area of criticism of President Volodymyr Zelensky’s leadership.
The removal of Ukraine’s minister of defense after a flurry of reports of graft and financial mismanagement in his department underscores a pivotal challenge for President Volodymyr Zelensky’s wartime leadership: stamping out the corruption that had been widespread in Ukraine for years.
Official corruption was a topic that had been mostly taboo throughout the first year of the war, as Ukrainians rallied around their government in a fight for national survival. But Mr. Zelensky’s announcement Sunday night that he was replacing the defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, elevated the issue to the highest level of Ukrainian politics.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday that he was replacing his minister of defense, the biggest shake-up in the leadership of Ukraine’s war effort since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February last year, citing the need for “new approaches” as the war stretches toward a second year.
The fate of the defense minister, Oleksii Reznikov, had been the subject of increasing speculation in Ukraine as financial improprieties in the ministry came to light and the government started several investigations into official corruption.
#Ukraine: We obtained further footage of a Ukrainian Bayraktar TB-2 UCAV in action in the South; this time a Russian Ural transport truck was destroyed. pic.twitter.com/DWPTWDzf2T
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 3, 2023
Ukrainian generals claim they have breached Russia’s formidable first line of defences in the south, as the counter-offensive launched earlier this summer may be poised to gather pace.
Since June, Kyiv’s territorial gains have been very small – but is Ukraine finally at a turning point?
“Yes, it’s true,” says Yuriy Sak, an advisor to Ukraine’s defence minister, when asked if the breach had happened.
“Little by little, I think we’re gaining momentum,” he said.
#Ukraine: After time absent, the Ukrainian Bayraktar TB2 UCAV is back – a Russian KS-701 patrol boat unloading equipment was destroyed by a TB-2 strike reportedly in the North-Western part of the Black Sea. pic.twitter.com/37110TYgpQ
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 3, 2023
As Ukraine marked its 32nd national holiday since independence, news from the front lines and the wider world appeared better than perhaps in any week since the recapture of Kherson in November.
In Zaporizhzhia, the hard-fought front lines moved a few miles forward. In Crimea, a missile strike took out a Russian S-400 anti-aircraft complex and a team of Ukrainian commandos briefly raised their yellow-and-blue flag on the peninsula for the first time since Russia’s 2014 annexation. A Russian Mi-8 helicopter pilot defected to Ukraine with a load of jet engine parts. Near-nightly waves of drone strikes deep inside Russia blew up two Tu-22M long-range bombers, four Il-78 transport aircraft and repeatedly struck central Moscow.
#Ukraine: A Russian TOS-1A thermobaric multiple rocket launcher with a cope cage was targeted by a FPV loitering munition of the Ukrainian 92nd Assault Brigade near Raihorodka, #Luhansk Oblast – leading to the ignition and detonation of the 220mm rockets. pic.twitter.com/2QC2HzMON1
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 2, 2023
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Russia’s pro-war influencers are generating big advertising revenues from their social media coverage of the conflict, the BBC has found.
Alongside a daily ration of gruesome videos of drone strikes and false claims about Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, they share ads for anything from cryptocurrency to fashion.
Known in Russia as “Z-Bloggers” because of their support for a war often symbolised by the letter Z, they are often embedded with the Russian army and post footage from the front line where they call on young Russians to enlist.
It was just after dawn on the Kherson delta when the Ukrainian armoured personal carrier began subjecting Russian positions to a barrage of fire with its mounted cannon. A torrent of high-explosive tracer rounds pulsed across the Dnipro river, shattering the early morning calm. Moments later, further down the dusty riverside road, a Ukrainian heavy machine gunner opened covering fire.
The surprise attack continued for a few minutes, the sound of a blast echoing somewhere in Russian-held territory before the Ukrainian special operation forces sped back towards their base. The Russians did not return fire. “There’s nothing up there,” said Serhiy, as he monitored the skies for drones on a hand-held electronic device.
#Ukraine: The first confirmed loss of a Ukrainian CAESAR 8×8 155mm self-propelled howitzer – this one was destroyed in #Zaporizhzhia Oblast.
In total 19 of these CAESAR variants on the Tatra chassis were donated to Ukraine by Denmark. pic.twitter.com/fWBTVIfheM
— 🇺🇦 Ukraine Weapons Tracker (@UAWeapons) September 1, 2023
Why Russian tanks are falling short of their Western counterparts
The three main attributes of the tank are firepower protection and mobility.
The Russians very much focus on firepower and mobility whereas Western tanks favour protection, that is physical protection of the crew. A lot of us who’ve been looking at this closely, we’re very interested in data coming out of Ukraine this week that of the 71 Leopard 2 German tanks that have been operating right at the front, in Ukraine, only five have been destroyed and no tank crew have been killed, which is quite phenomenal.
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