Here is the situation on Sunday, September 15, 2024.

Fighting

At least seven people were killed in Ukraine following Russian shelling in the country’s south, southeast and east, including three in the Zaporizhia region, according to regional officials.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its air defence units destroyed 29 drones Ukraine launched overnight targeting seven Russian regions, including Bryansk, Smolensk, Oryol, Belgorod, Kaluga and Rostov.

The Russian Navy’s Caspian Flotilla practised repelling night attacks by unmanned boats as part of the Ocean-24 drills with China, the TASS news agency reported. It is part of the biggest Russian naval exercises since the Soviet era.

Politics and diplomacy

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and five former defence secretaries have urged the incumbent, Keir Starmer, to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles inside Russian territory even without the backing of the United States, according to The Sunday Times newspaper.

Admiral Rob Bauer, who serves as the principal adviser to NATO’s secretary-general, said Ukraine would have a good military reason to strike deeper into Russia using Western weapons.

The head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR, Kyrylo Budanov, said Russia’s increased production of guided bombs as well as artillery ammunition deliveries from North Korea present serious problems for Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.

Russia and Ukraine exchanged 206 prisoners, 103 from each side, in their second such swap in two days following negotiations mediated by the United Arab Emirates, officials said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his forces’ incursion into Russia’s Kursk helped bring about the prisoner exchange with Moscow.
President Joe Biden is looking forward to discussing Ukraine’s war strategy with Zelenskyy later this month and the US is working on a “substantial” new aid package, Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser, said.
Sullivan also said he feared potential strikes on Ukrainian power plants, accusing Russia of being “completely brazen” about their attacks on civilian energy infrastructure.

European governments should halt welfare benefits to Ukrainian men of military age who are living in their countries, Poland’s Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski said, a measure he said would help Ukraine call up more troops to fight Russia. More than four million Ukrainians had temporary protection status in European Union countries as of July.

The foreign ministers of the Group of Seven industrialised powers have condemned Iran’s alleged export of ballistic missiles to Russia, including powerful surface-to-surface missiles.

Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said Tehran is open to diplomacy to solve disputes but not “threats and pressure” from Western countries after the US and three European powers imposed more sanctions over reports that Iran supplied Russia with ballistic missiles.