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The war in Ukraine, which broke out in February 2022 with Russia’s invasion of its neighbor, shows no sign of ending as both sides intensify attacks to gain control of contested regions.
Read our latest updates here. For all our coverage, visit our Ukraine war page.
Finland hopes China will help end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
Putin’s inability to see reality leaves him as emperor without clothes
Russia-North Korea nuclear cooperation danger to all: Estonian president
Zelenskyy courts U.S. Congress, Biden on military aid
From drones to cyberattacks, technology is shaping Ukraine conflict
Russia’s war bloggers hold potential spark of further unrest
Special report: Russia buying civilian drones from China for war effort
Note: Nikkei Asia decided in March 2022 to suspend its reporting from Russia until further information becomes available regarding the scope of the revised criminal code. Entries include material from wire services and other sources.
Here are the latest developments:
Saturday, Oct. 14 (Tokyo time)
2:30 p.m. Visiting European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Saturday he has urged China not to support Russia in its war against Ukraine by providing weapons or helping Moscow circumvent Western sanctions. Borrell, who is on a three-day China visit, also told a press conference he has asked Beijing to use its influence to make Russia go back to a grain deal initiative to allow the resumption of Ukraine grain exports via the Black Sea. “Otherwise, we will face another food crisis,” he said, noting the war has sent “shock waves around the world.” Moscow has pulled out of the grain deal mediated by Turkey and the United Nations.
11:30 a.m. Russian forces pounded the eastern Ukrainian city of Avdiivka for the fourth day in a row on Friday. In Avdiivka, known for its large coking plant in Ukraine’s Donbas industrial heartland, officials said the Russian assaults had left the already-gutted city in flames. “The fighting has been going on for four consecutive days,” Vitaliy Barabash, head of the city’s military administration, told Ukrainian national television. “They have substantial reserves of personnel and equipment. Avdiivka is completely ablaze. They shoot, using everything they have. The hospital is again under fire, as are administrative buildings and our volunteer center.”
A Patriot air defense system launcher in Warsaw. The Netherlands has agreed to send more Patriot missiles to Ukraine.
© Reuters
12:30 a.m. The Netherlands will deliver more Patriot air defense missiles to Ukraine, Prime Minister Mark Rutte says, according to Reuters.
“This winter, Russia will try to hurt Ukraine as much as possible. So the Netherlands will supply extra Patriot missiles, so that Ukraine can defend itself against Russia’s barbaric air strikes,” Rutte says following a meeting with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Odessa, Ukraine.
Rutte says the Netherlands would also help Ukraine acquire patrol boats to help keep the shipping route for grain exports safe.
Friday, Oct. 13
11:10 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin says on the key topic of his upcoming visit to China would be the Belt and Road Initiative, Beijing’s plan for global infrastructure and energy networks it launched a decade ago. Putin said he would also discuss settlements in national currencies with Chinese President Xi Jinping during his visit to Beijing next week.
Thursday, Oct. 12
10:48 p.m. The International Olympic Committee’s executive board says it has suspended the Russian Olympic Committee with immediate effect for including regional sports organizations in Ukraine as ROC members, since this violates the territorial integrity of Ukraine’s National Olympic Committee.
Russian President Vladimir Putin toasts with gold medalists of the 2022 Beijing Olympics at the Kremlin in Moscow, on April 26, 2022. (Sputnik/Kremlin via Reuters)
The ROC had recognized Olympic Councils from the regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia — parts of Ukraine that Russia has unilaterally declared as part of itself.
The ROC “is no longer entitled to operate as a National Olympic Committee … and cannot receive any funding from the Olympic Movement,” said the IOC, which “reserves the right to decide about the participation of individual neutral athletes with a Russian passport in the Olympic Games Paris 2024 and the Olympic Winter Games Milano Cortina 2026 at the appropriate time.” Russia remains excluded from international events in team sports, The Associated Press reports.
Ukrainian servicemen ride a tank in the Donetsk region, Ukraine, on Sept. 28. More tanks and other military gear could be on the way to Ukraine from the Czech Republic and Denmark.
© Reuters
5:30 p.m. The Czech Republic and Denmark will jointly supply heavy military equipment to Ukraine in the coming months, the Czech Defense Ministry says. The Czech-made supplies, financed from the Danish budget, would include tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, handguns and ammunition.
4:28 p.m. The Russian ruble leaped more than 3% on Thursday to a more than two-week high past 96 to the dollar after President Vladimir Putin ordered the mandatory sale of foreign currency revenues for some exporters to buttress the Russian currency. The ruble collapsed to a record low in the weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, after which authorities imposed similar capital controls that saw the rouble recover to a seven-year high. But it has charted a steadily downward course this year, under pressure from capital outflows, falling exports and recovering imports.
3:48 p.m. Russia and India are in discussions about a summit between President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Narendra Modi this year, India’s ambassador to Moscow was quoted by Russian news agency RIA as saying. “It is being discussed. There are high-level discussions going on,” Ambassador Pavan Kapoor said.
The latest U.S. package of military aid for Ukraine includes ammunition for HIMARS rocket systems, showing here during a live fire exercise.
© Reuters
1:25 a.m. The U.S. says it will send up to $200 million in military supplies to Ukraine in its latest package of support.
The package includes additional air defense capabilities, anti-tank weapons, additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and other equipment, according to a statement from the Pentagon.
12:02 a.m. Ukraine received a $1.15 billion grant from the U.S. as part of the PEACE in Ukraine program, reports Reuters, citing the Ukrainian Finance Ministry. The PEACE (Public Expenditures for Administrative Capacity Endurance) in Ukraine project has been the World Bank’s flagship financing instrument for Kyiv during the war.
Wednesday, Oct. 11
11:55 p.m. Denmark, the Netherlands and the U.S. will spearhead a new international coalition to help Ukraine establish a future air force based on F-16 fighter jets, the Danish Defense Ministry said, according to Reuters.
The new coalition intends to build infrastructure around F-16s, including maintenance facilities to support the operation of the planes, the ministry said in a statement. Denmark and the Netherlands were the first two countries to commit to donating F-16 jets to Ukraine, which currently has an air force fleet of aging Soviet-era fighter jets.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group ahead of a two-day NATO Defense Ministers Council at the alliance headquarters in Brussels on Oct. 11.
© Reuters
6:00 p.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked NATO allies on Wednesday for more weapons and air defense systems to tide his country over another wartime winter as it braces for a further barrage of Russian attacks on power stations and infrastructure. Zelenskyy was making his first visit to NATO headquarters since Russia’s invasion last year, at a time when turbulence in the U.S. Congress threatens to disrupt aid for Kyiv and world attention is being drawn to the crisis unfolding in Israel.
2:30 p.m. China will host its third Belt and Road Forum next week, its foreign ministry says, a signature event for President Xi Jinping that his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, is due to attend on a rare trip abroad. The Beijing conference on Oct. 17-18 marks the 10th anniversary of the Xi-championed Belt and Road Initiative. Representatives from many developing countries, notably from Latin America and Africa, are expected to attend. Putin attended the two previous forums, in 2017 and 2019, and the Kremlin said in September he had accepted an invitation to next week’s gathering and for talks with Xi.
7:30 a.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin says the recent violence between Israel and the Palestinians showed that U.S. policy had failed in the Middle East and had ignored the needs of Palestinians. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Kremlin was in touch with both sides and would seek a role in resolving the conflict. Peskov warned that the conflict risked spilling over into other regions. During talks with visiting Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani, Putin blamed the escalation on years of U.S. policy. “I think that many people will agree with me that this is a vivid example of the failure of United States policy in the Middle East,” he said.
1:13 a.m. Germany announces new support for Ukraine, with a roughly 1 billion euro ($1.06 billion) air defense package and a more than 20 million euro package of vehicles, weapons and personal equipment. The air defense package includes the Patriot and IRIS-T systems.
Germany is thus “further increasing the operational readiness of the Ukrainian armed forces in the coming months,” Defense Minister Boris Pistorius says.
1:00 a.m. Russia fails in its bid to return to the United Nations’ top human rights body. In a secret ballot, Russia won 83 votes versus 160 for Bulgaria and 123 for Albania, which had competed against it in the same eastern Europe grouping for two seats on the Geneva-based Human Rights Council for a three-year term beginning on Jan. 1.
Tuesday, Oct. 10
The Finnish government said on Oct. 10 that the Balticconector gas pipeline may have been deliberately damaged. (Elering via Reuters)
11:01 p.m. A subsea gas pipeline and a telecommunications cable connecting Finland and Estonia under the Baltic Sea have been damaged in what may have been a deliberate act, the Finnish government says, according to Reuters.
The Balticconnector gas pipeline was shut early on Sunday on concerns that gas was leaking from a hole in the 77-kilometer pipeline. Finnish operator Gasgrid said it could take months or more to repair.
10:07 p.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he had “good news” on artillery and air defense supplies after talks with Romanian President Klaus Iohannis in Bucharest, but gave no details, reports Reuters.
“My main accent today was air defense. And I’m glad that Ukraine was heard by the Romanian side,” Zelenskyy, who has been seeking more arms to defend Ukraine against Russia’s invasion, tells a joint press conference in the Romanian capital.
A drone is launched during a military exercise in Iran. Ukraine says that Russia fired drones overnight that were made in the Middle Eastern nation. Iranian Army/WANA/Handout via Reuters
3:20 p.m. Russia launched 36 Iranian-made attack drones against southern Ukraine overnight, damaging infrastructure in the Odesa region, authorities say. The strikes targeted the Odesa, Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, the Ukrainian military reported, adding that air defense systems destroyed 27 drones. Odesa’s governor, Oleh Kiper, said unspecified “logistics infrastructure” had been struck but that no injuries were reported.
10:00 a.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to hold talks in the Kremlin on Tuesday with Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani on bilateral issues and the developing situation in the Middle East. “Issues of developing multifaceted Russian-Iraqi cooperation, as well as current topics on the international agenda, primarily the situation in the Middle East, will be discussed in detail,” the Kremlin said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.
A ship carrying Ukrainian grain passes through the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Turkey on Sept. 24.
© Reuters
7:00 a.m. Top United Nations trade official Rebeca Grynspan met with Russian officials in Moscow on Monday for talks aimed at enabling “unimpeded access” to global markets for grain and fertilizer from Russia and Ukraine, a U.N. spokesperson said. U.N. aid chief Martin Griffiths attended the meetings virtually, U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said. U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “continues in his determination to facilitate the unimpeded access to global markets for food products and fertilizers from both Ukraine and the Russian Federation,” Dujarric added.
2:10 a.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says on Monday that it was in Russia’s interests to stoke war in the Middle East to weaken global unity.
“Based on available information — very clear information — it is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East to create a new source of pain and suffering that would weaken global unity, create divisions and help Russia in undermining freedom in Europe,” Zelenskyy says in his nightly video address.
Zelenskyy says Russians propagandists were “gloating” at developments and that Iran, which he described as Moscow’s ally, was openly supporting those attacking Israel.
In a call on Sunday with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Zelenskyy says Ukraine was in “solidarity with Israel, which is enduring a brazen, large-scale attack.”
For earlier updates, click here.
