Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.
Zelensky is expected to use his address to emphasize how the Kremlin’s invasion violates the United Nations’ most sacred principle of sovereignty of borders. “He will put forward some very specific steps that the organization can take to fortify the principle of territorial integrity,” Kuleba told The Post.
President Biden will also speak at the meeting ahead of Zelensky, according to a published schedule of the annual summit of world leaders. The two leaders must win the hearts and minds of developing nations that have increasingly called for a negotiated settlement with Russia because of the war’s toll on global food and energy prices.
Zelensky is also expected to meet with Biden in Washington later this week, his foreign minister said. The pair will hold talks, and Zelensky will also meet with leaders of both chambers and parties of Congress, as well as other senior American officials, Kuleba said. “The visit will reaffirm the unbreakable Ukrainian American partnership in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression and our shared determination to put an end to it through a Ukrainian victory,” he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin will travel to China to meet President Xi Jinping in October, Russian state media reported Tuesday. The pair will meet for bilateral talks in Beijing during a forum for China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative, Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of Russia’s Security Council, said after a meeting with China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi. Xi visited Moscow earlier this year, and the two leaders are not scheduled to attend the annual U.N. summit this week.
Ukraine’s cabinet dismissed seven top Defense Ministry officials, including Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, according to an update shared on Telegram. The announcement comes after Zelensky ousted defense chief Oleksii Reznikov this month, as the ministry grappled with corruption claims. No reason was provided for the dismissals in Monday’s announcement.
Germany will prepare a new military and humanitarian assistance package for Ukraine worth about $427 million, according to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Speaking to Bild, a German newspaper, the minister said the package will include ammunition, clothing and heat generators for the coming winter.
A Russian national accused of smuggling U.S.-sourced dual microelectronics that can be used for rifle scopes, night-vision goggles and thermal optics was arrested, the Justice Department said in a news release. Maxim Marchenko, 51, is accused of operating shell companies in Hong Kong for this purpose, the department added.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, discussed Ukraine, among other topics, during a meeting in Moscow. The two compared notes and “coordinated positions” on where the two countries stand on regional and international issues of common concern, including Ukraine, according to a readout by China’s Foreign Ministry.
Ukraine will file a complaint with the World Trade Organization against Poland, Slovakia and Hungary over bans on food imports from Ukraine, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said. He called the import bans a “violation of the norms” of trade and said Kyiv would launch an “anti-discrimination investigation against the unfriendly actions of these countries in the trade sphere.” He added that Ukraine could also impose similar bans on certain food items from those countries in retaliation.
Local officials in cities and regions across Ukraine said at least five people were killed in another night of Russian attacks. Local authorities in the Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kryvyi Rih and Khmelnytskyi regions reported overnight strikes early Tuesday. In the western city of Lviv, officials said three industrial warehouses were destroyed in strikes, with one man found dead under the rubble and about 10,000 square meters (about 2.5 acres) of land burned. In Kherson, officials said a police officer and another person were killed Tuesday by Russian artillery fire and two other civilians were hospitalized with injuries. Three civilians were reportedly killed in Kupyansk, in Kharkiv, emergency services said.
Zelensky’s first stop during his U.S. trip was to visit wounded Ukrainian troops rehabilitating in New York. “Thanks to the team of doctors who are helping our boys recover from their injuries,” Zelensky’s office said on Telegram. Photos showed the Ukrainian leader shaking hands with injured soldiers.
Whatever the fuss over Elon Musk, Starlink is utterly essential in Ukraine: The internet services provided by SpaceX, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, are critical to Ukrainian troops, Alex Horton and Serhii Korolchuk report. Losing Starlink, one Ukrainian soldier said, would force Ukraine to fall back on inferior alternatives such as radio. It could be done, he said, but it would require difficult trade-offs such as soldiers being forced to leave the relative safety of trenches to pass on information orally.
“If they stopped working at some point, it wouldn’t be the end of the world,” one Ukrainian deputy battalion commander said, “but it would significantly worsen our situation at the front, our effectiveness.”
Kostiantyn Khudov, Natalia Abbakumova and Lyric Li contributed to this report.
