Ukraine claimed responsibility for a missile attack Friday on the headquarters of Russia’s navy in Crimea, delivering a major blow for Moscow as it suffers a string of attacks on the strategically significant port in recent months. 

“The headquarters of the fleet have been hit in an enemy attack,” said Mikhail Razvozhayev, the Russian-installed governor of Sevastopol. 

Video footage on social media showed plumes of thick smoke coming out of the Russian naval headquarters in the region.

“Ukraine’s defense forces launched a successful attack on the headquarters of the command of the Black Sea fleet of Russia in the temporarily occupied Sevastopol,” the Ukrainian army said on Telegram. 

According to Russia’s defense ministry, one serviceman was missing. The ministry reported that its historic headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet were damaged. 

The Crimean Peninsula was simultaneously hit by an “unprecedented cyberattack” on its internet providers, said Oleg Kryuchkov, an adviser to the Crimea governor.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted naval facilities in Crimea in recent weeks, while the brunt of its summer counteroffensive makes slow gains in the east and south of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War said Thursday. 

Military experts say it is essential for Ukraine to keep up its attacks on targets in Crimea to degrade Russian morale and weaken its military.

The attack came a day after Russia pounded cities across Ukraine with missiles and artillery strikes, killing at least five people. 

A Russian attack injured 13 people in a town west of the Ukrainian city of Donetsk, close to Ukraine’s eastern front, a local official said early Friday. 

Two airstrikes on the town caused a fire, Roman Padun, the administrative head of the town of Kurakhove, told public broadcaster Suspilne.

Russia and Ukraine have recently experienced “unusually intense” attacks “deep behind their lines,” the British Defense Ministry said Friday in its daily intelligence update on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In the last four days, the ministry said there have been reports of explosions at Russian logistics sites, air bases and command posts in Crimea, the Russian Krasnodar region and near Moscow.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Thursday that Russian forces carried out aerial attacks on multiple cities overnight, killing at least two people. 

Ukraine’s military described the Russian action as a “massive missile attack on the civilian infrastructure of a number of regions.” 

Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor of Kherson, said a Russian strike hit a residential building, killing two people and injuring five others.

Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Telegram that debris fell on the Ukrainian capital after air defenses shot down Russian missiles.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said seven people were injured and several buildings were damaged.

In northeastern Ukraine, the regional governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said at least six Russian strikes hit the city of Kharkiv and damaged civilian infrastructure. 

Russia said Thursday it destroyed 19 Ukrainian drones over the annexed Crimean Peninsula and nearby Black Sea.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it downed three Ukrainian drones over the Kursk, Belgorod and Orlov regions of Russia. 

Poland tensions

On Friday, Poland’s prime minister told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy not to “insult” Poles, sustaining harsh rhetoric toward Kyiv despite the Polish president’s efforts to defuse a dispute over grain imports.

Brewing tensions between Poland and Ukraine over grain imports will not significantly affect good bilateral relations, Polish President Andrzej Duda said Friday at a business conference. “I have no doubt that the dispute over the supply of grain from Ukraine to the Polish market is an absolute fragment of the entire Polish-Ukrainian relations.” 

Tensions have been growing between Poland and Ukraine since Warsaw started it’s temporary ban on imports of grain from Ukraine to protect Polish farmers.

Ukraine pushed for a deal with Poland Thursday to end the grain restrictions.

In his address to the United Nations General Assembly this week, Zelenskyy said Kyiv is working to preserve land routes for the export of grain, but he added that the “political theater” surrounding the import of grain only helps Moscow.

“I … want to tell President Zelenskyy never to insult Poles again, as he did recently during his speech at the U.N.,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki was quoted as saying by state-run news agency PAP.

Poland said Thursday it will only supply Ukraine with previously agreed upon deliveries of ammunition and armaments.  

The statement from a government spokesperson came a day after Morawiecki announced an end to weapons transfers to Ukraine as Poland works to arm itself “with the most modern weapons.” 

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
…

Southern African countries that allow trophy hunting are relieved after a bill seeking to ban the import of legally obtained wildlife trophies from Africa into the United Kingdom was blocked in the House of Lords this week.

The trophy-hunting bill, championed by conservationists, sailed through the House of Commons and appeared set to win approval in Britain’s House of Lords.

However, a group of peers successfully blocked the legislation, which would have banned the importation of wildlife trophies into the U.K.

A U.K.-based conservation biologist, Keith Lindsay, said it is a shame the bill did not succeed.

“It is [a] great injustice that unrelated peers in the British House of Lords can block the passage of legislation that was already approved by an overwhelming majority of elected MPs from all parts of the Commons and all parties,” Lindsay said. 

Peers who opposed the bill argued that politicians failed to listen to experts and ignored the science on trophy hunting.

Lindsay disagreed, saying there are scientists opposed to trophy hunting.

“There are in fact many biologists and conservationists who are concerned about the negative impact of selective hunting on wildlife populations that are already under pressure from poaching and land use conversion,” he said. “There are many communities in parts of Africa, other than a handful in southern Africa, who value their animals alive.”

Five southern African countries — Botswana, South Africa, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe — released a statement Friday thanking the group of peers for blocking the proposed law.

Botswana’s Siyoka Simasiku, who was part of a committee of conservationists from southern African countries that traveled to the U.K. to lobby against the bill, was elated with the outcome.

“We are really happy that it has not gone through just for the reason that it was going to be detrimental to the gains that conservation has done over the years,” Simasiku said.

“We believe in sustainable utilization of biodiversity within our communities,” he said. “Our communities have actually, [from] generation to generation, protected wildlife within their area, which is why we see growth in wildlife numbers.”

Botswana has earned millions of dollars by allowing trophy hunters to shoot and kill a limited number of elephants and other animals each year.

Simasiku said that had the bill won approval in Britain, other Western countries would likely have followed suit.

“This was going to move to other countries that have ties with the U.K. and, at the end of the day, our communities will be at loss,” he said.

Despite the bill’s failure, Britain’s Labor Party is already leading calls to resurrect the legislation.
…

A U.N. human rights expert says repression against dissidents and civil and political rights in the Russian Federation has reached unprecedented levels since the country’s invasion of Ukraine.

In her first report as Special Rapporteur of human rights in Russia, Mariana Katzarova told the United Nations Human Rights Council that Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine “has been followed by a rapid deterioration of the human rights situation.”

She said the incremental and calculated restrictions on human rights in Russia over the past two decades “have culminated in the current state policy of criminalizing any actual or perceived dissent and bolstering support for the war” through censorship, state sponsorship propaganda, and state-controlled information sources.

During an interactive dialogue at the Council Thursday and Friday, Katzarova told delegates that Russian authorities had attempted to obstruct her work by denying her access to their territory and preventing her from meeting various stakeholders, including government officials, victims of human rights violations, civil society, and law enforcement.

“But this did not stop me from receiving information from almost 200 sources both within and outside Russia,” she said.

Between the start of the war in Ukraine and June of this year, she said over 20,000 people have been detained for participating in largely peaceful anti-war protests and more than 600 criminal lawsuits have been initiated against so-called “anti-war activity.”

“I have received credible reports of torture and ill-treatment against protesters, including allegations of rape and other sexual violence, committed by law enforcement officials against both women and men in detention,” she said.

Katzarova also said there has been a surge in politically motivated prosecutions, with over 500 new cases last year alone, noting that at least 82 such cases were initiated in the first seven months of this year.

“The indictment of Wall Street Journal reporter, Evan Gershkovich, on charges of espionage, highlights the recent use of such charges against investigative journalists and people with no access to state secrets,” she said.

Speaking to journalists in Geneva, Katzarova said Gershkovich’s case and those of political figures such as Alexei Navalny, journalist Vladimir Kara-Murza, and Russian opposition politicians Ilya Yashin and Alexey Gorinov, highlight the importance of her mandate as a bridge to the Russian people.

She said she considered her mandate to be “a voice for the people of the Russian Federation … for the victims of civil society, for those who dare to speak out against the war in Ukraine and get really punished for that.”

She said she was prepared to listen to anybody in the Russian Federation and “to receive their submissions or their complaints or their grievances and bring them back to the Russian authorities and the international community.”

Katzarova called on the international community to continue to seek engagement with Russian authorities to secure the immediate release of all political prisoners and to put in place comprehensive policies to protect and enable the vital work of human rights defenders.

Russia boycotted the meeting. Most of the delegates participating in the discussion following the rapporteur’s presentation expressed concern about the worsening human rights situation in Russia.

They condemned crackdowns on opponents of the war in Ukraine. They lambasted Russia’s restrictions on civil society, and the silencing of journalists and human rights defenders who have spoken out against the war.

Several countries criticized Russia’s oppressive treatment of various minorities. They deplored recent attacks against LGBTQI persons and the denial of the rights of these groups.

While Russia chose not to confront its detractors, some allied countries came to its defense. Syria, for example, expressed full support for Russia’s position, calling the Rapporteur’s report “baseless, subjective, and full of misleading and baseless allegations.” It said the council should immediately end this destructive approach and states should stop interfering in Russia’s sovereign affairs.

The representative from Nicaragua rejected what she called the manipulation by the Special Rapporteur on Russia. She said the mandate was promoted by Western States who aim to destabilize Russia.

Cuba rejected the report as a selective politicized exercise against a specific country under the guise of human rights and without the consent of the concerned country.
…

China, Russia and the United States have all built new facilities and dug new tunnels at their nuclear test sites in the last few years, reports CNN, citing satellite images that show the new construction and increased vehicle traffic coming in and out of the sites.

The images were “exclusively” obtained and provided by a prominent analyst in military nonproliferation studies, according to the CNN report Friday.

“There are really a lot of hints that we’re seeing that suggest Russia, China and the United States might resume nuclear testing,” the news outlet quoted Jeffrey Lewis, an adjunct professor at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies.

None of the countries have conducted nuclear tests since they were banned by the 1996 Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Lewis said the Russian military’s poor performance in Ukraine may have prompted Russia to consider a resumption of nuclear testing.

CNN notes the activity takes place “at a time when tensions between the three major nuclear powers have risen to their highest in decades.”
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was greeted by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Ottawa late Thursday after a whirlwind visit to Washington.

Zelenskyy will address Canada’s Parliament on Friday, his first time speaking to the assembly since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy and Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau are also scheduled to sign an agreement designed to strengthen economic ties between the two countries.

Trudeau said in a statement before the Ukrainian leader’s arrival, “Canada remains unwavering in our support to the people of Ukraine as they fight for their sovereignty and their democracy, as well as our shared values, like respect for the rule of law, freedom, and self-determination.”

The two leaders will also travel to Toronto, where they will meet with Canadians, including business leaders and members of the Ukrainian-Canadian community.

Zelenskyy swept through Washington in a diplomatic blitz Thursday, winning a pledge of continued support from President Joe Biden and delivering a bold message: Without another tranche of U.S. funding to combat Russian aggression, Ukraine will lose the war.

“The United States is going to continue to stand with you,” Biden told Zelenskyy at the White House.

Biden on Thursday released another $325 million for weapons for Ukraine, which did not include the long-range missiles Ukraine has asked for.

“Today I’m in Washington to strengthen our position, to defend Ukraine, our children, our families and our homes, freedom and democracy in the world,” Zelenskyy said, seated in the Oval Office in his signature green fatigues. “And I started my day in the U.S. Congress to thank the members and the people of America for that big, huge support.”

Earlier in the day, Zelenskyy met with legislators on Capitol Hill to appeal for $24 billion in supplemental funding the White House requested earlier this year. There is growing Republican concern about providing U.S. aid to Ukraine, combined with broader difficulties passing either a short-term continuing resolution or a full 2024 budget funding the U.S. government past a Sept. 30 deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer summed up the meeting with Zelenskyy, telling the members, “if we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war.”

Later, in a statement, Schumer emphasized the danger of not passing the supplemental funding request, saying, “It is very clear that if we were to have a government shutdown, or pass a CR [continuing resolution] without Ukrainian aid, the damage that would occur on Ukraine’s campaign would be devastating.”

The United Nations estimates that at least 27,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed in the 19-month conflict, including about 600 children but its human rights commission, which conducts such counts, “believes that the actual figures are considerably higher.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a major supporter in the Senate of U.S. aid to Ukraine, was tight-lipped afterward, telling reporters only that it was “a good meeting.”

On Wednesday, McConnell applauded the appointment of an inspector general for the oversight of Ukraine aid.

“Thanks in large part to the requirements Senate Republicans have attached to our aid since the beginning of Russia’s escalation, the United States has unprecedented visibility into how Ukraine is using American weapons,” McConnell said in a statement.

Zelenskyy also met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday ahead of a Pentagon announcement of a new security package of more air defense and artillery capabilities for Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary Brigadier General Patrick Ryder told reporters Thursday “everything is on schedule” for the delivery of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine. He added that if there is a government shutdown, F-16 aircraft training in the U.S. for Ukrainian pilots would still take place.

From the beginning of hostilities in February 2022 to May of this year, the U.S. has provided more than $76.8 billion in assistance, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The share of Americans who say the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine has steadily increased since the start of the war, according to a June Pew Research Center survey.

Just 14% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters said the amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine was excessive, but more than 44% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said the amount of aid was too high. One-third of all Americans told Pew that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a threat to U.S. interests.

On the House side of the U.S. Capitol, where concerns are growing in the Republican majority about continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine, the reception for Zelenskyy was far more muted. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with the Ukrainian president behind closed doors, but the speaker’s office did not release any photographs of the meeting.

“It was a very candid, open, forward-looking discussion,” Jeffries said in his weekly press conference Thursday.

Jeffries said the war between Ukraine and Russia is “a struggle on the global stage between democracy and autocracy, between freedom and tyranny, between truth and propaganda, between good and evil.”

More conservative members of the Republican majority have objected to passing the Ukraine supplemental request along with funding for the U.S. government.

In an opinion piece published earlier this week by the Fox News network, Republican Representative Mike Waltz wrote that “while most Americans are sympathetic to Ukraine and understand that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be prevented from his goal of recreating the old Soviet Union, President Joe Biden has not been a good-faith partner. The Biden administration has neither explained the American objective in Ukraine nor his strategy to achieve it.”

Waltz went on to call for greater sharing of the burden of aid to Ukraine by European countries and said, “The United States must invest its savings in its own security. It should match the dollar value of any aid it gives to Ukraine with securing our southern border.”

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the U.S. is in the top tier of countries providing aid to Ukraine, giving between 0.25% and 0.45% of its annual gross domestic product to aiding Ukraine, while Scandinavian countries such as Sweden provide slightly more, at 0.75%.

Most Republicans recognize the need for more aid.

“They need it and they’re going to get it,” Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters after Zelenskyy’s meeting Thursday morning with lawmakers.

“The majority support this. I know there’s some dissension on both sides, but as I said, war of attrition is not going to win. That’s what Putin wants because he wants to break the will of the American people and the Europeans. We can’t afford a war of attrition. We need a plan for victory.”

McCaul went on to say that lawmakers pressed Zelenskyy on several issues, including “accountability, speed of weapons [delivery] and a plan for victory.”

But after a full day of meetings, Biden and Zelenskyy took to the the White House in what appeared to be a visceral appeal to the public.

“The people of Ukraine have shown enormous bravery and enormous bravery has inspired the world, really inspired the world with their determination to defend these principles,” Biden said. “And together with our partners and allies, the American people are determined to see to it that we do all we can to ensure the world stands with you.”
…

Ukraine’s president on Thursday wrapped up his US public relations blitz for military support and for his 10-point peace plan with meetings on Capitol Hill, at the Pentagon, and in the Oval Office with President Joe Biden. VOA’s Anita Powell looks at the diplomatic, performative aspect of the Ukraine conflict from the stage that is the White House.
…

A Russian attack on a town west of Donetsk close to Ukraine’s eastern front injured 13 people, a local official said early Friday in Ukraine.

Two airstrikes on the town caused a fire, Roman Padun, administrative head of the town of Kurakhove, told public broadcaster Suspilne.

On Thursday, the Ukrainian military said its forces had hit a Russian air base in Crimea, which a Russian-installed official on the annexed peninsula disputed.

Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Thursday that Russian forces carried out aerial attacks on multiple cities overnight, killing at least two people.

Ukraine’s military described the Russian action as a “massive missile attack on the civilian infrastructure of a number of regions.”

Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor of Kherson, said a Russian strike hit a residential building, killing two people and injuring five others.

Sergiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Telegram that debris fell on the Ukrainian capital after air defenses shot down Russian missiles.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said seven people were injured and several buildings were damaged.

In northeastern Ukraine, the regional governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said at least six Russian strikes hit the city of Kharkiv and damaged civilian infrastructure.

Russia said Thursday it destroyed 19 Ukrainian drones over the annexed Crimean Peninsula and nearby Black Sea.

The Russian defense ministry said it also downed three Ukrainian drones over the Kursk, Belgorod and Orlov regions of Russia.

Poland aid

Poland said Thursday it will only supply Ukraine with previously agreed to deliveries of ammunition and armaments.

The statement from a government spokesman came a day after Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki announced an end to weapons transfers to Ukraine as Poland works to arm itself “with the most modern weapons.”

There have been tensions between Poland and Ukraine since Poland instituted a temporary ban on imports of grain from Ukraine to protect Polish farmers.

Ukraine on Thursday pushed for a deal with Poland to end the grain restrictions.

“There is no person in Ukraine who would be interested in creating any problems for Polish farmers,” Ukraine’s ambassador to Poland, Vasyl Zvarych, told Poland’s state-run news agency PAP.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters.
…

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy made an urgent plea Thursday to U.S. lawmakers on Capitol Hill, telling them that without a new tranche of funding to combat Russian aggression, Ukraine will lose the war.

The White House requested $24 billion in supplemental funding for Ukraine earlier this year. But there is growing Republican concern about providing U.S. aid to Ukraine, combined with broader difficulties passing either a short-term continuing resolution or a full 2024 budget funding the U.S. government past a September 30 deadline.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer summed up the meeting with Zelenskyy, telling the members, “If we don’t get the aid, we will lose the war.”

Later in a statement, Schumer emphasized the danger of not passing the supplemental funding request, saying, “It is very clear that if we were to have a government shutdown, or pass a CR without Ukrainian aid, the damage that would occur on Ukraine’s campaign would be devastating.”

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, a major supporter of U.S. aid to Ukraine in the Senate, was tight-lipped afterwards, only telling reporters it was “a good meeting.”

On Wednesday, McConnell applauded the appointment of an inspector general for the oversight of Ukraine aid.

“Thanks in large part to the requirements Senate Republicans have attached to our aid since the beginning of Russia’s escalation, the United States has unprecedented visibility into how Ukraine is using American weapons,” McConnell said in a statement.

Zelenskyy also met with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin on Thursday ahead of a Pentagon announcement of a new security package of more air defense and artillery capabilities for Ukraine.

Pentagon press secretary, Brigadier General Patrick Ryder, told reporters Thursday that “everything is on schedule” with the delivery of M1 Abrams tanks to Ukraine and that if there is a government shutdown, F-16 training in the U.S. for Ukrainian pilots would still take place.

From the beginning of hostilities in February 2022 to May 2023, the U.S. has provided more than $76.8 billion in assistance, according to the Council on Foreign Relations.

The share of Americans who say the U.S. is providing too much aid to Ukraine has steadily increased since the start of the war in February 2022, according to a June 2023 Pew Research Center survey.

Just 14% of Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters said the amount of U.S. aid to Ukraine was excessive but more than 44% of Republican and Republican-leaning voters said the amount of aid was too high. One-third of all Americans told Pew that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was a threat to U.S. interests.

On the House side of the U.S. Capitol, where concerns are growing in the Republican majority about continuing U.S. aid to Ukraine, the reception for Zelenskyy was far more muted. Speaker Kevin McCarthy and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries met with the Ukrainian president behind closed doors, but the speaker’s office did not release any photographs of the meeting.

“It was a very candid, open, forward-looking discussion,” Jeffries said in his weekly press conference Thursday.

Jeffries said the war between Ukraine and Russia is “a struggle on the global stage between democracy and autocracy, between freedom and tyranny, between truth and propaganda, between good and evil.”

More-conservative members of the Republican majority have objected to passing the Ukraine supplemental request along with funding for the U.S. government.

In an opinion piece published earlier this week by news network Fox, Republican Representative Mike Waltz wrote that “while most Americans are sympathetic to Ukraine and understand that Russian President Vladimir Putin must be prevented from his goal of recreating the old Soviet Union, President Joe Biden has not been a good-faith partner. The Biden administration has neither explained the American objective in Ukraine nor his strategy to achieve it.”

Waltz went on to call for greater burden sharing of aid to Ukraine by European countries and said “the United States must invest its savings in its own security. It should match the dollar value of any aid it gives to Ukraine with securing our southern border.”

According to the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, the U.S. is in the top tier of countries providing aid to Ukraine, giving from 0.25% to 0.45% of its annual gross domestic product to aiding Ukraine, while Scandinavian countries such as Sweden provide slightly more at 0.75%.

But most Republicans recognize the need to include more aid.

“They need it and they’re going to get it,” Republican Representative Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told reporters after Zelenskyy’s meeting Thursday morning with lawmakers.

“The majority support this. I know there’s some dissension on both sides, but as I said, war of attrition is not going to win. That’s what Putin wants because he wants to break the will of the American people and the Europeans. We can’t afford a war of attrition. We need a plan for victory.”

McCaul went on to say that lawmakers pressed Zelenskyy on several issues, including “accountability, speed of weapons [delivery] and a plan for victory.”

Jeff Seldin contributed to this report.
…

Washington said Thursday that Poland remained a close ally of Ukraine, after Warsaw said it would no longer provide Kyiv with weapons amid an escalating dispute over food imports.

At a press briefing Thursday, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan played down the dispute.

“When I read the headlines this morning, I was of course concerned and had questions. But I’ve subsequently seen the Polish government spokesman come out to clarify that in fact Poland’s provision of equipment, including things like Polish-manufactured Howitzers, is continuing and that Poland continues to stand behind Ukraine,” Sullivan said.

Weapons transfers

Questioned about his country’s support for Kyiv on Wednesday, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that no new weapons would be sent to Ukraine.

“We are no longer transferring any weapons to Ukraine because we are now arming ourselves with the most modern weapons,” he told Poland’s Polsat News.

Warsaw later clarified that it was continuing to supply arms and ammunition that were part of previously agreed upon deliveries.

Poland has until now been one of Ukraine’s closest allies since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. The country has taken in an estimated 1.6 million refugees and has provided Kyiv with significant military support, including German-made Leopard 2 and Soviet-era T-72 tanks, along with MiG-29 fighter jets.

“Poland has been one of the biggest supporters of Ukraine in terms of generating support to give the more risky weapon platforms — pushing the Germans and saying it was going to give tanks to sort of push the Germans and the U.K., and a similar way with fighter jets,” said Patrick Bury, a security analyst at Britain’s University of Bath.

Escalation

The timing and tone of Morawiecki’s words surprised many of Poland’s allies, said Marcin Zaborowski, policy director of the Future of Security Program at GLOBSEC, a Bratislava research group.

“I see a high level of escalation. The statement about stopping to send new arms to Ukraine was, in my opinion, completely unnecessary, and it echoed in a very negative way in the world,” Zaborowski told Reuters, adding that Polish elections set for October 15 were exacerbating the tensions.

“What an average Ukrainian citizen would hear is that Poles stop helping. Of course, there is hope that this rhetoric will be reversed after the elections, but some kind of capital of common trust, which has been built in the recent months, will be seriously tarnished.”

Grain imports

The dispute began after Poland, Hungary and Slovakia imposed unilateral bans on the import of some Ukrainian food products last week, after temporary European Union restrictions expired.

European states bordering Ukraine have provided a key alternative route to global markets for Ukraine, as Russia’s invasion cut off many routes through the Black Sea. However, several neighboring states claimed the Ukrainian imports were not transiting through Europe but were instead being sold on local markets and undercutting their own farmers.

Ukraine immediately lodged a complaint at the World Trade Organization. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told delegates at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday that it was “alarming to see how some in Europe … are helping set the stage for a Moscow actor.”

Ambassador summoned

Poland summoned the Ukrainian ambassador following Zelenskyy’s comments. Polish President Andrzej Duda likened Ukraine to a drowning man.

“Of course, we have to act in a way to protect ourselves from being harmed by the drowning one, because once the drowning man hurts us, it will not get help from us,” Duda told reporters Tuesday.

Both sides appeared to try to de-escalate the dispute Thursday. Ukraine’s agriculture minister said he had agreed with his Polish counterpart to work out a solution to the trade dispute. Kyiv also agreed to license its grain exports to Slovakia.

Russia likely sees splits in Western unity, Bury said.

“It’s not a good look, and of course that is how Russia will view it. Now the question is, do we give them any more evidence of it, or is that just a line drawn under it?” he told VOA.
…

British prosecutors said on Thursday they had authorized charges to be brought against five Bulgarian nationals accused of spying for Russia for almost three years.

The three men and two women are accused of “conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy” between Aug. 30, 2020 and Feb. 8, 2023, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said.

The alleged spies were named as Orlin Roussev, 45, Bizer Dzhambazov, 41, Katrin Ivanova, 31, Ivan Stoyanov, 31, and Vanya Gaberova, 29, all Bulgarian nationals who lived in London and Norfolk.

They are due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Sept. 26.

“The charges follow an investigation by the Metropolitan Police,” said Nick Price, head of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorism Division. “Criminal proceedings against the five individuals are active and they each have the right to a fair trial.”

Roussev, Dzhambazov, and Ivanova had already been charged in February with identity document offenses, the CPS said.
…

The Bank of England has paused nearly two years of interest rate increases after a surprising fall in U.K. inflation eased concerns about the pace of price rises.

In a development Thursday that few predicted just two days ago, the central bank kept its main interest rate unchanged at a 15-year high of 5.25%. It comes to the relief of millions of homeowners who are facing higher mortgage rates. 

The decision was split, with four of the nine members of the Monetary Policy Committee voting for a hike.

Central banks worldwide appear to be near the end of an aggressive rate-hiking cycle meant to curb an outburst of inflation triggered by the bounceback from the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine. The U.S. Federal Reserve left rates unchanged Wednesday.

Clearly influencing the bank’s decision was news Wednesday that inflation unexpectedly fell to 6.7% in August, its lowest level since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.

Inflation, however, is still way above the bank’s target rate of 2% and higher than in any other Group of Seven major economy.

Higher interest rates, which cool the economy by making it more expensive to borrow, have contributed to bringing down inflation worldwide.

But for many homeowners, the pain has yet to hit. Unlike in the U.S., for example, most homeowners in Britain lock in mortgage rates for only a few years, so those whose deals expire soon know that they face much higher borrowing costs in light of the sharp rise in interest rates over the past couple of years.

Like other central banks around the world, the Bank of England has raised interest rates aggressively from near zero as it sought to counter price rises first stoked by supply chain issues during the coronavirus pandemic and then Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which pushed up food and energy costs. U.K. inflation hit a peak of 11.1% in October 2022.

As inflation has eased, the hiking cycle looks to be nearing an end.

The Swiss National Bank joined the Fed in holding rates steady on Thursday, but in a busy day for central bank action in Europe, Sweden’s and Norway’s central banks pushed ahead with quarter-point hikes.

The European Central Bank, which sets interest rates for the 20 European Union countries that use the euro currency, last week hinted that its 10th straight hike could be its last. 
…

Representatives for ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh met Thursday with the Azerbaijan government to discuss the future of the breakaway region.

The talks in Yevlakh, Azerbaijan come a day after local fighters in Nagorno-Karabakh agreed to lay down their arms to end an offensive by Azerbaijan’s forces.

The U.N. Security Council is due to hold its own talks Thursday about the situation.

Gunfire was reported Thursday in the main city in Nagorno-Karabakh, which Armenians call Stepanakert and Azeris call Khankendi.  Ethnic Armenians accused Azerbaijan of violating the cease-fire, which Azerbaijan’s defense ministry denied.

Russia, which has peacekeepers in the region, said Thursday it had evacuated 5,000 civilians from the area.

Thousands of protesters gathered Wednesday in Yerevan, Armenia’s capital, to call on the government to protect Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh and for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to resign.

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev used a televised address Wednesday to claim victory, saying Azerbaijan had restored the region’s sovereignty.

Azerbaijan said it launched its operation Tuesday in response to landmine explosions that killed four soldiers and two civilians in the region.

The Nagorno-Karabakh region is entirely within Azerbaijan but is populated largely by ethnic Armenians and had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994.  Parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan after a war in 2020.

Some information for this story provided by the Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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Warming relations between North Korea and Russia could last as long as the war in Ukraine continues, making Pyongyang either disposable or expandable to Moscow, depending on its need for ammunition and interest in overturning the U.S.-led international order, experts said.

As U.S. President Joe Biden called on global leaders to support Ukraine at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un returned home after his six-day trip to Russia, during which he pledged to provide “full and unconditional support” for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Kim arrived in Pyongyang in his private train on Tuesday evening, North Korea’s state-run KCNA said the following day. His “good will visit” to Russia “opened a new chapter of the development” between the two countries, touted KCNA on Tuesday as Kim’s train crossed the border.

Using a slightly different tone from North Korea’s, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Friday that Kim and Putin did not sign any agreements on cooperation, military or otherwise.

Putin said during his meeting with Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Friday that Russia does not intend to violate any sanctions on North Korea. Putin made his remarks two days after meeting with Kim.

KCNA said on Sunday that Kim discussed defense and security cooperation and exchanges with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu in Vladivostok.

Kim’s trip included a summit with Putin at the Vostochny Cosmodrome satellite launch facility in Russia’s far eastern Amur region on Sept. 13 and inspections of fighter jets in Komsomolsk-on-Amur as well as the Pacific Fleet in Vladivostok on Saturday.

Although the specifics of possible but unsigned arms deals between Pyongyang and Moscow were not made public, world leaders gathered at the United Nations are concerned that North Korea and Russia would exchange items banned by the U.N.

In a statement issued Tuesday, the foreign ministers of the G7 countries expressed concerns over “Russia-North Korea cooperation” that “could lead to violation” of U.N. sanctions.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol warned in his speech before the U.N. on Wednesday that Seoul would consider any arms deals between the two nations “a direct provocation.”

North Korea needs technological help to send a spy satellite into orbit after failed attempts in May and August. But the technology used to launch satellites into orbit could be also used to enhance intercontinental ballistic missiles, which are banned by the U.N. sanctions on the North.

Russia wants to replenish its depleting stockpiles of ammunition and artillery shells to sustain its war in Ukraine. It turned to North Korea late last year for those weapons, the U.S. said, even though U.N. sanctions prohibit importing arms from Pyongyang.

Although their military needs brought Kim and Putin together, some experts say their new relationship is based on short-term transactional exchanges bound to end when their needs no longer exist.

Cho Han-Bum, a senior research fellow at the Korea Institute for National Unification, a think tank in Seoul, said the Kim-Putin bonding is a temporary alignment rooted in Russia’s need for weapons to fight in Ukraine.

“North Korea and Russian won’t be closely drawn together as they are now if Putin’s needs for the war in Ukraine are satisfied,” he said.

Won Gon Park, a professor of North Korean Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, agreed.

“The relationship between North Korea and Russia is a kind of marriage of convenience rather than strategic partnership,” he said.

Putin and Kim are cooperating to evade sanctions, he added, as both countries are isolated by international and U.S.-led sanctions designating them as countries that commit illegal acts.

Russia has been heavily sanctioned by the U.S.-led coalitions since its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. North Korea has been sanctioned by multiple U.N. Security Council resolutions for testing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, especially since 2016.

Attempts to pass new U.N. sanctions on North Korea’s record number of missile launches last year had been blocked by Russia and China, permanent members of the Security Council.

Other experts, however, view the war in Ukraine as unlikely to end soon and see a continuation of the Kim-Putin relationship despite differences in their trajectory of cooperation.

“Putin’s calculation is more short-term than Kim’s,” said Alexander Korolev, an expert in Russia’s foreign policy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

After Putin’s weaponry needs are fulfilled, “Kim could theoretically be disposed of at some point, but the problem is that the war in Ukraine is unlikely to end soon, and even if it ends, the sanctions regime against Russia will stay for longer, which makes Putin more willing to consider longer term cooperation,” Korolev said.

He added that Kim is not essential to Putin in countering the U.S.-led international order in the long run because “China is a better partner for that.”

“Moreover, given how close North Korea is to China, closer Russia-North Korea cooperation could be a convenient and less visible way for China to support Russia when necessary,” Korolev said.

The warming Kim-Putin relationship “is also about diversifying their options, such as exchanging and securing assets that cannot be gained from Beijing – particularly ammunition and military technologies,” said Ryo Hinata-Yamaguchi, a senior nonresident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Indo-Pacific Security Initiative at the Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.

Kim, on the other hand, might want “a longer-term partnership” as he needs “a whole range of things,” said Samuel Wells, a Cold War fellow at the Wilson Center.

But Putin is probably satisfied with short-term transactional exchanges because “the Russians don’t need that much from the North Koreans,” Wells said. “A lot of it depends on how the Ukraine war goes.”

Some expect the recent warming of Kim-Putin relations may outlast immediate needs for Russia’s war in Ukraine, evolving into strategic cooperation to overturn the U.S.-led international system, also their common goal.

“Even after the war in Ukraine, both of these countries will want to maintain this newly established allied relationship,” said Joseph DeTrani, special envoy for six-party denuclearization talks with North Korea during the George W. Bush administration.

“Both Putin and Kim want a long-term strategic partnership” to “challenge the U.S.-led international order” and each has the other to come to their aid during conflicts, he said.

Although North Korea is “a partner of convenience” for Russia, said Evan Revere, “Putin no doubt sees Pyongyang as a tactically useful partner because of its ability to challenge the U.S.-led alliance system.” Revere served as the acting secretary for East Asia and Pacific Affairs during the George W. Bush administration.

“Moscow finds the DPRK [North Korea] a ‘useful tool’ to remind the United States that, just as Washington is finding ways to hurt Russia by supporting Ukraine, Russia can threaten U.S. interests by supporting North Korea,” he added. 
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Ukrainian officials said Thursday that Russian forces carried out aerial attacks on multiple cities overnight, killing at least two people.

Ukraine’s military described the Russian action as a “massive missile attack on the civilian infrastructure of a number of regions.”

Oleksandr Prokudin, the regional governor of Kherson, said a Russian strike hit a residential building, killing two people and injuring five others.

Sergiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said on Telegram that debris fell on the Ukrainian capital after air defenses shot down Russian missiles.

Kyiv Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said seven people were injured and several buildings were damaged.

In northeastern Ukraine, the regional governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Syniehubov, said at least six Russian strikes hit the city of Kharkiv and damaged civilian infrastructure.

Russia said Thursday it destroyed 19 Ukrainian drones over the annexed Crimean Peninsula and nearby Black Sea.

The Russian defense ministry said it also downed three Ukrainian drones over the Kursk, Belgorod and Orlov regions of Russia.

Some information for this report came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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