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🔴 Live: French and UK defence ministers visit Kyiv for talks on more military aid for Ukraine
French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu and UK Defence Minister Grant Shapps arrived in Kyiv on Thursday for discussions on supplying more military aid to Ukraine. Their visit comes as Ukraine’s military said air defences shot down dozens of drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks. Follow our liveblog for the latest developments on the war in Ukraine. All times are Paris time (GMT+2).
Issued on: 28/09/2023 – 08:08
Modified: 28/09/2023 – 12:06
5 min
French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu (L) looks at Ukraine’s wall of remembrance during his visit to Kyiv on September 28, 2023.
French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu (L) looks at Ukraine’s wall of remembrance during his visit to Kyiv on September 28, 2023. © Sergei Supinsky, AFP
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FRANCE 24
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12:03pm: Russian shelling damaged thermal power plant in southern Ukraine, says grid operator
Russian shelling damaged a thermal power plant in southern Ukraine late on Wednesday, Ukraine’s national grid operator said on Thursday.
State-run Ukrenergo gave no other details about the location of the plant or the extent of the damage.
“Yesterday evening a thermal power plant in the southern region was damaged as a result of massive enemy shelling,” Ukrenergo said.
11:57am: Russia to hike defence spending by nearly 70 percent in 2024, according to finance ministry
Russia is set to hike defence spending by almost 70 percent in 2024, a finance ministry document published Thursday showed, as Moscow pours resources into its war in Ukraine.
The document said defence spending was set to jump by over 68 percent year-on-year to almost 10.8 trillion rubles ($111.15 billion), totalling around six percent of GDP – more than spending allocated for social policy.
11:17am: Ukraine’s FM Kuleba says grain exports row with Poland hurts both countries
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said an escalating grain exports dispute between Kyiv and Warsaw was detrimental to both countries in an interview published Thursday.
“We have conveyed clear signals to Poland about our commitment to a constructive solution to this situation. We don’t need this grain war and neither does Poland,” Kuleba told Interfax-Ukraine, warning the row could worsen ahead of Polish elections next month.
10:30am: UK and French defence ministers visit Kyiv
The UK and French defence ministers were in Kyiv on Thursday to discuss supplying additional military aid to Ukraine, which is seeking more weapons to bolster its counteroffensive against Russian forces.
“I’ve been back to Kyiv this week to ask Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky what he needs to win,” UK Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said of his first trip to the Ukrainian capital in that role.
Ukrainian Defence Minister Rustem Umerov thanks his UK counterpart for visiting Kyiv on September 28, 2023.
French Defence Minister Sébastien Lecornu arrived in Kyiv on Thursday alongside several defence industry officials.
The visits came ahead of Kyiv’s first Defence Industries Forum, where Ukrainian officials were set to meet representatives from over 160 defence firms and 26 countries.
Ukraine has repeatedly asked for more Western weapons, including longer-range missiles, to help break through Russian positions and launch strikes deep within Russian-controlled territory.
10:03am: France urges Turkey and Hungary to ‘deliver’ on Swedish bid to join NATO
French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna on Thursday urged Turkey and Hungary to approve Sweden’s stalled bid to join NATO.
“We would like to see Sweden in NATO and we would like to see Turkey and Hungary delivering on what they agreed,” Colonna told reporters in Helsinki.
7:21am: Ukrainian air defences destroy more than 30 drones launched by Russia overnight
Russia launched a “massive” drone attack overnight and that more than 30 Russian unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been destroyed, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.
UAVs were intercepted over Black Sea coastal regions and also further inland, said Nataliya Gumenyuk, a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian southern military command.
Russia “does not stop the pressure and searching for new tactics: namely, with the use of mass attacks”, Gumenyuk said on the Telegram messaging platform.
“Tonight, several groups of strike UAVs were launched … air defence worked along almost the entire southern direction – in Odesa, Mykolaiv regions. Also, much higher north – the enemy aimed its attacks on central Ukraine,” she said.
“The consequences of the attack are being clarified now, because it was indeed a massive one. … However, the air defence work was quite effective. Over 30 UAVs were destroyed.”
Since July, when Moscow pulled out of a UN-brokered deal allowing safe grain shipments via the Black Sea, Russia has ramped up attacks on Ukraine’s grain-exporting infrastructure in the southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions.
1:02am: Ukrainian troops repel Russian attacks on eastern front, say military officials
Ukrainian troops held off determined attacks on Wednesday by Russian forces trying to regain lost positions on the eastern front, military officials said, while analysts suggested Kyiv’s forces were also making progress in the southern theatre.
The Ukrainian military launched its counteroffensive in June intending to recoup ground in the east and in the past two weeks announced the capture of two key villages, Andriivka and Klishchiivka, near the war-shattered city of Bakhmut.
Its forces are also trying to advance southward to the Sea of Azov to sever a land bridge established by Russia between annexed Crimea and positions that Moscow holds in the east.
Ilia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s eastern group of forces, told national television: “We continue to repel intense enemy attacks near Klishchiivka and Andriivka. The enemy is still storming these positions with the hope of recapturing lost positions, but without success.”
Key developments from Wednesday, September 27:
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Talks with Ukraine about grain imports are going in a good direction, the Polish agriculture minister said on Wednesday, after a dispute between the two countries over Warsaw’s decision to extend a ban.
Russian state media once again broadcast undated footage of Black Sea Fleet commander Viktor Sokolov, whom Kyiv claimed to have killed in a missile attack targeting the fleet’s headquarters in annexed Crimea. Although it is impossible to tell when the footage was recorded, its broadcast is likely meant to suggest that the naval commander is still alive.
Several hundred members of Russia’s Wagner private mercenary group have returned to eastern Ukraine to fight but are not having a significant impact on the battlefield, a Ukrainian military spokesperson said on Wednesday. “We have recorded the presence of a maximum of several hundred fighters of the former Wagner PMC (private military company),” said Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the eastern military command. He added that Wagner fighters were scattered in different places and were not part of a single unit.
Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.
© France Médias Monde graphic studio
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)
