September 30, 2023 Russia-Ukraine news

We’ve wrapped up our live coverage for the day. You can read more about Russia’s war in Ukraine here, or scroll through the posts below.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s?“vertical of power”?– the way in which the entire structure of Russian political power rests on one man – has undergone profound stress testing in the wake of the Wagner mercenary group’s?aborted march?on Moscow in June.

But everything is now business as usual, and the remnants of Wagner are back in the government’s control, if Kremlin messaging is to be believed.

In a?televised meeting?Friday, Putin met with Russia’s Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov and former Wagner commander Andrey Troshev, according to a partial transcript published by the Kremlin.

The meeting was held in a long-familiar format. Putin was seated at the head of a conference table with briefing papers and notes, making some general remarks before settling down to official business. The language was sober, competent and relatively substance-free: It could have been a routine meeting with a regional governor to discuss economic plans, at least judging by the official readout.

But unpack the language, and Putin’s Friday meeting appeared to put a reassuring gloss on the Russian government’s attempt to bring the mercenary group to heel.

Read more here:

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with senior former commander of the Wagner mercenary group Andrei Troshev and Deputy Defence Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov in Moscow, Russia, September 28, 2023.

Related article The message behind Putin's Wagner meeting | CNN

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell visited the city of Odesa on Saturday as part of a push to express solidarity and support for Ukraine, on the one-year anniversary of the illegal annexation of four Ukrainian regions by Russia.?

Speaking from inside?the Transfiguration Cathedral in Odessa, Borrell said the city of Odesa should be in the news headlines for its beauty and rich history, but instead, it has been in the headlines “for the barbaric attacks by Russia.”

Borrell said the EU will continue supporting Ukraine in its fight to recover its territorial integrity and achieve a just peace.

Some background: On September 30, 2022, Vladimir Putin said Russia would annex the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The regions together account for 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, a fifth of the country’s land mass. It marked the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

The Kremlin’s decision to seize the territories in violation of international law came after referendums widely panned as a sham, as people were voting both figuratively and, in some cases literally, at gunpoint.

A Ukrainian serviceman loads unguided missiles into a launcher of a military Mi-8 helicopter in an undisclosed location in Eastern Ukraine, on September 29, 2023. The inscription on the missile reads: "For friend Mykolaiv Levis. Glory to Ukraine".

Ukraine?is?ready?to?offer special conditions?to?companies that are willing?to?develop weapons production jointly with Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday.?

He made the comments as he met with representatives from defense companies from various countries, including the United States, United Kingdon, Germany, France, Turkey, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

“The sky shield and demining are the two biggest priorities for us?today,” Zelensky said, adding this includes air defense means and the production of systems for warning and surveillance. “We have?to?do this. This will be useful not only for?Ukraine, but also for Europe and our neighbors,” he said.?

Ukraine?is also interested in the production of long-range missiles and artillery with new capabilities. The combination of advanced technologies and military tactics will help?Ukraine prevail in the war against Russia, Zelensky said.?

“That is why we prioritize the development of defense production using modern technologies, production of shells, missiles, drones in?Ukraine?in cooperation with global leaders in the field and using our experience in their operation,” Zelensky said.?

“Ukraine?has shown the whole world what actually works, and I think we can share this experience,” he added.

Some context: CNN has previously reported on Ukraine’s burgeoning home-grown weapons industry.

Kyiv has been developing its own arms in part as it allows it to strike Russia outside of Ukraine without using Western-supplied arms.

The Ukrainian government plans to spend $1.5 billion on weapons and materiel production in 2024 – a sevenfold increase compared to last year – Prime Minister Denis Shmyhal said Saturday.

The increase was included in the government’s budget proposal for next year. The plans come as Kyiv has been using domestically produced missiles and drones to strike targets on Russian soil, beyond the front lines.

Shmyal touted the “new birth” of Ukraine’s weapons manufacturing sector at a defense industries event in Kyiv on Friday.

Speaking at a defense industries event in Kyiv on Friday

“We are launching new production facilities. We are expanding those that were producing results before the full-scale invasion. We are investing in new technologies and new developments,” he said. “We are ready to help everyone who produces high-quality weapons for our army.”

Zelensky touts industry: Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the audience at the International Defense Industries Forum in Kyiv on Saturday.

Zelensky said Ukraine would start producing 155 mm caliber artillery systems and shells, commonly used weapons during the war with Russia.

Thirty countries from Europe, North America, Asia and Oceania, as well as over?250 weapons manufacturing companies,?have representatives at the forum, he said.?

Read more about Ukraine’s burgeoning weapons industry here:

Men work at a factory producing drones for the Ukrainian Armed Forces on August 30, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

Related article Made in Ukraine: Kyiv's burgeoning weapons industry is enabling it to project power far beyond the front lines | CNN

A group of?Ukrainian soldiers?moves swiftly through a front-line training ground, overcoming obstacles and firing at distant targets. They are fine-tuning their battle skills here as Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces rages just few miles to the south.

One fighter, Danilo, who is only being identified by his first name for security reasons, stands out. He is fast and accurate, but his movements are different.

Another glance reveals the reason for his slight limp – he has a prosthetic limb where his lower right leg used to be.

“I’m still getting in the shape I used to be,” Danilo told CNN with a smirk. “There is still a lot of work ahead… And even more to the perfect shape.”

Danilo lost his lower right leg early in Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year. He and his unit were on a mission when they came under fire and he stepped on a landmine.

His maiming, and similar injuries to many others, both soldiers and civilians, are just one of the many consequences of Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky,?Moscow’s forces have littered?an estimated 170,000 square kilometers (65,637 square miles) of the Ukrainian countryside with landmines – an area the size of Florida – a large portion of them along the southern front, in a bid to halt Kyiv’s counteroffensive. International think tank GLOBSEC found Ukraine to be the?most mined country in the world?in a report published in April.

Read more about Danilo here:

Danilo lost his lower right leg early in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. He and his unit were on a mission when they became under fire.

Related article This Ukrainian soldier lost a leg to a landmine. Now he's back on the front line | CNN

Weapons believed to have been left behind by Russian troops. Portions of this photo have been blurred by the source.?

What could a pair of Ukrainians want with a nearly $1 million anti-aircraft missile system left behind by Russian troops?

That’s the question Kyiv regional police find themselves facing after announcing on Saturday that two individuals had squirreled away a Russian missile launcher and its ammunition.

A photograph released by police appears to show the missile system being hidden under a black tarp in a yard filled with tall grass and unkempt shrubs.

Police officers inspect weapons believed to have been left behind by Russian troops. Portions of this photo have been blurred by the source.?

The weaponry was believed to have been left behind by Russian troops after hostilities in the Chernihiv region, northwest of the capital of Kyiv, Kyiv regional police said in a statement released Saturday. Fighting there took place in the early days of the war.

The missile system and its ammunition were later moved, police said.

Two people, aged 38 and 45 and both from the Boryspil district southeast of the city of Kyiv, have been named as suspects in the case. One is accused of hiding the launcher in the Brovary district northeast of the city of Kyiv. The other stored the ammunition in a rented garage box in another part of the greater Kyiv region.

The two allegedly obtained the weapons illegally.

A police spokeswoman told CNN that the suspects did not explain why they did what they did, just that the weapons were hidden.

At least five people have been injured as a result of Russian attacks in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine on Saturday, though only one needed to be hospitalized, authorities said.

The individuals were hurt when Russian missiles struck the village of Matviivka between 10:06 a.m. and 10:20 a.m. local time, according to?Yurii Malashko, the head of the Ukrainian Zaporizhzhia region military?administration.

Malashko said five houses and a critical infrastructure facility were also damaged.

Zaporizhzhia and the eastern region of Donetsk have been rocked by heavy fighting in recent weeks.

A man walks with his bicycle past election billboards in Russian-controlled Melitopol on September 26,?2022.

In Russia, Friday was a call for celebration. In Ukraine, it was a worrying reminder of the dangers civilians face on the front lines.

It has now been one year since Russia said it would annex the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. The regions together account for 100,000 square kilometers (38,600 square miles) of Ukrainian territory, a fifth of the country’s land mass. It marked the largest forcible annexation of land in Europe since 1945.

The Kremlin’s decision to seize the territories in violation of international law came after referendums widely panned as a sham, as people were voting both figuratively and, in some cases literally, at gunpoint.

That did not stop Russian leader Vladimir Putin from declaring the millions of people living there would be Russian citizens “forever.”

One year later, Putin took to the airwaves to celebrate the move, falsely claiming the vote was conducted in compliance with international law. Hundreds gathered in Moscow’s Red Square for a celebratory concert to mark the occasion.

The anniversary saw the Kremlin take further steps toward achieving that goal as well. A decree that took effect Friday allowed Ukrainians to enter the country without visas, even if their documents have expired, and makes it easier for them and other citizens of former Soviet states to obtain Russian citizenship.

First fighting, now conscription: Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia have been home to some of the war’s fiercest fighting. Donetsk and Luhansk make up the Donbas – a rural part of Ukraine dotted with factories and coal fields where Russian-backed breakaway republics have been fighting Kyiv since 2014 – while Kherson and Zaporizhzhia were occupied by Russian forces at the outset of the invasion.

Ukraine intends to recapture all four regions, with Kyiv’s troops battling since the summer to push Russia’s troops back.

Civilians have been caught in the crossfire, but now those in Russian-controlled territory face a new danger: conscription.

Putin on Friday also approved a decree which will see 130,000 people called up for military service – including, for the first time, people living in the four illegally annexed regions of Ukraine. Conscriptions in Russia happen twice per year.

More sanctions: Western powers responded to Russia’s attempt at annexation last year with sanctions. The United Kingdom announced a new set of punitive measures on Friday to mark the anniversary and punish Russia for a round of regional elections arranged earlier this month. 11 new designations were announced, including measures targeting Russia’s Central Election Commission.

Slovaks are voting in a parliamentary election on Saturday, a knife-edge vote that could radically?reshape Slovakia’s approach?to Ukraine and create deep rifts within NATO and the European Union.

The frontrunner, former Prime Minister Robert Fico, has made no secret of his affinity for the Kremlin during the election campaign. He has criticized the West for supporting Ukraine and adopted a strong anti-US message, even accusing?Slovakia’s President Zuzana ?aputová?of being an “American agent.” He has said that if elected, he would stop sending weapons to Ukraine and block Ukraine’s NATO ambitions.

Fico’s left-wing populist SMER party has been leading for months, although opinion polls published earlier this week showed SMER neck-and-neck with the Progressive Slovakia (PS) party.

The liberal PS party, led by the EU Parliament Vice-President Michal ?ime?ka, is pushing for a completely different future for Slovakia – one that includes a continued strong support for Kyiv and strong links with the West.

Experts said that misinformation and Russian propaganda have become prominent during the election campaign, with social media companies criticized for not doing enough to stop it.

“Slovakia has been chosen (by Russia) as the country where there is fertile soil for success of the Russian pro-Kremlin, pro-war narratives,” Věra Jourová, the European Commission’s top digital affairs official, told a news conference Tuesday.

She said the election was a “test case” on the power of social media and misinformation. “The approach to Russian war in Ukraine is a divisive line (in the election),” she said.

Read more about Fico and the vote here:

Slovakia is holding parliamentary elections on 30 September 2023.

Related article With Kremlin apologist leading the polls, Slovakia vote threatens country's support for Ukraine | CNN

People sit at the registration as they arrive at the accommodation center for?refugees?from?Ukraine in Berlin on May 17.

The?European Union is extending temporary protections for Ukrainian refugees until March 2025, the European Council said.

The temporary protection provides refugees with residence, access to the labor market and housing, medical and social welfare assistance and access to education for children.?It is granted to displaced Ukrainian refugees who “are not in a position to return to their country of origin.”

There are more than 4 million Ukrainian refugees currently living in the EU, the bloc said in a statement on Thursday.

The temporary protection mechanism was activated on March 4, 2022, shortly after Russian invasion of Ukraine started in February of 2022.?

Russian forces attacked more than 100 settlements in eastern Ukraine on Friday, Kyiv said, targeting both troops and civilians.

The assault involved six missiles, 56 air strikes and 40 multiple launch rocket systems attacks, the Ukrainian military said on Saturday.

In the south: Overnight Saturday, Kremlin forces launched at least 50 drones to attack on targets in southern Ukraine.

Of those, 30 drones were destroyed in the Vinnytsia, Odesa and Mykolaiv regions, the Defense Forces of Southern Ukraine said on the social media app telegram.

The head of the Vinnytsia region’s military administration, Serhii Borzov, said a piece of infrastructure was hit in the community of Kalynivka, prompting local authorities to take “preparatory measures for evacuation.”

Some background: Russia has stepped up attacks on southern Ukrainian grain infrastructure following the collapse of a UN-brokered deal allowing the safe package of grain. There are also signs Russia is again targeting the Ukrainian power grid as it did during last winter.

Russian conscripts line up before their departure for garrisons at a recruitment center in Simferopol, Crimea, on April 25, 2023.

Fall conscription will begin from October 1 in all parts of the Russian Federation, including in the illegally annexed regions of Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry announced Friday.??

In some regions of the Far North, the conscription will begin on November 1 due to the climate differences, Rear Admiral Vladimir Tsimlyansky, deputy chief of the Main Organizational and Mobilization Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, said during a briefing.??

The departure of conscripts from collection points is scheduled to begin on October 16, he said. “The term of conscription military service, as before, will be 12 months,” Tsimlyansky said.

The conscription for military service in what Moscow claims are Russia’s the new regions?is regulated by a so-called constitutional law on admission to the Russian Federation, according to state news agency TASS.??

According to the law, the autumn 2023 conscription will include the annexed territories – Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – for the first time.?There was no conscription for military service last year and in the spring of 2023 in these regions, according to TASS.?

While regular conscriptions will be carried out, Russia has no plans for further mobilizations,?Tsimlyansky, said.

Some context: Conscriptions in Russia happen twice per year. Last fall’s conscription began a month later than usual due to bottlenecks at conscription offices amid a partial mobilization, according to TASS.?

The British government?announced on Friday new sanctions in response to Russian sham elections in occupied parts of Ukraine.?

The UK imposed asset freezes and travel bans on?Russian officials involved in the recent sham elections in the Ukrainian regions of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk, and in illegally annexed Crimea, the?Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) said in a statement.?

In addition to the specific individuals, which include the?secretary of the Russian Central Election Commission (CEC) Natalya Budarina,?sanctions were also imposed on the commission as an entity as well.?

“Russia has sought to destroy Ukrainian culture and identity in a bid to strengthen its illegitimate claim to Ukrainian territory, including by forcible issue of Russian passports, and imposition of Russian law, media, education, and currency,” the FCDO added.?“These elections are another violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and of the UN Charter.”