Russia-Ukraine war updates: EU foreign ministers meeting in Kyiv

Thanks for joining us in our live Russia-Ukraine war coverage on Monday, October 2. In case you missed it, here’s a more in-depth piece on Yevgeny Prigozhin’s supporters marking 40 days since his death:

• Wagner’s Prigozhin hailed a hero, 40 days after death in plane crash

Our live coverage will shortly be coming to an end, so here are the most important developments of the day:

• All 27 European Union foreign ministers met in Kyiv for a historic summit on long-term assistance to Ukraine.
• Ukraine slammed Elon Musk’s social media post mocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pleas for wartime assistance from the West.
• The Kremlin says Western fatigue over the conflict “will grow” as the future of United States aid for Kyiv is hanging in the balance after the US Congress blocked a new aid package for Ukraine.
• The British Defence Ministry said Moscow’s defence spending is set to increase to about 30 percent of total public expenditure next year, according to leaked documents from the Russian Defence Ministry.
• Mourners in Russia marked 40 days since the Wagner Group mercenary chief, Yevgeny Prigozhin, died in a plane crash that killed several others.

Kyiv urges the EU to support its initiative for regular grain exports through a Black Sea corridor amid a growing rift between Kyiv and its neighbours.

“If the EU and Ukraine join forces to guarantee the security of this corridor, then this corridor will be able to work at full capacity,” FM Dmytro Kuleba said in a joint press conference with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba says legal work should be accelerated to transfer frozen Russian assets to Kyiv.

Following a meeting of European Union foreign ministers, Kuleba said more clarity on the legality of how to transfer the funds would benefit both the EU and Ukraine.

These assets, he added, could help fund Ukraine’s reconstruction efforts.

At least one person has been killed in Russian shelling in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, its governor says.

Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram that Russian forces hit residential areas overnight, which resulted in the death of a policeman.

In an earlier post, Prokudin said eight people were injured during the attacks, including two children, ages 12 and 13, and their mother.

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell has proposed a new military aid package of up to 5 billion euros ($5.26bn) for Ukraine next year.

In a joint press conference with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, he said: “I hope we can reach an agreement before the end of the year.”

The Danish Ministry of Defence says Copenhagen will spend 100 million kroner ($14.1m) in a joint European order for ammunition to help Ukraine.

On Friday, the European Defence Agency (EDA) said seven EU countries have ordered 155mm artillery rounds for Kyiv and to replenish depleted stocks. Delivery is expected in 2024.

“With the abolition of the EU defence reservation last year, Denmark has the opportunity to participate fully in European defence cooperation, including in EDA,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said in a statement.

Zelenskyy says the meeting of EU foreign ministers adds “strength, leadership and initiative to Europe” as delegates discuss long-term support for Kyiv.

On X, Zelenskyy wrote: “Active European leadership is essential. The more joint and principled steps in defence, diplomacy, economy, and sanctions we take together, the sooner the war will end in just peace.”

Nadya Tolokonnikova, an artist and activist, was placed on Russia’s most wanted list in March.

Weeks earlier, she had released an irreverent short film titled Putin’s Ashes, in which a group of women from Ukraine, Russia and Belarus, dressed in lingerie and wearing red balaclavas, press the nuclear button and set alight a 3-metre (10ft) portrait of the Russian president.

A founding member of the Russian punk collective Pussy Riot, Tolokonnikova spoke to us about the war in Ukraine, rights in Russia and the threats she faces as a dissident.

Read more here.

An Estonian volunteer who fought with Ukrainian soldiers against Russian forces in Lyman in Donetsk has been reported killed on Monday.

No immediate details are available on the identity of the Estonian volunteer.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has attracted foreign fighters volunteering for both sides of the conflict, with fighters coming from nearby countries to as far as Nepal.

After the war broke out last year, Ukraine formed its own international volunteer force, reportedly attracting as many as 20,000 soldiers from at least 52 nations, although that number has significantly dwindled.

Russia had also recruited its own group of fighters, with some reportedly coming from Afghanistan.

A Ukrainian victory in the war with Russia depends on cooperation with the European Union, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told EU foreign ministers in Kyiv.

Zelenskyy also underlined the importance of “defence support” for Ukraine during the war.

Ahead of the EU foreign ministers meeting in Kyiv, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock calls for the creation of a strategy to insulate Ukraine from the fallout of a feared campaign of Russian air strikes on the energy grid in the coming months as temperatures drop.

“Ukraine needs a winter protection plan of air defence, generators and a strengthening of the energy supply,” Baerbock said in Kyiv.

“We saw last winter the brutal way in which the Russian president wages this war with targeted attacks on critical infrastructure such as power plants.”

Read more: EU foreign ministers in Ukraine’s Kyiv for unprecedented meeting abroad

The Russian defence ministry says it destroyed Ukrainian fuel depots and military aircraft in a strike in Dolgintsevo airfield in Dnipro, according to the news website Zvezda.

There were no immediate reports of casualties in the strike on Monday.

Two armoured combat vehicles, three cars, and two self-propelled artillery systems were also destroyed, as well as well as a navigation jamming station, the report adds.

German’s economy ministry has announced that its exports of military equipment to Ukraine has grown more than fourfold so far this year, to 3.3 billion euros ($3.48bn).

That makes Kyiv the main recipient of German arms, the economy ministry was quoted by Reuters as saying.

For the first nine months of the year, Ukraine accounts for more than a third of Germany’s total military exports 8.76 billion euros ($9.23bn).

There’s been a lot of talk over the weekend about Western assistance to Ukraine after US President Joe Biden signed a stopgap funding bill that did not include aid for Kyiv.

Meanwhile, the EU has promised to increase its support for the war-torn country.

Amid all this, here’s a comprehensive infographic detailing who was pledged what in terms of financial, humanitarian and military aid:

We are getting a report that Ukrainian service members have been killed in Russian strikes near Siversk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

The exact number of fatalities can not be immediately determined.

Donetsk and other front-line areas of Ukraine have been undergoing heavy bombardment by Russia in the past 24 hours.

Ukraine’s Hromadske Radio is reporting that officials from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) are visiting Kyiv for the first time in more than three years to discuss the lending institution’s implementation of a four-year assistance programme worth $15.6bn.

The visit coincides with the meeting of European Union foreign ministers in the Ukrainian capital.

The report quoted Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal as telling IMF officials that Ukraine needs funds to cover its budget deficit, as well as its needs for recovery and reconstruction after the ongoing invasion of Russia comes to an end.

Anger has erupted in Ukraine over Elon Musk’s social media post mocking President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s pleas for wartime assistance from the West.

The speaker of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, has hit out at Musk on X, formerly Twitter.

“The case when …[Elon Musk] tried to conquer space, but something went wrong and in 5 minutes he was up to his eyeballs in sh**,” an apparent reference to SpaceX’s failed rocket launch in April.

Ukraine’s parliament, on its official page on X, also accused Musk of spreading Russian propaganda, posting its own version of the meme with a picture of Musk and the caption: “When it’s been 5 minutes and you haven’t spread Russian propaganda”.

The Kremlin predicted that Western fatigue over the Ukraine conflict “will grow” as the future of US aid for Kyiv hung in the balance following a deal to avoid a government shutdown.

“Fatigue over this conflict – fatigue from the completely absurd sponsorship of the Kyiv regime – will grow in various countries, including the US,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding that Washington will “continue its involvement in this conflict”.

Moscow has also weighed in on the election of former Prime Minister Robert Fico as Slovakia’s next leader, rejecting the description that he is pro-Russia as “absurd”.

“In fact, we are facing a situation in which any politician who is inclined to think about the sovereignty of his country and defends the interests of his country, is considered pro-Russian. This is absurd,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesperson, told reporters in Moscow.