Russia-Ukraine war updates: Biden reassures allies over continued support

Thanks for joining us in our live Russia-Ukraine war coverage on Tuesday, October 3. In case you missed it, here’s a more in-depth piece on the Wagner Group officer Andrei Troshev:

Who is the Wagner Group officer Putin asked to form ‘volunteer battalions’?

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

• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visits troops in Ukraine’s northeast and discusses the battlefield situation with commanders in one of the hottest fronts of the war with Russia.
• The Russian Defence Ministry says it has shot down a Ukrainian missile off the coast of Crimea.
• US President Joe Biden spoke with allies, the European Union and the NATO military alliance about continuing support for Ukraine, the White House said.
• Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania have agreed on a plan to help expedite Ukrainian grain exports, officials say.
• The Kremlin says it has not abandoned a moratorium on nuclear testing and Russia is not preparing a test.
• Kommersant, one of Russia’s most respected newspapers, is reporting that President Vladimir Putin may announce, as early as November, his plan to run in the 2024 presidential polls.

US aid for Ukraine’s fight against Russia will run out in “a couple of months” if Republican hardliners fail to pass new funds for Kyiv, says the White House.

“You’re talking perhaps a couple of months or so, roughly,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told a briefing.

“Time is not our friend,” Kirby said at a briefing. “We have enough funding authorities to meet Ukraine’s battlefield needs for a bit longer, but we need Congress to act.”

Earlier, President Joe Biden called Western allies to reassure them US aid for Ukraine will continue.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy discusses the battlefield situation with commanders in Ukraine’s northeast, where he visited troops on one of the hottest fronts of the war with Russia.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskyy says he had been near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and heard from the commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Oleksandr Syrskyi, on defence in the area and on offensive actions further south, near Bakhmut.

“It is extremely important that Kharkiv, despite everything, not only holds on, but helps to keep our entire east strong,” Zelenskyy says.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the president also said he met brigades fighting near the northeastern towns of Kupiansk and Lyman, recaptured by Ukrainian forces late last year.

The Russian Defence Ministry says it has shot down a Ukrainian missile off the coast of Crimea.

According to the statement, Russian air defence systems downed a Ukrainian Neptune missile over the northwestern part of the Black Sea off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs says it has summoned the Moldovan ambassador.

The ministry said it has taken reciprocal measures after the expulsion of the head of the Sputnik Moldova news agency from Moldova on September 13.

The ministry said the Moldovan ambassador was informed that “a number of individuals directly involved in restricting freedom of speech and the rights of Russian journalists in Moldova as well as inciting anti-Russian sentiments were banned from entering Russia”.

The ministry did not name the people who were banned from entering Russia.

Russian prosecutors demand a nine-and-a-half-year jail sentence for fugitive former state TV journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, famous for bursting into a news broadcast with a placard that read “Stop the war” and “They’re lying to you”.

The foreign-based independent news site Mediazona said the prosecution had made the demand at Ovsyannikova’s trial in absentia for distributing “fake news”, a term that includes any information about Russia’s war in Ukraine that is at odds with the official narrative.

Ovsyannikova, 45, fled Russia with her daughter for an unspecified European country a year ago after escaping from house arrest, according to her lawyer, saying she had no case to answer.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak tells G7 and NATO leaders that the UK was prepared to support Ukraine with military, humanitarian and economic assistance “for as long as it takes,” his office said in a readout of a call.

“He [Prime Minister Rishi Sunak] outlined the UK’s ongoing military, humanitarian and economic assistance to Ukraine and stressed that this support will continue for as long as it takes,” a Downing Street spokesperson said in a statement.

Ukraine must win its war against Russia before joining NATO and the European Union, Slovakia’s foreign minister says.

“Ukraine must first win the war. This is a necessary precondition,” Miroslaw Wachowski said at the Warsaw Security Forum. “So we must do everything we can to help Ukraine win this war and regain its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

Noting he just returned from Kyiv on Tuesday morning, Wachowski said Ukrainians are doing “their best and we must help them”.

President Biden has called on Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to rush through new aid saying US support for Kyiv as it battles Russia’s invasion could not be interrupted “under any circumstances”.

“Speaker McCarthy and the majority of House Republicans must keep their word and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine as it defends itself,” Biden said on X, formerly Twitter.

“We are the indispensable nation in the world – let’s act like it.”

US President Joe Biden spoke with allies, the European Union and the NATO military alliance about continuing support for Ukraine, the White House said.

In a statement, the White House added that Biden spoke to the leaders of Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan, Poland, Romania, Britain and France, as well as the heads of NATO, the European Commission and the European Council.

The call was reportedly scheduled as concerns grew that support for Kyiv’s war effort was fading, especially by the US after Congress excluded aid to Ukraine from an emergency budget bill on Sunday.

On Saturday, Andrei Troshev, a former senior Wagner Group officer, clad in a bespoke dark-blue suit common among Russian officials, was filmed in the Kremlin listening to Putin.

Putin told him to “form volunteer battalions” that would include Wagner fighters.

“You know what it’s like, how it’s done. You know about the issues that need to be resolved in advance so that combat work goes on in the best and most successful way,” Putin said.

But the task is doomed because of Troshev’s reputation within Wagner, analysts have told Al Jazeera.

What’s next for the Wagner Group after the death of its irreverent chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, and will the mercenary force operate in Ukraine as before?

Read more here.

Carlsberg has terminated its licence agreements in Russia after Moscow’s decision in July to take control of its breweries.

The Danish company said Baltika Breweries, which makes Russian beer, will be able to use existing stock and materials from Carlsberg until April 1.

In a statement, Carlsberg said: “It is unclear what formally will be the next steps in relation to Baltika.”

“We retain title to the shares in the company while the temporary management is transferred to the Russian state. What the Russian state chooses to do under these circumstances is not clear,” the group said.

Moscow took over Carlsberg’s stake in Baltika and put it under the “temporary management” of government property agency Rosimushchestvo.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited troops in the northeast of the country and met commanders to discuss the battlefield situation on the front line.

While he did not give the exact location, he said he met soldiers fighting in the Kupiansk-Lyman sector where the Ukrainian military says Russian forces have been relentlessly attacking.

On X, Zelenskyy wrote: “Today, we are visiting our brigades that are fighting in one of the hot spots, the Kupiansk-Lyman direction where Russian occupiers constantly try to attack our positions. The 103rd Territorial Defence Brigade, the 68th ‘Oleksa Dovbush’ Jeager Brigade, and the 25th ‘Sicheslav’ Airborne Brigade.

“We met with brigade and battalion commanders to discuss the battlefield situation, pressing issues, and needs. Each of our combat brigades, each warrior who destroys the occupiers with every step forward, asserts that the Ukrainian victory will surely come. They are the power. I thank them for their service!”

Robert Fico has been asked by Slovakia’s president to form a government after he led his populist SMER-SSD party to victory in the country’s general election – a result seen by analysts as favourable to Russia.

Fico, a 59-year-old former prime minister, campaigned on wanting to stop military aid to Ukraine. He is also critical of the European Union and NATO.

So will the SMER-SSD party keep its promises, or will pressure from Ukraine’s allies keep the aid flowing?

Al Jazeera’s Inside Story takes a deeper look into the issue with the help of:

• Alena Kudzko, vice president for policy and programming of GLOBSEC, a public policy think tank.
• Ben Aris, founder and editor-in-chief of BNE Intelli-News and former Moscow bureau chief for the Daily Telegraph.
• Pavol Demes, former Slovakian foreign minister.

Watch the video below:

Click here for a roundup of the key events from day 587 of the war.

KEEP READING

• Who is the Wagner Group officer Putin asked to form ‘volunteer battalions’?
• Ukraine to build first underground school to protect from Russian air raids
• What are the implications of Slovakia’s election result?
• EU dismisses doubts over long-term commitment to Ukraine in Kyiv meeting

Armenia’s decision to ratify the founding statute of the International Criminal Court has put another thorn in bilateral relations between Yerevan and Moscow.

The move by Armenia comes during a growing tussle with Russia for several reasons, including the recent conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Yerevan has accused Russia of not doing enough to stop Azerbaijan’s successful military operation in the disputed territory last month, which has seen tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians – who were in control for three decades – flee the area.

Moscow – which has thousands of peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh – expressed deep frustration with Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who says the policy of solely relying on Russia to guarantee its security was a mistake.

Last month Armenia hosted US forces for a 10-day joint military exercise that did not go over well with the Kremlin. Russia has a military base in Armenia and is the principal supplier of its weapons. Pashinyan’s wife visiting Ukraine also ruffled feathers in Moscow.

Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania have agreed on a plan to help expedite Ukrainian grain exports, officials say.

According to a statement by the Ukrainian Ministry of Agrarian Policy and Food, the deal would shift grain inspections from the Ukrainian-Polish border to a Lithuanian port on the Baltic Sea.

The statement added that the switch would help the transit of Ukrainian exports through Polish territory without providing further details.

Countries on Ukraine’s borders, including Poland, have protested against Ukraine’s agricultural exports, saying they have flooded their markets and pushed prices down for local farmers. Poland has said, however, that it wants to be a transit point so Ukrainian farm goods can get to countries suffering food shortages.

The Kremlin says it has not abandoned a moratorium on nuclear testing and Russia is not preparing one.

On Monday, the New York Times published an investigation tracking possible nuclear-launch preparations in Russia.

Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of the state-owned broadcaster RT, also suggested in an interview extract posted by digital broadcaster RTVI that Moscow should detonate a nuclear bomb over Siberia as a warning to the West.

Responding to Simonyan’s suggestions, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “I don’t think such discussions are possible now from an official point of view.”

Simonyan’s comments do not “always” reflect Moscow’s official position, he added.

Kommersant, one of Russia’s most respected newspapers, is reporting that President Vladimir Putin may announce, as early as November, his plan to run in the 2024 presidential polls.

The possible run could extend Putin’s hold to power until 2030 when he is 77 years old. By then he would be in power as president or prime minister for more than three decades.

Asked about the report, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he knew nothing about a plan to announce Putin’s bid in November.

“I know nothing about the presidential campaign being officially announced in November,” Peskov told reporters. “I do not have such information. I have nothing more to add.”

Here’s a brief video profile of Putin, one of the longest-serving Russian leaders.