Russia-Ukraine war updates: N Korea’s Kim arrives, meets Kremlin officials

A Russian Su-24 front-line bomber has crashed in the southern Volgograd region during a training flight, Russian state-owned TASS news agency reported citing the defence ministry.

According to the ministry, the plane was flying without ammunition and crashed in a deserted area. TASS did not provide further details about the accident, including the fate of the crew.

The EU agriculture commissioner has said he believes the European Commission should extend a temporary ban on Ukraine imports into five neighouring EU states as the measure helped boost exports outside the bloc.

“The preventive measures were effective, efficient and stabilising the markets in the five member states and also helped increase exports via Solidarity Lanes,” Agriculture commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski told the European Parliament.

“This is the main argument for prolongation of the preventive measures which is my strong position.”

As a result, farmers in neighbouring states – Poland, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Slovakia – have faced increased competition and bottlenecks in their own markets.

Days after Russia launched its war on Ukraine, Polish filmmaker Maciek Hamela left his home in Warsaw, bought a van, and began transporting evacuees to safety.

Hamela’s documentary, In the Rearview, chronicles six months of journeys and hours of footage, giving a raw and intimate picture of the war in real-time.

Hosting its North American premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on Tuesday, Hamela hopes the audience can put themselves in the refugees’ shoes.

“I hope that this film will remind those who might think that the war is over or that it has become a never-ending stalemate … to reconsider,” he told the Reuters news agency.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the world is not yet united enough in opposing Russian war atrocities committed in his country.

Russia wants a policy of genocide to become the new normal, Zelenskyy said in a video address to Dutch students in The Hague, according to the ANP news agency.

“They want genocide to become something that plays in the background,” the Ukrainian leader said, referring to Russia. “They want to freeze the war and turn shocking scenes into something common.”

The European Union will not renew sanctions against three businessmen targeted over Russia’s war against Ukraine when the current punitive measures expire this week, four diplomatic sources have told Reuters news agency.

The trio poised to be delisted are Russian businessman Grigory Berezkin, billionaire Farkhad Akhmedov and the former head of Ozon, a Russian e-commerce firm, Alexander Shulgin. Russian military leader Georgy Shuvaev, who died last year, will also be removed, the sources said.

One of the four sources, all of whom work on sanctions and spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters the listings were considered legally weak, meaning the EU was not certain they would stand up in court if challenged.

Pope Francis’s Ukraine peace envoy is on his way to China as part of a mission that has already brought him to Kyiv, Moscow and Washington, the Vatican has said.

The Vatican described Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s visit as a “further step in the mission desired by the pope to support humanitarian initiatives and the search for paths that can bring about a just peace”.

The main aim of the mission is to help return Ukrainian children taken to Russia after the invasion.

“The hope is to push and weave the difficult web of peace,” Zuppi told the broadcaster of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, which he heads, before leaving.

Accompanied by an official from the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, Zuppi will be in Beijing from Wednesday to Friday.

Denmark has decided to give Ukraine a further 5.8 billion kroner ($833m), largely to finance air defences, ammunition and tanks, the defence ministry has said.

“For Ukraine to be able to continue defending itself against Russia’s illegal invasion, it is essential that countries like Denmark maintain their military and economic support,” Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen added.

Prior to this new funding, Denmark’s total aid pledged to Ukraine was 13.6 billion kroner ($1.96bn).

“We are doing this today with the largest Danish financial contribution to date,” Poulsen said.

The Group of Seven (G7) bloc of nations, which includes some of the major industrialised countries, has condemned the staging of what it called “sham elections” by Russia in occupied Ukrainian territories, in a statement published by the British government.

“We … unequivocally condemn the staging of sham ‘elections’ held by Russia on sovereign Ukrainian territory in Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk, Zaporizhia oblasts and Crimea,” the statement said.

“These sham ‘elections’ will not alter our approach nor our support to Ukraine as it fights to reclaim its internationally-recognised territory.”

Poland’s government has called on the European Union to extend the embargo on imports of Ukrainian grain beyond an end-of-week deadline to protect Polish farmers.

Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said he has requested that the European Commission, the EU’s executive branch, extend the ban on the entry of Ukrainian corn, wheat, sunflower and rapeseed or else “we will do it ourselves because we cannot allow for a deregulation of the market”.

Earlier, the government’s spokesperson told local media that if the ban is not extended, then Warsaw could implement a ban at the national level.

Ukraine’s military’s strategic communications directorate has said the country’s troops have destroyed a Russian military base operating drones.

The directorate said the base is near Donetsk Oblast, but did not reveal if any Russian soldiers at the base, had also been killed.

The Vatican has said in a statement that papal envoy Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, will be travelling to China from September 13-15, as part of a diplomatic effort towards peace in Ukraine.

Cardinal Zuppi is likely to meet “top institutional leaders” including Chinese Premier Li Qiang on Wednesday, La Repubblica daily reported.

The envoy already visited Kyiv and Moscow in June and travelled to Washington the following month as part of the Vatican’s efforts to broker a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock has said Berlin would encourage its partners to deliver available air defence systems to Ukraine for this winter, in an interview with the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper.

“We need to stretch a winter air defence shield over Ukraine’s critical infrastructure,” Baerbock said following her visit to Kyiv on Monday, adding that the German government planned to expand its IRIS-T support in the coming months.

Ukraine’s prosecutor general’s office has reported that Russian attacks in the Donetsk region has killed two people and injured three civilians.

“One of the 152-mm projectiles hit a private house, where an 84-year-old woman and a 71-year-old man live. Another 70-year-old woman, who recently lived with them and helped in the household, was injured and has been hospitalised,” the general’s office said in a statement.

A criminal investigation into prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin has been extended until December 18, his supporters have said in their Telegram channel.

Girkin, who has strongly criticised the conduct of the Ukraine war, was detained in July on charges of inciting extremism. If convicted, the 52-year-old may face up to five years in jail.

He, who also goes by the name Igor Strelkov, is a former security services officer who helped to start the initial war in Ukraine in 2014, when a militia under his command seized the east Ukrainian city of Sloviansk.

A Russian state television correspondent on Tuesday has published a video clip of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un disembarking from his train in Russia and being greeted by Russian officials.

Separately, Russia’s natural resources minister said he had met Kim, according to a report by Russian state news agency RIA.

Kim is expected to have talks during his visit with President Vladimir Putin, who is currently visiting Russia’s Far East region.

Ukraine’s defence ministry has shared a video of how the country undertook a “unique operation” to recapture oil and gas rigs which had been controlled by Russia since 2015, near the coast of Crimea.

Watch:

A film about a unique operation of @DI_Ukraine.
russian special troops captured Ukrainian oil and gas drilling platforms in the Black Sea off the coast of Crimea in 2014 and 2015. The occupiers have been utilizing them for military purposes ever since – in particular to… pic.twitter.com/txFAcdgpfE

— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 11, 2023

The Swedish government will ask its armed forces to investigate the potential of sending its Gripen fighter jets to Ukraine, according to a report by Swedish public radio (SR).

Citing unnamed sources, SR said the government wanted to know, among other things, how a handover would affect Sweden’s defence capabilities and how quickly Sweden could get new Gripen fighters.

The Biden administration is close to approving the shipment of longer-range missiles packed with cluster bombs to Ukraine, giving Kyiv the ability to cause significant damage deeper within Russian-occupied territory, according to four US officials, who told the Reuters news agency.

After seeing the success of cluster munitions delivered in 155mm artillery rounds in recent months, the US is considering shipping either or both Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) that can fly up to 190 miles (306km) or Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles with a 45-mile (72km) range packed with cluster bombs, three US officials said.

The Ukrainian military said it has recaptured several strategic gas and oil drilling platforms from Russia in the Black Sea close to Crimea, which Moscow’s forces had occupied since 2015.

The recapture of the so-called Boyko Towers platforms, reported on Monday, takes back an asset that Russia seized during the annexation of Crimea and places Kyiv closer to retaking the occupied peninsula, according to Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR).

Read more.

A Polish government spokesperson, Piotr Mueller, has told Poland’s Polsat News channel that if a ban on importing grain from Ukraine to the EU is not extended, Poland will introduce it at the national level.

He added that Warsaw intends to ask the European Commission to extend the grain ban beyond its expiration date on Friday.

The EU imposed the ban this year after several Central European countries said a surge in cheap Ukrainian grain was hurting their domestic market and farmers.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said that the Black Sea grain deal is on hold, and that there has been no progress in restarting it, according to a report by Russian state news agency TASS.

The deal, brokered last year by the United Nations and Turkey, allowed for the safe export of grain and other foodstuffs from Ukraine’s Black Sea ports.

Moscow quit the deal in July, accusing the West of failing to honour promises to ensure the shipment of Russia’s own grain and fertiliser exports.

Turkey and the United Nations have so far failed to persuade Russia to rejoin the deal.

Reporting from Seoul, Al Jazeera’s Florence Looi says Kim Jong Un is not averse to flying, and he chose to travel to Russia by train for security reasons, more so because his visit is generating a lot of interest.

“The train has carried generations of the Kim’s family. He is not averse to flying like his father. He has flown to China, to Singapore. But it is thought that he could have chosen train travel for two reasons. One is for the optics. It is a rather long journey. He hasn’t even met Putin and there is already so much interest in this upcoming meeting. The long train journey will sustain that interest,” Looi said.

“It is also for security reasons. Now this train has armoured sheets between the carriages which Kim uses for his residence and office … Now it is also thought that the train has rail carts that are designed to carry vehicles. Reports say that Kim travels with armoured vehicles when on his train and uses the armoured cars to get around when he reaches his destination,” she added.

According to the Kremlin, Putin and Kim will meet “in the coming days” in Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu will meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Russia in the coming days, according to the Interfax news agency.

Interfax was quoting Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

Kim left Pyongyang for Russia on Sunday on his private train, North Korea’s state media has reported. Putin is currently attending an economic forum in Russia’s far eastern city of Vladivostok.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has accused the UK’s secret services of training Ukrainian saboteurs to launch attacks on Russian infrastructure.

He highlighted that Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) had been successful in capturing Ukrainian saboteurs who had sought to damage the nuclear power station.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that 1,000 to 1,500 Russians have been signing voluntary contracts to join the military every day.

Putin was responding to a question about whether Russia needed to introduce a new compulsory mobilisation to boost its military effort in Ukraine, something the Kremlin has repeatedly said is not necessary.

Over the past six or seven months, 270,000 people have signed voluntary contracts, Putin said – a figure slightly lower than the 280,000 that former president Dmitry Medvedev stated earlier this month.

The UK’s defence ministry has said that in recent days, Russia has recalibrated the posture of its short and medium-range air defences around Moscow in an effort to more effectively defend against the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) attacks the city now experiences most days.

“This is almost certainly to allow the system to detect and engage UAV-type targets. However, it is probably also intended to act as a high-profile reassurance to the public that the authorities have the threat under control,” the ministry said in a statement on the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter).

President Putin says the supply of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine will not change the war and will instead “drag out the conflict”.

Several countries in the West have pledged support to Ukraine, supplying these jets and training pilots to fly them in an effort to bolster Kyiv’s air defence systems.

In comments at a forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, Putin also said the counteroffensive in Ukraine has “no results” and highlighted that Kyiv is sustaining “heavy casualties”.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Ukraine might want to start negotiating for peace only when it realises it’s running out of resources.

In comments at a forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, Putin said that Ukraine also has to annul its law banning peace talks.

President Putin says the West is trying to deter China, but it will fail.

In comments at a forum in the far eastern city of Vladivostok, he said Russia-China relations were at an “unprecedented” level.

Beijing has not condemned Moscow’s actions in Ukraine, and the close ties between Putin and China’s Xi Jinping have made Western nations wary.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has warned China against providing “lethal support” to Russia.

Meanwhile, Beijing sent a peace envoy to Ukraine, Russia and other European nations earlier this year to find a “political solution” to end the war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he was planning to go to the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia’s Far East but did not say if he planned to meet North Korean leader Kim Jong Un there.

Responding to a question at an economic forum, Putin said he had his own programme to visit Vostochny and “when I get there, you will know”.

Russian and foreign media have speculated that North Korea’s Kim, who is currently in Russia, will visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome during his trip.

Putin says the government failed to react in time to the rising price of oil on global markets. He says it is important to provide fuel for agricultural producers.

Putin has said that state officials must use Russian-produced cars. He was speaking at an economic forum in Vladivostok, where he also said he wanted Russian brands to become more visible.

While Putin and Kim have met in 2019, this time their meeting is specifically important for both countries. Al Jazeera’s Defence Editor Alex Gatopoulos explains why:

Russia needs ammunition for its artillery, rocket systems and mortars for tactical support. North Korea will get cheap oil and gas, but above all, it needs food for its malnourished population as harvests are failing. North Korea is also looking forward to asking about nuclear propulsion technology for its fledgling navy. It recently launched what it calls a nuclear attack sub, but in actual fact, it is a diesel-electric missile submarine. Kim Jong Un wants to convert his submarines and build new ones that are powered by nuclear propulsion, and Russia can help with this.

There are limits to this cooperation. A central tenet of North Korean political philosophy is called “juche” or self-reliance, which means there’s a limit to how much they’re going to rely on someone else, no matter how friendly at the moment. Russia doesn’t want to be seen to be closely allied to a country whose behaviour can be mercurial at times and is already a source of much friction in the Asia Pacific region. But this is a marriage of convenience and they have things to offer each other.

Putin says he wants Russian brands to become more recognisable, more than 18 months into the conflict in Ukraine that has sparked an exodus of foreign retailers and companies.

Hundreds of foreign retailers shut up shop in response to Russia despatching troops to Ukraine in February 2022, leaving some of Moscow’s most prestigious streets with boarded-up stores and the industry reeling from a roughly $2.5bn hit.

Russia’s Gazprom said that it will ship 42.4 million cubic metres of gas to Europe via Ukraine on Tuesday, a volume in line with recent days.

Putin has said increasing inflation had forced the central bank to hike rates to 12 percent last month, warning that Russia’s economy would suffer if price rises were allowed to get out of control.

Speaking at the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said he saw no problems with rouble volatility and said the authorities had a cache of tools to keep the currency and markets under control.

Putin said the rouble rate was affected, among other things, by the “restrained” return of foreign currency earnings by exporters, but he said that no sudden moves would be made, referring to capital controls and other steps to limit volatility.

He said the government saw no need to raise taxes for now. It has imposed a windfall profit tax on some companies this year to increase budget revenues.

Zelenskyy says he has vetoed a parliamentary bill that sought to retain closed asset declarations for officials.

Parliament voted last week on Tuesday to restore a declaration rule that was suspended after Russia’s 2022 invasion as a security precaution, but – in an important loophole – to keep the disclosures closed to the public for another year.

“Declarations should be open. Immediately. Not in a year,” Zelenskyy said on the Telegram messaging app.

The Ukrainian military says it has recaptured strategic gas and oil drilling platforms from Russia in the Black Sea and claimed gains in occupied areas near Bakhmut, a city in eastern Ukraine.

The recapture of the so-called Boyko Towers platforms provides an energy source and takes back an asset that Russia seized in 2015 and used to launch helicopters, Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence said.

“Russia has been deprived of the ability to fully control the waters of the Black Sea, and this makes Ukraine many steps closer to regaining Crimea,” the Main Directorate of Intelligence said.

The Russian Defence Ministry didn’t make any immediate comment on the Ukrainian claim, but it has previously reported that Russian warplanes destroyed several Ukrainian speedboats in the area.

Kyiv has carried out a drone attack on the city of Enerhodar near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Alexey Likhachev, the head of Russia’s state nuclear corporation Rosatom has said, according to a report by Russia’s RIA news agency.

Likhachev said six drones were launched at the city, and all were destroyed.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

It’s four years since Kim travelled overseas, but his preferred mode of transport – like his famously flight-averse father – is a private train.

The train is supposedly armoured and photos shared by state media show its rather old-fashioned carriages painted green with yellow trim.

Although he has also been known to fly, Kim used the train for his last visit to Russia in 2019, as well as for his failed summit with then-US President Donald Trump earlier that year, and on a visit to Beijing in 2018.

It’s known to be comfortable, which is just as well as it moves slowly. According to reports the train can manage speeds of only about 50 kilometres per hour (31 miles per hour).

In Kim Jong Il’s day, the train was said to be luxurious – according to a 2002 account from Russian official Konstantin Pulikovsky who accompanied the elder Kim on a three-week trip to Moscow, the train carried cases of expensive French wine and passengers could feast on fresh lobster and pork barbeque.

South Korea says it is watching events in Russia, reiterating that any arms deals would breach sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear weapons programme.

“Our government is closely monitoring trends related to the situation on the Korean Peninsula, including human exchanges between Russia and North Korea,” said Lim Soo-suk, spokesman for South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. “No UN member country should violate Security Council resolutions on North Korean sanctions, which include illegal arms trades. In particular, military cooperation with North Korea, which harms international peace and stability, should absolutely not occur,”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirms Kim is now in Russia, according to the Interfax news agency.

Reports coming in from Russia say Kim’s train has been spotted at the railway station in the town of Ussuriysk, which is about 98km (61 miles) north of Vladivostok.

The sighting is raising expectations that Kim and Putin might be planning to meet somewhere else in eastern Russia.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says Russia and North Korea have no interest in US statements after Washington warned against any trade in weapons between the two countries.

“As you know, while implementing our relations with our neighbours, including North Korea, the interests of our two countries are important to us, and not warnings from Washington,” Peskov was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies. “It is the interests of our two countries that we will focus on.

Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, says the meeting between Kim and Putin is part of the two men’s efforts to appear like “normal statesmen” despite their global pariah status.

But he added that despite Russia’s need for artillery and other weapons in Ukraine, he doubts Putin will be willing to trade his country’s “military crown jewels for old, dumb munitions”.

Here’s an analysis Easley shared by email:

“Given his interest in exploiting ‘new Cold War’ geopolitics and a preference for traveling by train for personal security, it is unsurprising Kim chose Russia as his first post-pandemic destination abroad.

“North Korea has the crude ammunition that Putin needs for his illegal war in Ukraine, while Moscow has submarine, ballistic, and satellite technologies that could help Pyongyang leapfrog engineering challenges it suffers under economic sanctions. 

“Widely considered responsible for crimes against humanity, neither of these men would win a global popularity contest. Putin and Kim want to show accomplishments domestically despite international isolation, so their meeting is an effort to appear normal statesmen.

“The summit’s deliverables might include an arms deal, but Russia and North Korea won’t make public the full details of their cooperation because of the serious international legal violations involved. Instead, each side will echo the propaganda of the other about sovereignty, security, and humanitarian solidarity. 

“Russia may propose military exercises with North Korea and China in an attempt to convince South Korea and Japan there will be costs to supporting Ukraine and to strengthening security cooperation with the United States.

“But Seoul and Tokyo should not be swayed by such stratagems.

“Pyongyang is not keen on military transparency because it doesn’t want to reveal its weaknesses in training and equipment, even to Moscow and Beijing.

“Putin is unlikely to provide Kim with technology to miniaturize nuclear devices or propel nuclear-powered submarines because even a desperate war machine does not trade its military crown jewels for old, dumb munitions.

“Trust is so low among Russia, North Korea, and China that a real alliance of the three isn’t credible or sustainable. 

“The fact that Putin and Kim want to counter U.S.-Japan-South Korea cooperation suggests that renewed trilateralism is already increasing pressure against norm-violating behavior in East Asia. Washington will continue to share intelligence about illegal trade in and out of Russia and North Korea so that a larger coalition of allies and partners can tighten sanctions and advance rules-based diplomacy. “

Putin and Kim last met in 2019, in Russia’s far eastern city of Vladivostok, about 680km (425 miles) north of Pyongyang.

That summit was also Kim’s last trip outside North Korea.

Most analysts seem to think the two men will meet in Vladivostok again. Putin has been there since Monday for the Eastern Economic Forum, which wraps up on September 13.

The United States says it will “hold accountable” any entities that help provide Russia with weapons for use in Ukraine.

Washington has been saying for a number of months that Pyongyang might be selling weapons to Moscow.

Last week, it said the negotiations were “actively advancing”.

“I will remind both countries that any transfer of arms from North Korea to Russia would be in violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions,” US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters.

“We, of course, have aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort, and we will continue to enforce those sanctions and will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate.”

Read more here.

Kim boarded his train in Pyongyang late on Sunday to begin the hours-long journey to the Russian border.

According to the NK News outlet, he was accompanied by a number of senior officials including his defence minister, foreign minister and officials in charge of weapons production and space technology.

Korean People’s Army Marshals Ri Pyong Chol and Pak Jong Chon as well as navy commander Kim Myong Sik were also on board, NK News said, citing the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper.