Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba greets his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi, during a joint news conference Saturday in Kyiv. (Sergey Dolzhenko/Pool/Reuters)
Romania’s Foreign Ministry summoned the chargé d’affaires of Russia’s embassy in Bucharest for a meeting after officials found drone fragments similar to those used by Russian forces near Romania’s border with Ukraine.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
The G-20 declaration noted that the Black Sea Grain Initiative was crucial for delivering grain to developing nations, especially those in Africa. The declaration called for the “full, timely and effective implementation” of the deal — which seeks safe passage for fertilizer and grain from three Ukrainian ports — though Moscow pulled out of the deal in July.
There is “no way” Russian President Vladimir Putin will be arrested if he attends the G-20 summit in Rio de Janeiro next year, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said. Lula said in a Saturday interview with the Firstpost news outlet that he expects Putin to attend next year’s summit despite the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrant issued against the Russian leader for allegations of war crimes. Brazil is a signatory to the Rome statute that created the ICC, which relies on member nations to enforce warrants.
The G-20 is “not an appropriate forum” for discussing the war, Lula told Firstpost. “We do not want to participate in the war efforts. Brazil wants to participate in the peace effort,” Lula said. He has condemned Russia’s invasion but has refused to provide weapons to Ukraine and has argued that the robust military aid provided by Western countries has prolonged the conflict.
Romanian Foreign Ministry state secretary Iulian Fota protested the violation of his country’s airspace in his meeting with Russia’s chargé d’affaires, according to a statement shared with The Washington Post on Sunday. President Klaus Iohannis previously said in a statement that the incursion signified “an absolutely unacceptable violation of the sovereign airspace of Romania, a NATO ally.”
Two international volunteer aid workers were reportedly killed in Ukraine’s Donetsk region after Russian forces opened fire on their vehicle. Road To Relief, which helps evacuate civilians from the front line, said in an Instagram post that Canadian national Anthony “Tonko” Ihnat was killed in the attack, while Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez confirmed on Twitter the death of Spanish national Emma Igua, 32. The aid organization said “the vehicle flipped over and lit on fire” after it was hit directly near the city of Chasiv Yar, and that the attack severely injured two other volunteers.
Groups of Russian drones swarmed Kyiv from multiple directions overnight that injured 4 people, regional governor Ruslan Kravchenko said Sunday on Telegram. The blast destroyed more than 100 houses and 30 apartments, he added. Ukraine’s air force said it destroyed 26 of the 33 Iranian-made Shahed drones used in the attack. The Post could not immediately verify the report.
Russia said it destroyed eight drones over Crimea. The Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses stopped the apparent attack in the early hours on Sunday. Russia illegally annexed the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine in 2014.
Zelensky adviser Mykhailo Podolyak criticized SpaceX CEO Elon Musk for cutting off Starlink satellite internet services to Ukrainian submarine drones last year. The drones were launching an attack on a Russian fleet based in Crimea. Musk has defended his decision, saying he did not want SpaceX to be “explicitly complicit in a major act of war and conflict escalation.”
Ukraine has little more than a month before weather hinders its counteroffensive strategy, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told the BBC on Sunday. Speaking to the BBC’s Laura Kuenssberg, the nation’s top military official said colder conditions would make it much harder for Ukraine to carry out its offensive, which he said had gone more slowly than expected.
Russia is enlisting local volunteers to defend an airfield in the northwestern Pskov region, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said. Volunteers will patrol in groups of 50, acting as a deterrent against operators piloting drones in the immediate vicinity, the ministry said Sunday. Last month, a swarm of drones targeted the Russian site, reportedly destroying two cargo planes. “The use of volunteers highly likely indicates a shortage of trained security personnel within Russia,” the update said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Japan and Ukraine agreed to begin drafting a bilateral agreement on security guarantees. “I am confident that our partnership — between Ukraine and Japan — will become a global example,” he said in his nightly address. Over the weekend, Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi met with Zelensky and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.
In time of war, Russia turns up aggression on transgender citizens: As Putin wages war on Ukraine, he has taken aim at another group within his own country: transgender people.
Putin has framed the invasion of Ukraine as a war against “Satanists,” liberal Western values, and “parent number one and parent number two,” Robyn Dixon reports. And in July, he signed an astonishingly repressive law dissolving transgender people’s marriages, barring them from adopting children and preventing them from changing their gender in state documents.
His venom is echoed by many, from state television propagandists to politicians. And as the war has ground on, Russia has witnessed increasingly harsh measures against these groups.
