Putin’s troops pushed back in ‘thunderous assault operation’ in Donetsk – live

Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea grain initiative has put “many more” people at risk from hunger, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights has said,

Volker Türk spoke at the opening of the Human Rights Council session in Geneva, Switzerland on Monday.

“A year and a half of horrific warfare has ravaged Ukraine, with a heart-wrenching toll on its people, and damage to vast areas of agricultural land,” he said.

“The Russian Federation’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain Initiative in July, and attacks on grain facilities in Odesa and elsewhere, have again forced prices sky-high in many developing countries – taking the right to food far out of reach for many people.”

Vladimir Putin has arrived in Vladivostock for a meeting of the Eastern Economic Forum, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said, according to Russian state TV.

Russia has hosted the forum since 2015 as it tries to drum up investment from the far east. China, Myanmar, Mongolia, India, Armenia and South Korea are among the countries that send delegates to the forum.

This year’s event is taking place at the Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) campus.

“The Eastern Economic Forum is a “key international platform for establishing and strengthening ties within the Russian and global investment communities, and for comprehensive expert evaluation of the economic potential of the Russian Far East, the investment opportunities it offers, and business conditions within advanced special economic zones,” it website says.

Ukraine’s military intelligence service said on Monday its forces had regained control of several offshore drilling platforms close to Crimea.

It said on the Telegram messaging app that Kyiv’s forces had retaken the drilling platforms known as the ‘Boiko Towers’ in a “unique operation”.

It said the platforms had been occupied since 2015 by Russia, which seized and annexed Crimea in 2014, and had been used by Moscow for military purposes since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022.

Brazil president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has said it is up to the country’s judiciary whether or not to arrest Vladimir Putin if he visits for the G20 summit next year.

“If Putin decides to join, it is the judiciary’s power to decide and not my government,” Lula told reporters in New Delhi, where he was attending this year’s G20 summit.

“I believe that Putin can go easily to Brazil,” he said in an on-camera interview with Indian news outlet Firstpost.

“What I can say to you is that if I’m president of Brazil, and he comes to Brazil, there’s no way he will be arrested.”

A North Korean train presumably carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has departed for Russia for a possible meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, South Korean media said Monday.

Citing unidentified South Korean government sources, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that the train likely left the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Sunday evening and that a Kim-Putin meeting is possible as early as Tuesday.

The Yonhap news agency and some other media published similar reports. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service didn’t immediately confirm those details.

US officials released intelligence last week that North Korea and Russia were arranging a meeting between their leaders that would take place within this month as they expand their cooperation in the face of deepening confrontations with the United States.

The G20 summit in India has ended without the usual “family photo”, as some members questioned the watered-down language used in the joint declaration issued by leaders in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Most of the leaders departed from Delhi earlier in the day, having paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at his memorial on the banks of the Yamuna River. The absence of the customary group photograph – intended to signify unity between the world’s largest economies – exemplified the fact that deep divisions still remain over the Ukraine war.

Volodymyr Zelensky has paid tribute to aid workers after a Russian anti-tank missile struck a volunteer van in Donetsk yesterday.

Canadian Anthony Ignat was killed in the incident and it is likely Emma Igual of Spain also died, the Ukraine president said.

German citizen Mawick Ruben and Swedish citizen Johan Mathias, two other volunteers, were seriously injured and are being treated in hospitals in Dnipro.

“This Russian shelling once again confirms how close the war against Ukraine is to everyone in the world who truly values human life and who believes it is the common moral duty of humanity to stop terror and defeat evil,” Zelensky said in a Telegram post.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed that Ukraine‘s place is in the European Union during a visit to the embattled country’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday morning.

Ukraine can “rely on us and on our understanding of EU enlargement as a necessary geopolitical consequence of Russia‘s war,” said Baerbock upon arrival, according to a statement.

Ukraine already has candidate status, said Baerbock. “And now we are preparing to take a decision on opening EU accession talks.”

On judicial reform and media legislation, Ukraine‘s reform results are already impressive, she said.

But there is still a long way to go in the implementation of the anti-oligarch law and the fight against corruption, added the foreign minister.

The visit is Baerbock’s fourth since the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022.

The Russian military intends to recruit 420,000 contract personnel by the end of 2023, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said today, warning of the negative effect this would have on its industrial workforce.

On 3 September, Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dimitry Medvedev stated that so far 280,000 personnel had been recruited, the ministry said, adding that the numbers cannot be verified.

“Russia’s conscription continues to have negative effects on its industry workforce. The Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy found that Russia’s industry shortage of workers reached a new high of 42% for July 2023, 7% higher from April 2023,” the MoD said.

It added that in contrast to conscription efforts elsewhere, the IT sector Russia has taken steps to preserve the workforce. “This likely highlights the particularly acute shortages in the sector after about 100,000 IT workers left Russia in 2022,” it said.

“This equates to 10% of the IT sector workforce. On 4 September 2023, President Putin signed a decree to increase the exemption age of military recruitment for IT professionals from 27 to 30.”

“This shows that mobilisation and conscription within Russia has worsened non-defence workforce shortages. In the run-up to the Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 2024, Russian authorities will likely seek to avoid further unpopular mobilisations,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update.