Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy launched on Friday a new trade and security scheme with a group of eight countries from the Carpathian region of central and eastern Europe. In a comment summing up the outcome of the meeting, Zelenskyy said on Telegram that 50 agreements had been signed for a total value of more than €1bn ($1.15bn). He gave few details, but said more than half the accords dealt with energy, particularly solar and wind power, with the aim of energy independence from Russia. The group includes Romania, Serbia, Poland, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria, Hungary, and the European Union.
At the meeting in western Ukraine, Zelenskyy thanked regional allies for keeping trade and transport links open following Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022. Polish prime minister Donald Tusk, Serbia’s President Aleksandar Vucic and Romania’s President Nicusor Dan attended the inaugural event, which is expected to last until Sunday. “This marks the start of a movement that should bring our countries even closer together and create another strong framework for cooperation at the EU level,” Zelenskyy said.
Donald Trump on Friday signed legislation enabling sweeping sanctions on Russia aimed at pressing it to end its war with Ukraine, and also giving him the power to impose additional tariffs on countries breaking the embargo. The Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, named after the hawkish Republican senator, Lindsey Graham, who died in July, aims to deplete Russia’s ability to continue funding the war by targeting its natural gas and oil revenues, as well as countries that continue to buy Russian energy. The legislation imposes new sanctions on Russian political and military officials and foreign networks helping to supply Russia’s war machine and evade existing sanctions.
Russians are going to the polls to elect a new State Duma against a backdrop of intensifying conflict between Russia and Ukraine. There is little doubt that Vladimir Putin’s United Russia will extend its grip on parliament thanks to a tightly controlled vote. The three-day vote began Friday, with results expected after polls close on Sunday. It is the first Duma election since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Swarms of Ukrainian drones have struck oil refineries, factories and logistics hubs across Russia over the summer, while polling has pointed to growing anxiety about the course of the fighting and what may still lie ahead.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Friday that Ukraine was deliberately hindering talks aimed at ending the war and accused Kyiv of interfering in Russia’s parliamentary election. Putin, in comments to Russia’s Military-Industrial commission, also reasserted Moscow’s main defence aim of relying on its “nuclear triad” of weapons and said Moscow needed to improve its anti-missile defences. In comments reported by Russian news agencies, Putin said Ukraine had “long degenerated into a dictatorship,” referring to the country not holding a new presidential election despite the expiry of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s mandate.
Latvia’s president has warned that Europe is not keeping up with developments of drone and aerial warfare in Ukraine and that most countries in Nato could not repulse an attack by Russian missiles if the conflict expands. The remarks came during a Guardian interview in Washington DC in which Edgars Rinkēvičs said that the technological developments in drone warfare in Ukraine were moving at “lightning speed”. “What we see is that air defence, drone defence, anti-ballistic defence has serious problems,” he said. “Because if Russia decides to use a couple of missiles in that territory, I think that would be a serious challenge today for many countries to cope with that,” he added.
A Russian glide bomb hit an apartment building in the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Friday, killing two people and injuring seven, leaving three of them in a serious condition. Writing on the Telegram messaging app, President Zelenskyy said emergency crews had rescued four people after the attack and said others could still be trapped under rubble. The head of Sumy city council said the two dead were city employees. Regional Governor Oleh Hryhorov said three of the seven injured were in a serious condition. Among the injured was a 13-year-old girl.
