RussiaUkraine

Here are the key events on day 1,313 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, September 29:

Fighting

• Russian forces killed four people, including a 12-year-old girl, and injured 13 in an attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, on Sunday night, Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, wrote in a post on Telegram. Those killed also included staff and patients at a cardiology centre, Tkachenko added.
• Polish news outlet RMF24, citing Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Pawel Wronski, reported that Poland’s embassy in Kyiv was also damaged in the attack.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X that Russian bombardment also targeted the regions of Zaporizhia, Khmelnytskyi, Sumy, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv and Odesa, wounding at least 40 people across the country.
• The Russian assault led to military responses in neighbouring Poland, where fighter jets were deployed early on Sunday as Russia struck targets in western Ukraine, according to the Polish army.
• Russia fired a total of 595 exploding drones and decoys, and 48 missiles, of which Ukrainian forces shot down or jammed 566 drones and 45 missiles, Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence claimed that forces targeted the “military-industrial complex of Ukraine” with a “massive strike”, using “high-precision long-range air, sea-based weapons and unmanned aerial vehicles [drones]”.
• A civilian died in hospital after he was injured in a drone attack on the village of Novostroyevka-Pervaya, in Russia’s Belgorod region, Russia’s TASS news agency reported, citing Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
• Russian forces shot down 230 Ukrainian drones, six guided aerial bombs and six rockets in a 24-hour period, TASS reported, citing Russia’s Defence Ministry.

Regional security

• Zelenskyy said in his nightly address that “intelligence now indicates that the Russians are using tankers to launch and operate drones against European countries,” calling for Russian tankers, or at least their shadow fleet, to be banned from the Baltic Sea.
• Denmark’s military said on Sunday that the country was banning civilian drone flights, after drones were observed at several military facilities overnight, days after drone sightings caused the temporary closures of several Danish airports.

Politics and diplomacy

• Moldova’s governing pro-European Party of Action and Solidarity (PAS) was in the lead over the pro-Russian Patriotic Bloc, with 90 percent of votes counted in Sunday’s parliamentary election, the country’s electoral commission said.
• Pavel Durov, the Russian founder of the Telegram messaging app, accused French intelligence on Sunday of having asked him through an intermediary to censor some Moldovan voices in return for help with his court case in France.
• In a post in English on X, the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs noted that Durov had made similar accusations about France trying to manipulate politics in Romania earlier this year, around the time of elections there. “After Romania, Moldova. @durov likes making accusations while elections are ongoing,” the ministry wrote.

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Russian state television that Zelenskyy’s recent threats – in which the Ukrainian president said that Kremlin officials should know “where the bomb shelters are” – were about “trying to demonstrate to the Europeans, who now act as the breadwinners, that he is such a brave soldier”, as Ukraine’s position at the front was “inexorably deteriorating”.

Media reports and independent monitor describe the latest strikes on Ukraine as ‘one of the heaviest’ since war began.

At least nine people have been reported injured as Russia launched a major drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital and the surrounding region.

An air raid alert was in place over the Kyiv region early on Sunday, with the local military administration saying Russia was attacking with drones and missiles.

Some Kyiv residents fled to metro stations deep underground for safety as the attack continued in the morning.

Many regions across the country were also under air raid alert, while neighbouring Poland closed airspace near two of its southeastern cities and its air force and allied forces scrambled jets in response.

In a statement posted on X, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Russia had fired “hundreds of drones and missiles” overnight.

He said the strikes destroyed residential buildings and caused “civilian casualties”.

“We must maximise the cost of further escalation for Russia,” he said.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Ukrainian capital was under a “massive” assault and urged people to stay in shelters.

“In total, there are five injured,” Klitschko said on the Telegram social media platform, adding that they had been hospitalised.

An independent monitor described the attack on Kyiv as one of the biggest Russian strikes on the capital and the surrounding areas since the full-scale war began.

The Kyiv Post reported that the total number of aerial targets is still being assessed, but described the latest Russian attack as “one of the heaviest they had ever witnessed”.

Anti-aircraft fire rang out through the night as drones flew over Kyiv.

In the southeastern Zaporizhia region, the governor said Russian strikes there had wounded at least four people.

“Once again, residential buildings and infrastructure are being hit. Once again, it is a war against civilians,” Andriy Yermak, the head of Ukraine’s presidential office, said.

“There will be a response to these actions. But the West’s economic blows against Russia must also be stronger,” Yermak said.

Earlier, Poland’s armed forces said they had scrambled fighter jets in its airspace and put ground-based air defence systems on high alert in response to the Russian strikes in Ukraine.

The moves were preventive and aimed at securing Polish airspace and protecting citizens, especially in areas adjacent to Ukraine, the forces said.

Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov has warned NATO and the European Union that “any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response”.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Saturday, Lavrov insisted that Moscow had no plans to attack the West, but that it was prepared to act if provoked.

His comments came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy blamed Russia for recent drone and plane incursions in Europe.

“Russia is testing their ability to defend themselves and trying to influence societies so people begin to ask: ‘If we can’t protect ourselves, why should we keep supporting Ukraine?’. This is intended to reduce assistance to Ukraine, especially ahead of winter,” he wrote on X.

Moscow continues to deny violating Polish airspace with drones, and Estonian airspace with fighter jets, this month. It also says it played no role in the rogue drones spotted near airports in Denmark this week, which forced several airports to shut temporarily.

‘Some hopes’ for US-brokered peace

In his UN speech, Lavrov hit out at accusations from the West, blaming it for scaremongering about the possibility of a “third world war”.

“Russia is being accused of almost planning to attack NATO and EU countries. President [Vladimir] Putin has repeatedly debunked these provocations,” he said.

But Lavrov also insisted that his country still had “some hopes” for ceasefire talks with the United States over Moscow’s war in Ukraine, just days after US President Donald Trump appeared to align himself more closely with Kyiv by saying it could recapture all of the Ukrainian territory seized by Russia.

Trump’s comments, which were made after he met Zelenskyy on the sidelines of the UNGA, marked a significant change in tone. Previously, the US president had said that Kyiv needed to make concessions, arguing that it would never reclaim occupied territory seized by Russia since 2014.

Despite Trump’s statement on Tuesday, Lavrov still expressed a belief in the role of the US as a potential mediator.

“We have some hopes for the continuation of the Russian-American dialogue, especially after the summit in Alaska,” he told delegates at the UN headquarters on Saturday.

The Russian foreign minister suggested that the Trump administration wanted to “realistically resolve the Ukrainian crisis”.

“Russia and the US bear a special responsibility for the state of affairs in the world and for avoiding risks that could plunge humanity into a new war,” he added.

More villages taken in Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions

Lavrov’s appearance at the UN followed claims by Russia on Saturday that it had captured three more villages in eastern Ukraine.

The Russian army said in a statement that it had taken the villages of Derylove and Maiske in the Donetsk region, and the settlement of Stepove in the Dnipropetrovsk region.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said it had launched a successful drone attack against an oil pumping facility in Russia’s Chuvashia region.

“The SBU [Ukrainian security service] continues to impose sanctions on the Russian oil sector, which brings the aggressor country excess profits that go to the war against Ukraine,” a Ukrainian official told Reuters.

An overnight Russian barrage killed one person and wounded 12 in Ukraine’s southeastern Kherson region, and damaged railways in the neighbouring Odesa region, according to the Ukrainian authorities.

As Kyiv attempts to improve its air defences to stop Russian missile and drone attacks, Zelenskyy said on Saturday that a Ukrainian delegation would head to the US for weapons talks in late September or early October.

Ukraine’s president added that his country had received a US-made Patriot air defence system from Israel a month ago, with two more expected to arrive later this year.

On Saturday, both Russia and Ukraine blamed each other for a four-day blackout at the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. Although outages are common, it is the longest so far in the war.

The plant’s six reactors have been off since Moscow seized it shortly after its full-scale invasion in February 2022. However, the facility still needs power to keep its cooling and safety systems operating to prevent its reactors from melting.

Here are the key events on day 1,312 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, September 28 :

Fighting

• Ukrainian long-range drones hit an oil pumping station in Russia’s Chuvashia region, causing a fire and forcing the suspension of operations, an official from the Ukrainian security service, the SBU, told the Reuters news agency.

• Russian forces had taken over three more villages in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk and Dnipro regions, amid a grinding Russian advance in the area, Russia’s military said in a post on Telegram.

• Moscow and Kyiv have traded blame for attacks on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which has forced the facility off the main power grid for the last four days.

Regional security

• NATO has announced that it is upgrading its mission in the Baltic Sea with an air-defence frigate and other military assets deployed to the region, after several days of unidentified drone sightings at airports in Denmark and military bases.

• Earlier, Latvia and Lithuania called on NATO to increase its military protection of the Baltic States, citing alleged Russian violations of the military alliance’s airspace.
• Norway has launched an investigation into “possible sightings of drones” near its biggest military base, Orland, where its advanced F-35 fighter jets are stationed, a military spokesman said.

Military aid

Politics and diplomacy

• Any aggression against Russia “will be met with a decisive response”, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov warned NATO and the European Union in his address at the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York on Saturday. He warned that Moscow is prepared to act if provoked.
• In separate remarks to journalists, Lavrov also suggested that Germany is returning to its Nazi past, in what was seen as a personal attack on German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, as his government moves to ramp up defence spending amid growing threats from Moscow.
• Russia has fallen short of the 93 votes necessary to get elected to the UN aviation agency’s governing council, in the latest rebuke following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia received 87 votes during the agency’s assembly in Montreal.
• South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun met Lavrov in New York, where he expressed Seoul’s “grave concern” over military cooperation between Russia and North Korea. Thousands of North Korean troops have been sent to aid Russia in its war against Ukraine, and Pyongyang has bolstered Moscow with a huge transfer of weapons.

Unidentified drones seen at several places, including the biggest army base, after a slew of earlier sightings that Denmark calls a ‘hybrid attack’.

Unidentified drones have flown over Denmark’s military sites, including its biggest base, the latest in a slew of incursions near airports and critical infrastructure this week, which officials have called a “hybrid attack” and hinted at possible Russian involvement.

“The Danish Defence can confirm that drones were observed at several of the Danish Defence’s locations last night. Several capabilities were deployed,” an army spokesperson said on Saturday, without specifying where the drones were observed.

Police said “one to two drones” were observed at about 8:15pm (18:15 GMT) on Friday near and over the Karup military base in western Denmark, the country’s biggest base, which houses all of the armed forces’ helicopters, airspace surveillance, flight school and support functions.

Police spokesman Simon Skelkjaer said they could not comment on where the drones came from, adding: “We didn’t take them down.”

The Karup base shares its runways with the Midtjylland civilian airport, which was briefly closed, though no flights were affected as none were scheduled at that hour, Skelkjaer said.

Mysterious drone observations across the Scandinavian country over the past week have prompted the closure of several airports, including Copenhagen airport, the Nordic region’s busiest, which closed for several hours late on Monday.

Five smaller airports, both civilian and military, were also shut temporarily in the following days.

Drone reports also closed Oslo airport for several hours earlier in the week, following drone incursions in Polish and Romanian territory and the violation of Estonian airspace by Russian fighter jets, which raised tensions in light of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen on Thursday said “over recent days, Denmark has been the victim of hybrid attacks,” referring to unconventional warfare.

Investigators have so far failed to identify those responsible, but Danish Defence Minister Troels Lund Poulsen said on Thursday the flights appeared to be “the work of a professional actor”.

Frederiksen has pointed the finger at Russia, saying it is the “main country that poses a threat to Europe’s security”.

Moscow said on Thursday it “firmly rejects” any suggestion that it was involved in the Danish incidents. In a social media post, its embassy in Copenhagen called them “a staged provocation”.

The drone flights began just days after Denmark announced it would acquire long-range precision weapons for the first time, as Russia would pose a threat “for years to come”.

Defence ministers from about 10 European Union countries agreed on Friday to make a so-called “drone wall” a priority for the bloc.

EU Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said Europe needs to learn from Ukraine and swiftly build anti-drone defences.

“We need to move fast,” Kubilius told AFP news agency in an interview. “And we need to move, taking all the lessons from Ukraine and making this drone wall together with Ukraine.”

Copenhagen will host an EU summit gathering heads of government on Wednesday and Thursday. It said on Friday it had accepted Sweden’s offer of its anti-drone technology to ensure the meeting could go ahead without disruption.

Here are the key events on day 1,311 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Saturday, September 27:

Fighting

• A Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kherson region killed a 74-year-old woman and injured two other people, Regional Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote in a post on Telegram. About 70 homes and an administration building were damaged in the attack, Prokudin said.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said Ukrainian forces struck Russia’s Afipsky oil refinery. “Confirmed collision and fire,” the General Staff said in a post on Facebook, adding that the degree of damage was being investigated.
• Russian forces have occupied the Ukrainian village of Yunakivka in the Sumy region, the Russian Ministry of Defence reported, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Politics and diplomacy

• Russia on Friday accused Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of making “irresponsible” threats after he said Moscow’s top officials should check for bomb shelters near the Kremlin if the country does not stop its offensive on Ukraine.
• In an interview with United States media outlet Axios, published on Thursday, President Zelenskyy said Russian officials “have to know where their bomb shelters are”, adding: “If they will not stop the war, they will need it in any case.”
• US President Donald Trump told Zelenskyy he was open to lifting restrictions on Ukraine’s use of American-made long-range weapons to strike deep inside Russia, but did not commit to doing so in their meeting on Tuesday, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed officials.
• Axios also reported on Friday that Zelenskyy asked Trump for Tomahawk missiles, citing unnamed sources.

Regional security

• Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s military had recently “recorded violations of our airspace by reconnaissance drones, which are likely Hungarian”, along the country’s border with its neighbour. Speaking later in his nightly video address, Zelenskyy referred to “very strange incidents” and called for “thorough checks”.
• Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto replied in a post on X, saying: “President Zelenskyy is losing his mind to his anti-Hungarian obsession. He’s now starting to see things that aren’t there.”
• Earlier on Friday, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Kyiv had imposed an entry ban on three high-ranking Hungarian military officials, responding to an earlier entry ban imposed by Hungary on Ukrainian military officials.
• European Union Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said EU defence ministers have agreed to develop a “drone wall” along their borders with Russia and Ukraine, amid increasing reports of Russian violations of EU airspace.

• Moldova’s electoral commission barred two pro-Russian parties from taking part in this Sunday’s parliamentary election, a high-stakes vote overshadowed by claims of Russian interference.
• Serbian police arrested two people on Friday, accusing them of running “combat-tactical training” for dozens of protesters in advance of tense Moldovan parliamentary elections this weekend.
• The arrests come after Moldova’s president, Maia Sandu, accused Russia of paying “hundreds of people” to destabilise the country before Sunday’s vote.

Energy

• Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko put forward plans to either expand his country’s only existing nuclear power plant or build a second plant in order to supply energy to Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine, during a meeting at the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, according to Russia’s RIA Novosti news agency.
• Lukashenko also said after the meeting that he had reached an agreement for Russia to provide gas to Belarus for the next five years, RIA reported.
• Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, the exiled leader of Belarus’s opposition, told The Associated Press news agency that the energy plans put “all of Europe at risk” and “proves once again” that Lukashenko “is complicit in Russian aggression”.

Here are the key events on day 1,310 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, September 26:

Fighting

• Ukrainian naval drones hit Russian ports in Novorossiysk and Tuapse on Wednesday, causing the temporary suspension of operations by Russia’s oil pipeline monopoly Transneft’s oil terminals at the sites, according to a Ukrainian intelligence source.
• A drone was downed and detonated approximately 800m (some 0.5 miles) from the perimeter of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in the Mykolaiv region after 22 Russian drones were observed in the vicinity of the plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said.
• Russian state news agency TASS claimed that Ukraine attempted an attack on the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia – one of the biggest nuclear plants in the country.
• Ukraine’s northern city of Chernihiv and surrounding districts are facing major power cuts after a Russian attack on critical infrastructure, affecting approximately 30,000 consumers, a local official said.

Regional security

• German Chancellor Friedrich Merz called for “effective deterrence” by NATO in response to repeated airspace violations by Russia and reiterated the military alliance’s commitment to use “all necessary military and non-military tools” to defend itself.
• NATO’s Secretary-General Mark Rutte has backed United States President Donald Trump’s comments this week that NATO member countries should shoot down Russian drones and planes if they enter their airspace.
• Romanian Defence Minister Ionut Mosteanu said European states must respond “firmly but proportionally” to provocations, such as having their national airspace violated, adding that Romania’s top defence council agreed on a clear chain of command response in case of airspace breaches by manned and unmanned aircraft.
• German defence conglomerate Rheinmetall plans to build a new ammunition plant in Latvia, expanding the capability of the Baltic nation bordering Russia to defend itself militarily as European countries race to increase their defence capabilities in the wake of Moscow’s war on Ukraine.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would be ready to step down from his position when the war with Russia is over, he told the Axios news site.
• Trump said NATO’s relationship with the US was the strongest it has ever been, speaking from the White House on Thursday during a meeting with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
• Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban held a phone call with Trump to discuss energy security in Central Europe, as the prime minister explained to the US president that Hungary’s energy supply cannot be guaranteed without Russian gas and oil imports.

Peace talks

• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow assumed the Trump administration still maintained the political will to find a solution to the war with Ukraine, and that Russia was ready to engage in peace negotiations.
• Peskov’s comment comes just days after Trump abruptly shifted his rhetoric and said he believed Kyiv could recapture all of its land taken by Russia.

Here is how things stand on Thursday, September 25 :

Fighting

• At least two people were killed by a daytime Ukrainian drone attack on the Russian city of Novorossiysk on Wednesday, according to The Moscow Times. Among those injured were employees of a Russian-Kazakh oil project.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence on Wednesday said 1,495 Ukrainian troops were killed in the past 24 hours of fighting, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS. The numbers have not been independently verified.
• Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov dismissed concerns about Russian incursions into NATO airspace as unfounded “hysteria”, according to the AFP news agency.
• “We hear such exaggerated hysteria about our military pilots allegedly violating some rules and invading someone’s airspace,” Peskov said.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned world leaders of the threat posed by Russian weapons and innovation while speaking to the United Nations General Assembly.
• “Stopping Russia now is cheaper than wondering who will be the first to create a simple drone carrying a nuclear warhead,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday.
• The Ukrainian leader also warned of the threat posed by artificial intelligence in the weapons industry, which could be the “most destructive” arms race in human history.
• Ukraine and Syria formally restored diplomatic ties on the sidelines of the UN summit. Kyiv broke off ties in 2022 after Syria’s then-leader Bashar al-Assad recognised Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory as independent.
• Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov separately met with his United States counterpart Marco Rubio in New York on Wednesday. Rubio urged “Moscow to take meaningful steps towards a durable resolution”, while Lavrov accused Kyiv and Europe of “prolonging” the war.
• Kremlin spokesperson Peskov rejected a statement from US President Donald Trump that Russia is a “paper tiger” and said the country “maintains its macroeconomic stability”.

Economy

• Russia released its 2026 wartime budget on Wednesday, which included a proposal to raise its value-added tax (VAT) from 20 to 22 percent. This would draw in another $15.5bn in funds, according to The Moscow Times.
• VAT remains an important source of government revenue in Russia, the newspaper said, and approximately 40 percent of this year’s federal revenue will come from VAT.
• Moscow’s latest budget also came with the dire prediction that growth in 2025 will tap out at just 1 percent, down from 4.3 percent in 2024, according to the Reuters news agency.
• Russia’s economy is expected to grow just 0.5 percent in 2026, The Moscow Times said, while the federal deficit swelled to $61.1bn between January and July.

Here are the key events on day 1,308 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Wednesday, September 24:

Fighting

• Ukrainian drones attacked the Salavat petrochemical complex, controlled by energy giant Gazprom, in Russia’s Bashkortostan, causing a fire, regional Governor Radiy Khabirov said on Wednesday via his Telegram channel.
• Ukraine’s military struck two Russian oil distribution facilities in the Bryansk and Samara regions, as well as a military airfield in Russia-occupied Crimea, Kyiv’s general staff said on Telegram.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its troops hit bases of Ukrainian special forces and foreign mercenaries in retaliation for Ukraine’s strike on Crimea.
• Russian forces also took control of the village of Pereizne in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.
• Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant lost all off-site power on Tuesday for the 10th time, prompting the  Ministry of Energy to call for decisive international action to secure the removal of occupying Russian forces from the site to restore nuclear safety in the region.

Politics and diplomacy

• United States President Donald Trump said on Tuesday at the United Nations headquarters that Ukraine can win back all territory lost to Russia, a major change of stance from his previous calls for Kyiv to make land concessions.
• Trump also said the US would continue to supply weapons to NATO for the alliance “to do what they want with them”, posting on his Truth Social platform following a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York.
• Zelenskyy said he was surprised by Trump’s comments made earlier in the day and said it was a very positive signal that the US would be with Ukraine until the end of the war.
• Zelenskyy added that the US leader could be a “game-changer” for Ukraine, as there was an understanding “that President Trump is ready to give Ukraine security guarantees after this war will finish”.
• The Ukrainian president also met the US special presidential envoy, Keith Kellogg, to discuss procurement of weapons from the US and mutually beneficial agreements on drones, according to Zelenskyy’s post on X.
• European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Trump agreed on the need to quickly cut Russia’s revenues from fossil fuels – possibly by the end of the year, speaking to the US president on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly on Tuesday.

Regional security

• NATO issued a stern warning to Russia on Tuesday against what it called an “increasingly irresponsible” string of violations of its member states’ airspace, adding that it would employ “military and non-military” measures to defend itself.
• NATO said “our commitment to Article 5 is ironclad”, the provision in the alliance’s founding treaty that commits all member states to mutual defence in the event of an attack on any one of them.
• European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said “every country has the right to defend itself and act accordingly” if Russian planes violate airspace.
• Michael Waltz, the new US envoy to the UN, emphasised the US and its allies will “defend every inch of NATO territory”. He was speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Monday to discuss accusations of a Russian airspace violation.

In the past week, Russia has ramped up a diplomacy of intimidation in the Baltic Sea using planes, drones and words aimed at Ukraine’s European allies.

After threats towards Finland earlier in September, Russia violated Estonian airspace on Friday and German airspace on Sunday, days after it had flown two dozen drones into Poland.

Russia’s escalation came ahead of the United Nations General Assembly where it has many sympathisers among the world’s 195 nations, and seemed designed to isolate Europe, Australia and Japan, where support for Ukraine is staunchest.

This diplomatic theatre, during which United States President Trump in a major shift claimed Ukraine could win back its territory, played out against intensifying Russian attacks on Ukraine that resulted in territorial losses for Russia in Ukraine’s east and north.

Russia not invincible

Ukrainian commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskii said on September 21 that his defenders had pushed Russian assault forces back from Dobropillia and Pokrovsk, two towns they have been fighting for intensively in the Donetsk region for a year.

“164.5sq km [64sq miles] have been liberated, and 180.8sq km [70sq miles] cleared of enemy sabotage and reconnaissance groups,” Syrskii said. “Control was restored over seven settlements.”

Syrskii first mentioned Ukrainian advances in this direction on September 7, when he revealed that Ukrainian forces had taken back 51.5sq km (20sq miles) in August.

Presumably, his reference to 164.5sq km referred to gains in August and September, and suggested the Ukrainian forces were picking up speed.

Russia, too, made gains during the week, claiming it seized the villages Muravka in Donetsk, Novoivanovka in Zaporizhia and Berezove in Dnipropetrovsk.

But Ukraine’s ability to take back territory in some of the most hotly contested battlefields belied the Russian claim to be unstoppable.

“We have an old parable, an old rule: wherever a Russian soldier steps, it is ours,” Russian President Vladimir Putin had told the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum last June.

Russia ‘failed’ in Sumy: Zelenskyy

Russia also retreated from the northern region of Sumy, where it was attempting an incursion after reclaiming its own adjacent region of Kursk from a Ukrainian counteroffensive last March.

This month, Russia redeployed some of its elite paratrooper and marine units from Sumy.

“The Sumy operation has failed. They suffered significant losses, primarily in manpower,” said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a news conference in Kyiv last week. “Today, they have abandoned this direction.”

Despite these retreats, Russia is still making net gains of Ukrainian territory. In August, it captured 499sq km (190sq miles), according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.

Ukraine is trying to cut off the Russian military’s fuel supply, and has scored some successes in recent days.

Ukrainian long-distance drones hit the Salavat and Volgograd refineries on September 18, said Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.

On Tuesday, Ukraine’s General Staff said their unmanned systems forces and intelligence services hit a fuel mixing station in Samara, “where high- and low-density oil from different sources is being mixed to form the export grade of Urals oil”.

They also hit a compressor station along the “Steel Horse” pipeline in the border region of Bryansk vital to the supply of the Russian army, and two planes at the Kacha military airbase in Crimea.

Russian air defences reportedly downed 150 Ukrainian drones in various parts of the country, 33 of them headed for Moscow.

Meanwhile, Europe prepared a 19th package of sanctions to cut off Russian revenues from energy exports. At Trump’s behest, it included a ban on Russian liquefied natural gas beginning in 2027.

Europe bought more than $8bn worth of Russian LNG last year, and was to ban it in 2028.

Western powers slam Russia’s ‘extremely dangerous provocation’

On Friday, three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, the Estonian General Staff said, flying east to west parallel with Estonia’s north coast. Estonia said its transponders were disabled, preventing communication.

Italian F-35s stationed in Estonia scrambled to intercept them.

NATO spokesperson Alison Hart said it was “irresponsible behaviour” and EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called it an “extremely dangerous provocation”.

“Russia has violated Estonian airspace four times already this year, which is unacceptable in itself, but today’s violation, during which three fighter jets entered our airspace, is unprecedentedly brazen,” Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said.

“Russia’s increasingly extensive testing of boundaries and growing aggressiveness must be met with a swift increase in political and economic pressure,” he said.

The Russian jets also made a low pass over the Petrobaltic oil platform in the Baltic Sea, which belongs to Poland.

Russia denied violating Estonian sovereignty. “The flight was conducted in strict accordance with the International Rules for the Use of Airspace, without violating the borders of foreign states,” said the Russian defence ministry.

The incident came nine days after two dozen Russian drones entered Polish airspace and had to be shot down.

“These are not accidental incidents. The Russians will continue trying to spread their aggression, their destabilization, and their interference,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday.

The next day, Germany scrambled two Eurofighters to intercept a Russian aircraft in its Baltic Sea airspace flying without a flight plan or radio contact. Visual contact confirmed it was an Ilyushin II 20-M reconnaissance aircraft.

British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper reprimanded Russia at the UN General Assembly, which kicked off on Monday. “Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive but be under no illusion we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory,” she said.

On the same day, Poland announced it would shoot down unauthorised aircraft in its airspace.

“We will take the decision to shoot down flying objects when they violate our territory and fly over Poland – there is absolutely no discussion about that,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference.

But he cautioned, “When we’re dealing with situations that aren’t entirely clear, such as the recent flight of Russian fighter jets over the Petrobaltic platform – but without any violation, because these aren’t our territorial waters – you really need to think twice before deciding on actions that could trigger a very acute phase of conflict.”

On Tuesday, NATO said it would deploy all means necessary to defend itself.

“Russia should be in no doubt: NATO and Allies will employ, in accordance with international law, all necessary military and non-military tools to defend ourselves and deter all threats from all directions,” the statement said.

Ukraine does not appear to be waiting for NATO. Last week, it announced a joint task force with Poland to coordinate closer cooperation on drone research, training and manufacture.

Zelenskyy on Friday said Ukraine was preparing to export some of its weapons production to create revenue for weapons it still needs.

“We already have certain types of weapons in much larger quantities than we actually need today in Ukraine,” he said. “For example, naval drones that the world counts on and that we have in surplus, as well as antitank weapons and some other types.”

Ukraine would sell to Europe, the US and global partners, Zelenskyy said, but ensure that none of its weapons were re-exported to end up in enemy hands.

NATO countries have accused Russia of violating the airspace of alliance members Estonia, Poland and Romania, as Russia rejected the claims and accused the European powers of levying baseless accusations.

“Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive, but be under no illusion, we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory,” UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said, addressing a meeting of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) on Monday.

“If we need to confront planes operating in NATO space without permission, then we will do so,” she added.

Cooper’s comments were echoed by other Western countries at the meeting, including the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, who suggested that the multiple incidents could not be considered an accident.

Earlier on Monday, Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski said that Russian aircraft would be brought down if they entered his country’s airspace.

“If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don’t come here to whine about it. You have been warned.”

Several European countries have accused Russia of violating their airspaces in the past weeks, which Moscow has denied.

Estonia said on Friday that Russian MiG-31 fighter jets entered Estonian airspace for 12 minutes, before they were forced to withdraw, in an episode that Western officials said was designed to test NATO’s readiness and resolve.

Romania said last week that its radar detected a Russian drone, prompting it to scramble fighter jets.

Earlier this month, Poland reported that it had shot down several drones during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, marking the first time NATO forces have directly engaged in the conflict that began after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour.

Ukraine’s foreign minister said that such actions by Moscow should be met robustly, and renewed Kyiv’s offer to integrate its air defences into those of neighbouring Western countries to counter the Russian front.

“A strong response means that a threat should not be escorted, neither for 12 minutes, nor for one minute. It should be neutralised,” said Andrii Sybiha.

Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, triggering Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. It has also forced European nations to boost their defence amid fears of Russian aggression.

United States President Donald Trump’s efforts to end the war seem to have faltered so far.

NATO’s North Atlantic Council will meet to discuss the issue on Tuesday.

The US’s new envoy to the UN, Michael Waltz, making his first appearance since taking his post, said that Moscow needed to defuse tensions, not exacerbate them.

“I want to take this first opportunity to repeat and to emphasise: The United States and our allies will defend every inch of NATO territory,” Waltz said.

Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, said there was no evidence backing the claims of Moscow’s incursions into NATO members’ airspace, and accused European powers of levying baseless accusations.

“We won’t be partaking in this theatre of the absurd,” he said.

“When you decide that you want to engage in a serious discussion about European security, about the fate of our common continent, about how to make this continent prosperous and secure for everybody, we’ll be ready.”

At least 15 flights have been diverted as the airport remains closed until the situation is resolved, officials in Denmark say.

Authorities in Denmark have closed Copenhagen airport after unidentified drones were sighted nearby, causing about 15 flights to be diverted, police and airport officials told the AFP news agency.

“The airspace over Copenhagen airport has been closed since 8:30pm (18:30 GMT) due to two to three unidentified drones. No aircraft can take off or land,” airport spokeswoman Lise Agerley Kurstein said.

She said about 15 flights had been diverted to other airports.

Copenhagen police, meanwhile, said that “three or four big drones” had been observed flying over the airport.

“They are still flying back and forth, coming and going,” duty officer Anette Ostenfeldt told the AFP at 10:45pm (20:45 GMT), adding that police were at the airport investigating.

She could not say if the drones were military or civilian.

“But they are bigger than what you as a private individual can buy,” Ostenfeldt said.

Airport officials said the airport would remain closed until the situation was resolved. “We currently have no timeline for reopening,” Kurstein, the airport spokeswoman, said.

The incident comes as several European countries have reported violations of their airspace by Russia. Estonia said on Friday that three Russian MiG-31 fighter jets had entered Estonian airspace without permission.

During a Russian air strike on Ukraine the week before, Poland said about 19 drones flew into its airspace. The Polish Air Force and NATO allies shot down some of the unmanned vehicles, marking the first time Russian drones were downed over NATO territory since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Romania also registered a Russian drone in its airspace.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) convened on Monday to address the issue of airspace violations.

Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Dmitry Polyansky, denied the allegations that Moscow’s fighter jets had violated the airspace of neighbouring Estonia, saying that last Friday’s flight of three of its MiG-31 aircraft was done “strictly in accordance with international airspace regulations”.

The Russian Ministry of Defence echoed his remarks, saying that “objective monitoring” confirmed that the MiGs did not breach Estonian borders.

NATO allies at the UNSC meeting condemned Russia for violating the alliance’s airspace.

“Your reckless actions risk direct armed confrontation between NATO and Russia. Our alliance is defensive, but be under no illusion we stand ready to defend NATO’s skies and NATO’s territory,” the United Kingdom foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, said.

NATO’s North Atlantic Council will meet to discuss the issue on Tuesday.

Here are the key events on day 1,306 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Monday, September 22:

Fighting

• A Ukrainian drone attack killed three people and injured 16 near the town of Foros on the Crimean Peninsula, the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, wrote in a post on Telegram.
• Russia’s Ministry of Defence said the attack occurred “using strike drones equipped with high-explosive payloads”, in a resort area “where there are no military targets whatsoever”.
• Two people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on a gas station in Pervomaisk, in Ukraine’s Luhansk region, occupied by Russia, the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations for Luhansk said, according to Russia’s state news agency TASS.
• Anna Soroka, a Russian-appointed human rights commissioner for the Luhansk region, said that Ukraine was deliberately targeting gas stations during a period of fuel shortages, according to TASS.
• TASS also reported that one person was killed in a Ukrainian attack on Russia’s Belgorod region, and one person was killed and three people were critically injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on Vasylivka in Russian-occupied Zaporizhia.
• Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces attacked the Saratov Oil Refinery in Russia’s Saratov region on Saturday night, reportedly causing fires and explosions. Ukrainian forces also attacked the Novokuibyshevsk Oil Refinery in Samara, where the General Staff said “the results of the damage are being clarified”, in a statement shared on Facebook.

Regional security

• Germany’s air force said it scrambled two Eurofighter jets to track a Russian reconnaissance aircraft, which Germany said entered neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea.
• The incident comes after Estonia, Poland and Romania reported Russian fighter jets or drones entering their airspace in recent weeks.
• Estonia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on Sunday that the United Nations Security Council will convene an emergency session on Monday “in response to Russia’s brazen violation of Estonian airspace”.
• Two officials told Reuters that a planned NATO North Atlantic Council meeting to respond to the violation of Estonia’s airspace would take place on Tuesday.
• Asked on Sunday whether he would help defend European Union countries if Russia intensified hostilities, United States President Donald Trump told reporters: “Yeah, I would. I would.”

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that his country is planning to meet with Trump this week, amid a “very intense week” of diplomacy during the UN General Assembly in New York, in a post on X.
• French President Emmanuel Macron said that European countries were complying with international law by using the proceeds from frozen Russian assets in European banks. But he added that seizing the assets from Russia’s central bank could cause “total chaos”, in response to a question from CBS news about recent comments made by Trump.
• Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova responded, saying: “If Moscow’s frozen assets are confiscated in Europe, there won’t be chaos, but rather very harsh countermeasures from Russia. And they know this,” Russia’s RIA Novosti agency reported.
• Russian Colonel General Alexander Lapin, a senior commander who served in the first phase of Russia’s war in Ukraine, has been dismissed from military service, Russian media outlet RBC reported on Sunday, citing an unidentified source.

German air force says its ‘quick reaction alert force’ was ordered by NATO to investigate Russian plane in neutral airspace.

Germany’s air force says it has scrambled two Eurofighter jets to track a Russian reconnaissance aircraft after it had entered neutral airspace over the Baltic Sea.

In a statement, the air force said its “quick reaction alert force” was ordered on Sunday by NATO to investigate an unidentified aircraft flying without a plan or radio contact.

“It was a Russian IL-20M reconnaissance aircraft. After visual identification, we handed over escort duties for the aircraft to our Swedish NATO partners and returned to Rostock-Laage,” it added.

The operation was conducted as NATO prepares to convene its North Atlantic Council on Tuesday to discuss a separate incident involving Russian jets over Estonia.

According to the Reuters news agency, that meeting is to address what Tallinn called an “unprecedented and brazen” violation of its airspace on Friday when three Russian MiG-31 fighters entered without permission and remained for 12 minutes before leaving.

The claim sparked condemnation from NATO and European governments, who called the incursion a “reckless” and “dangerous provocation”.

Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michal requested urgent “NATO Article 4 consultations” on the “totally unacceptable” incursion. Article 4 allows NATO members to hold consultations with the alliance when any state believes its territorial integrity, political independence or security is under threat.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied the allegation while Estonia summoned Moscow’s charge d’affaires in protest.

Tensions have been heightened in recent weeks by a series of airspace violations along NATO’s eastern flank.

Romania said last week that its radar detected a Russian drone, prompting it to scramble fighter jets. Earlier this month, Poland reported that it had shot down several drones during a Russian aerial attack on Ukraine, marking the first time NATO forces have directly engaged in that conflict.

Ukraine has said the incidents show Moscow is testing the West’s resolve as the war is in its fourth year. Military analysts note that such incursions serve as intelligence-gathering operations, tests of NATO’s responses and pressure tactics designed to unsettle NATO members bordering Russia.

Here are the key events on day 1,305 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Sunday, September 21:

Fighting

• Russian forces launched a large-scale missile and drone attack, targeting areas across Ukraine, killing at least three people and wounding dozens more, according to Ukrainian officials.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia launched 580 drones and 40 missiles, and that the attacks took place across nine regions, including Dnipropetrovsk, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Zaporizhia, Poltava, Kyiv, Odesa, Sumy and Kharkiv.
• Ukrainian forces launched drone attacks on Russia’s southwestern Samara region, killing at least four people, according to Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev announced on social media. The region is located 800km (497 miles) from the front line in Ukraine.
• The Reuters news agency, citing Ukraine’s SBU security agency, said Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil pumping stations, which are part of the Kuibyshev-Tikhoretsk oil pipeline, in the Volgograd and Samara regions. The facilities that were targeted were involved in Russian oil exports via the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, the report said.
• The Russian Ministry of Defence said its forces shot down 383 Ukrainian drones over the past day.
• The ministry also claimed control of the village of Berezove in Ukraine’s southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region.

Regional security

• Poland and its allies scrambled aircraft to ensure the safety of Polish airspace early on Saturday after Russia launched attacks on western Ukraine, the country’s armed forces announced.
• The move came after Poland shot down suspected Russian drones in its airspace earlier this month, and Estonia said three Russian military jets violated its airspace for 12 minutes on Friday.
• The United Kingdom also sent two fighter jets on their first NATO air defence sortie over Poland as part of the alliance’s Eastern Sentry mission, its government said.
• Lithuanian Minister of Defence Dovile Sakaliene has called on NATO to urgently move air defence capabilities to front-line states, saying citizens of NATO states are “being threatened almost every day now”.

Politics and diplomacy

• Ukraine’s Zelenskyy said that he would meet United States President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week to discuss security guarantees for his country and sanctions on Russia.
• Zelenskyy said he expects the US to impose a new round of strong sanctions against Russia, a day after the European Union also announced its 19th round of sanctions package on Moscow.
• Russia has intensified its use of criminal prosecution, long-term imprisonment, intimidation, torture and ill-treatment to silence opposition since its invasion of Ukraine, according to Mariana Katzarova, the UN special rapporteur on the rights situation in Russia. The report detailing a “seismic decline” of the human rights situation in Russia will be presented to the Human Rights Council on Monday.

Kyiv in sanctions push as NATO states on Europe’s eastern flank take preventive action after Moscow’s air incursions.

Ukrainian Volodymyr Zelenskyy is preparing to meet US President Donald Trump on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City next week in a bid to urge him to impose stronger sanctions on Russia.

The Ukrainian president shared his plans on Saturday, as Russia intensified attacks on his country following air incursions into Europe’s eastern flank that have sparked anxiety over a potential spillover of the ongoing war in Ukraine.

The announcement, reported by the AFP news agency, came the day after the European Union presented its 19th sanctions package.

“We now expect strong sanctions steps from the United States as well – Europe is doing its part,” Zelenskyy posted on X on Saturday.

This week brought us closer to finalizing the 19th sanctions package – we expect its approval soon. We will quickly synchronize the package in Ukraine. Russia’s energy resources are being restricted. The infrastructure of the “shadow fleet” will face new pressure. Cryptocurrency… pic.twitter.com/JzgvsQQHHQ

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 20, 2025

Trump already signalled last week that he was ready to impose “major sanctions” on Russia, which has so far evaded his attempts for a ceasefire, but only if all NATO allies agree to completely halt buying oil from Moscow.

Zelenskyy is also expected to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine to prevent future Russian attacks after an eventual truce, though Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned that he would not accept the presence of Western troops in Ukraine.

Moscow stepped up attacks on Ukraine overnight, firing 40 missiles and some 580 drones in one of the biggest barrages of Russia’s war on its neighbour, killing at least three people and wounding dozens.

Preventive operations in east

NATO countries took measures to strengthen defences on Europe’s eastern flank after Russian drone incursions in Poland and Romania over the past two weeks, and unprecedented reports of three Russian fighter jets entering Estonian airspace on Friday.

Poland’s army said that Polish and allied aircraft were deployed early on Saturday in a “preventative operation” to ensure the safety of Polish airspace after Russia launched air strikes targeting western Ukraine, near the Polish border.

The United Kingdom said that its fighter jets had flown their first NATO air defence sortie to patrol Polish skies and defend against potential aerial threats from Russia as part of the alliance’s Eastern Sentry mission.

On Saturday, Russia’s Ministry of Defence denied that its aircraft flew into Estonia’s airspace the day before, but Estonian officials said the 12-minute violation was confirmed by radar and visual contact.

Colonel Ants Kiviselg, the commander of Estonia’s Military Intelligence Centre, said that it still “needs to be confirmed” whether the border violation was deliberate.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has presented a 19th package of sanctions on Russia, urging members of the European Union to adopt new sanctions on Russia’s exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in an attempt to push Moscow to end its “brutal” war in Ukraine.

“Russia’s war economy is sustained by revenues from fossil fuels,” von der Leyen said on Friday. “We want to cut these revenues. So we are banning imports of Russian LNG into European markets.”

The sanctions must be endorsed by all 27 EU member countries before they can enter into force.

“It is time to turn off the tap,” von der Leyen said, calling on members to quickly endorse the move.

“We want Russia to leave the battlefield and come to the negotiation table, and this is the way to give peace a real chance,” she added.

Russia is showing the full extent of its contempt for diplomacy and international law.

So we’re increasing the pressure.

With our 19th package of sanctions covering energy, financial services and trade restrictions ↓ https://t.co/uW7HuZp3br

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) September 19, 2025

EU sanctions have already targeted more than 2,500 entities, including banks, ministries, energy companies and officials.

Those being sanctioned include President Vladimir Putin, his close associates, dozens of Russian lawmakers and several oligarchs. The measures largely consist of travel bans and asset freezes.

Von der Leyen said the bloc’s existing sanctions are having an effect.

“Russia’s overheated war economy is coming to its limit,” she said, pointing to persistently high inflation in the country.

The EU has so far adopted 18 sanction packages against Moscow, though reaching agreement on new targets often takes weeks.

Russian LNG accounted for roughly 16 percent of the bloc’s total imports last year, with Europe being Russia’s largest buyer of LNG.

Hungary and Slovakia have opposed any phase-out of Russian LNG, creating potential obstacles to further action, and they have been known to use their veto power to gain concessions.

Moscow to ‘pay the price’

In a separate statement, EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc was moving up a previous pledge to end all imports of LNG before the end of 2027 by 12 months.

“Our aim is to speed up the phase-out of Russian liquefied natural gas by 1 Jan 2027,” she posted on X.

“Moscow thinks it can keep its war going. We are making sure it pays the price for it.”

Tearing children from their families and deporting them to re-education camps is beyond description.
We will not let Russia weaponize childhood itself.

We are also going to make is easier to sanction individuals involved in the abduction and indoctrination of Ukrainian children.

— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) September 19, 2025

Kallas said the bloc was also looking to “make it easier” to sanction individuals involved in abducting Ukrainian children.

Since 2022, Russia has faced global criticism over the deportation of Ukrainian families, many of them with children.

“Tearing children from their families and deporting them to re-education camps is beyond description,” Kallas posted on social media. “We will not let Russia weaponise childhood itself.”

UK sanctions target Georgian businessmen

Meanwhile, the UK announced sanctions on Friday against two Georgian businessmen over their support for Russia’s war in Ukraine, as well as two tankers carrying Russian oil.

“The UK has announced new sanctions targeting Georgia-linked supporters of Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine,” the UK foreign ministry said in a statement.

“As Russia’s war footing weakens, the Kremlin is increasingly looking to proxies in third countries to support its war and propaganda operations, including in Georgia,” the ministry’s statement said.

Among the individuals sanctioned are Georgian media mogul and politician Levan Vasadze, whom the UK accuses of putting out pro-Russian disinformation.

Otar Partskhaladze, former prosecutor general of Georgia and someone London said had “extensive links to Russia,” was also sanctioned.

In addition, two tankers were sanctioned for carrying Russian oil to the Georgian port in Batumi in violation of Western restrictions.

“Putin’s war machine relies on an international web to spread lies and fund this network,” Minister of State Stephen Doughty said, according to the statement.

“We’re cutting off another lifeline by targeting and deterring those in Georgia who provide support for Putin’s illegal war in Ukraine.”

Here are the key events on day 1,303 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

Here is how things stand on Friday, September 19 :

Fighting

• Ukrainian drones hit a key oil-processing and petrochemical complex in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, as well as an oil refinery in the Volgograd region, as Ukraine escalates its campaign against Russia’s extensive oil and gas sector.
• Russian military units claim to have breached Ukraine’s western village of Yampol and secured new positions near five residential areas in the same area, according to Russia’s state TASS news agency.
• Russia’s Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov has claimed Russia is gaining ground in “almost all directions” along the front lines with Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisted that Russian losses have mounted in the eastern city of Pokrovsk amid Ukraine’s “heroic defence” of the area.
• Latvian authorities identified debris from a Russian drone found on the Baltic coast, near the country’s port city of Ventspils. Latvia’s Defence Minister Andris Spruds wrote on X that the object was the tail end of a “decoy” Gerbera drone and confirmed it was not explosive.

Regional security

• The United States Department of State has approved the sale of Javelin missile systems to Poland for an estimated $780m. The deal would “support the foreign policy and national security of the United States by improving the security of a NATO ally”, the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency said.
• Ukraine has agreed to train Polish soldiers and engineers in drone warfare defence. The announcement came a week after Polish and NATO forces shot down more than 20 drones violating the country’s airspace during a Russian aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine.
• The European Commission’s Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius said he plans to convene talks with defence ministers next week on creating a “drone wall” along the European Union’s eastern border, a concept that was already under discussion before the most recent incidents of Russian drone incursions in EU airspace.
• Ukrainian anti-drone technology, battle-tested against Russia, was on display at a Taiwanese defence expo this week.

Peace process

• US President Donald Trump said in a Fox News interview that he was “very disappointed” with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his failure to secure a peace deal in Ukraine.
• “The one I thought was going to be easiest [to settle] was going to be Russia-Ukraine, because of my relationship with President Putin. So I’m disappointed,” Trump said.
• In the same interview, Trump proclaimed the US would play a role in post-war peace-building in Ukraine. “After the war is settled, we would help secure the peace. And I think ultimately that’ll happen,” he said.
• Trump said in another joint news conference, after meeting with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, that President Putin “has really let me down”.
• During the meeting, Trump and Starmer discussed ways to increase defence support for Ukraine and “decisively” put pressure on Putin to agree to a peace deal, Starmer said.
• Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov took a swipe at Trump in response, according to TASS: “When President Trump says he is disappointed, it seems to me – I can’t say that I know him very well, of course, but I have spoken with him several times, and I have formed a certain impression – that this is partly because he wants quick solutions”.

Politics and diplomacy

• President Zelenskyy said he had spoken with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and thanked him on X for “assistance in returning Ukrainian children abducted by Russia”. In another post, he thanked the United Kingdom’s King Charles for “steadfast support” after the king referenced Ukraine during a dinner with Trump on Wednesday.

I spoke with the Amir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani @TamimBinHamad.

I thanked him for his assistance in returning Ukrainian children abducted by Russia. We greatly value this solidarity and such sincere attention to our children.

I invited Qatar to take part in the…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 18, 2025

Economy and energy

• Russia’s Ministry of Finance announced a new measure to help protect the state budget from oil price fluctuations and Western sanctions as Russian oil and gas sales for September are expected to see a 23 percent reduction compared with last year, the Reuters news agency reports.
• Putin suggested he was willing to raise taxes on the wealthy, such as imposing a luxury tax or higher taxes on stock dividends, to boost Russia’s wartime economy.

Sanctions

• The European Commission is slated to present its 19th package of sanctions against Russia to member states on Friday, which includes a proposal to ban Russian liquefied natural gas, an official said.
• Australia announced new sanctions against 95 “shadow fleet” Russian vessels, which are oil tankers used to evade Western sanctions. The government also lowered the price cap for Russian oil to $47.60 per barrel, down from $60 a barrel, following a similar move by the EU, the UK, Canada, New Zealand and Japan.

Ukraine has worsened fuel shortages across Russia in the past week as it has continued to hit Russia’s refineries and energy infrastructure with long-range drones while Poland has called for more oil sanctions in the wake of Russia’s first drone attack on NATO soil.

In the meantime, Russia’s creeping advance resulted in the capture of three villages over the past week, and perhaps for the first time, Ukraine’s command reacted by dismissing the retreating officers.

Russian forces took the villages of Sosnovka and Novonikolayevka in Dnipropetrovsk and Olhivske/Olgovskoye in Zaporizhia.

Ukrainian commander-in-chief Oleksandr Syrskii on Monday fired the two officers in charge of the 17th and 20th army corps, which are based in the two respective regions.

Since 2024, Ukraine has fought through slow, tactical retreats designed to cede limited ground for disproportionately high Russian casualties.

The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, has estimated that in May, June, July and August, Russia took 1,910sq km (737.5sq miles) of Ukrainian territory at a cost of 130,000 casualties, averaging 68 casualties per square kilometre.

Syrskyi’s dismissals could indicate a tougher approach towards land losses going forward.

Russian forces were suffering “significant losses” in Kupiansk and Dobropillia, two of the hottest points along the front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday.

Ukrainian defenders were advancing towards the Russian border in Sumy in northern Ukraine, he said.

Ukraine’s strategy – not purely defensive

Ukraine has launched a two-pronged strategy this year to choke off fuel supplies to the Russian economy and military and to kill Russian revenues from energy exports.

“The most effective sanctions – the ones that work the fastest – are the fires at Russia’s oil refineries, its terminals, oil depots,” Zelenskyy said in an evening address to the Ukrainian people on Sunday.

“Russia’s war is essentially a function of oil, of gas, of all its other energy resources,” he said.

That day, Ukraine crippled Russia’s second largest refinery when its drones struck a processing unit accounting for 40 percent of the plant’s capacity.

Russian authorities said they shot down 361 drones, suggesting there were many other targets as well.

Industry sources told the Reuters news agency that the Kirishinefteorgsintez refinery, located in the northwestern town of Kirishi, would boost production at other units. Even so, the refinery could operate only at three-quarters of its capacity.

Last year, it produced 7.1 million tonnes of diesel and 6.1 million tonnes of fuel oil for ships.

Two days after the Kirishi strike, Ukraine’s military reported it also struck the Saratov refinery, which supplies the Russian military.

There is mounting evidence that the first prong of Ukraine’s strategy is working.

Russian state newspaper Izvestiya reported last week that fuel shortages had spread to 10 Russian republics and regions, including the central regions of Ryazan, Nizhny Novgorod, Saratov and Rostov as well as occupied Crimea.

Izvestiya’s report was based on interviews with the Russian Independent Fuel Union, an association of petrol station owners, which said many petrol stations had not received deliveries for several weeks and had been forced to shut down.

Regional governors have also recently confirmed fuel shortages.

Ukraine has struck at least 10 major Russian refineries this year, and the commander of its Unmanned Systems Forces estimated Russia has lost one-fifth of its refining capacity.

“The Russian war machine will only stop when it runs out of fuel,” Zelenskyy told the annual Yalta European Strategy Meeting in Kyiv on Friday. “And Putin will begin to stop it himself when he himself truly feels that the resources for war are running out.”

Fewer exports

The second prong of Ukraine’s strategy, choking off Russia’s cashflow from oil and fuel exports, has also been highly successful.

On Friday, Ukrainian drones struck Russia’s largest oil offloading terminal at Primorsk on the Baltic Sea, according to sources at Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU).

The strike caused a fire at the pumping station and a ship moored next to it, forcing the terminal to suspend shipments, Ukrainian outlet Suspilne reported.

Ukraine also struck pumping stations along the Transneft Baltic Pipeline System-2, which supplies crude oil to offloading terminals in the port of Ust-Luga, also in the Leningrad region.

“Oil and gas revenues have accounted for between a third and half of Russia’s total federal budget proceeds over the past decade, making the sector the single most important source of financing for the government,” Reuters said.

Russia has banned all exports of refined petroleum products since February and sought to increase exports of crude oil instead.

But even that goal may not be possible.

Russia’s biggest pipeline operator, Transneft, has reportedly told upstream oil producers they may have to cut their output because Ukrainian strikes have degraded its ability to store and carry oil to refineries and export terminals, according to three industry sources who spoke to Reuters.

Transneft dismissed the report as “fake news”.

EU seeks to end all imports

Poland called for a complete ban of Russian oil imports to the European Union after 19 Russian drones entered its airspace on September 10.

Most of the EU has banned Russian oil imports, but Hungary and Slovakia have an exemption until the end of 2027 because they said it’s cheaper for them to import oil via pipeline from Russia than to receive it through other EU countries.

That may change, the European Commission chief said on Tuesday. “The Commission will soon present its 19th package of sanctions, targeting crypto, banks, and energy,” President Ursula von der Leyen wrote on social media. “The Commission will propose speeding up the phase-out of Russian fossil imports.”

Ongoing sales of Russian energy to Europe have been a topic of concern.

Official EU imports of Russian oil have dropped by an estimated 90 percent since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to estimates from the EU’s statistical service.

However, the EU never actually banned Russian gas, and the London-based think tank Ember has estimated it paid Russia $23.6bn for gas last year – almost $5bn more than it paid in military aid to Ukraine.

“I urge all partners to stop looking for excuses not to impose particular sanctions,” Zelenskyy said on Saturday. “If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin does not want peace, he must be forced into it.”

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk says an investigation is under way after drone spotted over government buildings in Warsaw.

Authorities in Poland have said that two Belarusian citizens were detained and a drone was “neutralised” after it was flown over government buildings and the presidential residence in the capital city, Warsaw.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said early on Tuesday that members of the country’s State Protection Services apprehended the two Belarusians, and police were “investigating the circumstances of the incident”.

The Associated Press news agency quoted Colonel Boguslaw Piorkowski, a spokesperson for the protection service, saying that the drone was not shot down by Polish forces but landed after authorities apprehended the operators.

“The impression is that this is not something that flew in from abroad but rather launched locally,” Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, Poland’s minister of development funds and regional policy, told local media outlet TVN 24, according to the AP.

The minister also advised the public against rushing to conclusions or associating the incident with last week’s high-profile incursion by multiple Russian drones into Polish airspace during an aerial attack on neighbouring Ukraine, the AP reported.

Przed chwilą Służba Ochrony Państwa zneutralizowała drona operującego nad budynkami rządowymi (Parkowa) i Belwederem. Zatrzymano dwóch obywateli Białorusi. Policja bada okoliczności incydentu.

— Donald Tusk (@donaldtusk) September 15, 2025

Translation: Just now, the State Protection Service neutralised a drone operating over government buildings (Parkowa) and the Belweder. Two Belarusian citizens were detained. The police are investigating the circumstances of the incident.

The reported arrest of the Belarusian drone operators by Polish authorities comes as thousands of troops from Belarus and Russia take part in the “Zapad (West) 2025” military drills, which kicked off on Friday and are due to end on Tuesday.

Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, which border Belarus, closed their frontier crossings and bolstered defences in advance of the exercises, which authorities in Minsk said involve 6,000 soldiers from Belarus and 1,000 from Russia.

Poland is also on high alert after last week’s Russian drone incursions, which led to Polish and NATO fighter jets mobilising to defend against what was described as an “unprecedented violation of Polish airspace” by Moscow.

Polish F-16 and Dutch F-35 fighter jets, as well as Italian AWACS surveillance planes, deployed to counter the drones, marking the first time that NATO-allied forces have engaged Russian military assets since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

One of the drones damaged a residential building in Wyryki, eastern Poland, though nobody was reported injured, according to the Reuters news agency.

On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte announced that the Western military alliance would increase its defence “posture” in Eastern Europe following the Polish airspace violation.

Operation “Eastern Sentry” will include military assets from a range of NATO members, including Denmark, France, Germany and the United Kingdom, Rutte said, describing the incursion as “reckless” and “unacceptable”.

Amid the increased tension with Russia, NATO member Romania also reported a drone incursion on Saturday, which led to the scrambling of two F-16 fighter jets as well as two Eurofighters and a warning to Romanian citizens to take cover.

Romanian Minister of National Defence Ionut Mosteanu said the fighter jets came close to shooting down the drone before it exited Romanian airspace into neighbouring Ukraine.

Moscow’s ambassador to Romania was summoned by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sunday, where Bucharest “conveyed its strong protest against this unacceptable and irresponsible act, which constitutes a violation of [its] sovereignty”.

Russia was “urgently requested… to prevent any future violations”, the Romanian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.