Up to date September 2, 2023 at 12:16 p.m. EDT|Printed September 2, 2023 at 1:52 a.m. EDT
A Ukrainian serviceman operates a drone at a entrance line close to the village of Robotyne within the Zaporizhzhia area on Aug. 25. (Viacheslav Ratynskyi/Reuters)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mentioned his forces have been persevering with to make progress of their counteroffensive after weeks of a close to stalemate that had sparked concern amongst Kyiv’s supporters. “Regardless of every thing and it doesn’t matter what anybody says, we’re advancing, and that’s the most necessary factor. We’re on the transfer,” Zelensky wrote Saturday.
His feedback got here after White Home spokesman John Kirby instructed reporters that Ukrainian forces had achieved “notable progress” in retaking territory within the southern area of Zaporizhzhia over the previous three days. He added that Kyiv’s forces “have achieved some success alongside that second line of Russian defenses,” however that “it isn’t past the realm of the doable that Russia will react” to Ukraine’s push.
Right here’s the most recent on the struggle and its ripple results throughout the globe.
Kirby mentioned that the criticism of Kyiv was “not useful to the overarching effort to be sure that Ukraine can succeed. And they’re.” He added that the Ukrainian progress “has been sluggish in some areas, slower than they themselves wish to go. However they’ve been preventing each single day.”
Ukraine’s state safety service named billionaire Ihor Kolomoisky as a suspect in a fraud and cash laundering case, the company, generally known as the SBU, introduced on Telegram. Pictures launched by the SBU seem to indicate Ukrainian authorities surrounding the oligarch, who beforehand owned Ukraine’s PrivatBank and served as governor of the nation’s Dnipropetrovsk area, at his residence early Saturday. The officers seem to current him with papers outlining the accusations — the most recent in a widening crackdown as Ukraine seeks to revise its picture as a rustic stricken by endemic corruption.
The case towards Kolomoisky is predicated on alleged fraud and laundering of criminally obtained property, the SBU reported. SBU officers reportedly raided his residence earlier this yr, and, in 2021, the USA imposed sanctions towards him “resulting from his involvement in important corruption” whereas serving as governor of Dnipropetrovsk. Secretary of State Antony Blinken additionally accused him of taking part in “present and ongoing efforts to undermine Ukraine’s democratic processes and establishments.”
The Nobel committee on Saturday reversed its resolution to permit Russia and Belarus to attend this yr’s Nobel Prize award ceremony in Stockholm. Each international locations have been uninvited from final yr’s occasion after the invasion of Ukraine, and Friday’s plan to permit them to participate drew condemnation from Kyiv. Criticism of the choice had “fully overshadowed” the meant message, the Nobel Basis mentioned.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson lauded the Nobel committee’s resolution to disinvite Russia and Belarus to the award ceremony. “The numerous and powerful reactions present that the entire of Sweden unambiguously stand on Ukraine’s facet towards Russia’s appalling struggle of aggression,” his workplace posted to X, the platform previously generally known as Twitter.
Russia’s Ministry of Protection mentioned Saturday that its forces had repelled three makes an attempt to assault the Crimean Bridge utilizing drones. It blamed Ukraine, which has not taken accountability. The British Ministry of Protection mentioned Friday that Russia created an underwater barrier of submerged ships and floating boundaries to discourage assaults on the Crimean Bridge, which was hit by Ukraine in July.
Russia dangers “dividing its forces” because it seeks to confront Ukraine’s counteroffensive, in line with the British Protection Ministry. Such a transfer is taken into account undesirable in customary navy doctrine. Russian forces have been making an attempt to halt Ukraine’s southern counteroffensive whereas additionally persevering with their very own offensive round Kupiansk, within the northeast of the nation, in a possible try and “distract Ukraine,” the ministry tweeted early Saturday.
Russia’s house company introduced that the brand new Sarmat missile, which is able to carrying a number of nuclear warheads, is on “fight responsibility.” The announcement, reported by the Russian state information company Interfax, got here months after the weapon was anticipated to be prepared and shortly after Ukraine claimed it had used new domestically made long-range missiles to hit a goal some 435 miles away. The Washington Put up couldn’t independently confirm the claims.
Moscow on Friday designated Nobel laureate Dmitry Muratov a “international agent,” a label used to harass human rights organizations and journalists in Russia. Muratov is the editor in chief of the unbiased Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta and has been a daily critic of the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine. He shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Philippine journalist Maria Ressa in 2021.
German prosecutors launched an investigation Friday into an assault on a 10-year outdated Ukrainian by a person insisting the boy communicate Russian. Investigators mentioned an unidentified man talking Russian accosted a gaggle of Ukrainian youngsters within the city of Einbeck on Aug. 26, complaining that they have been talking Ukrainian and demanding that they communicate Russian. He then pushed a 10-year outdated over a canal bridge railing, the general public prosecutor’s workplace mentioned in an announcement, including that the person was being investigated for tried homicide. The boy was injured within the head and foot, the assertion mentioned.
Elon Musk’s X, previously Twitter, has performed a significant position in permitting Russian propaganda about Ukraine to succeed in extra folks than earlier than the struggle started, in line with a research by the European Fee. The attain of Kremlin-aligned social media accounts has grown over the course of 2022, with additional development this yr “pushed specifically by the dismantling of Twitter’s security requirements,” the research discovered.
Again at school, Russian college students get a lesson from Professor Putin: On the primary day of the college yr, Putin spoke by videoconference to youngsters at a brand new faculty within the occupied Ukrainian metropolis of Mariupol. He mirrored nostalgically on the Soviet period and mentioned efforts to impose Russian training on “the brand new territories, new areas” — a reference to occupied Ukrainian territory.
Putin’s claims that Ukraine is a part of Russia’s “historic lands” at the moment are a part of the official curriculum, Robyn Dixon and Natalia Abbakumova report, and there are new textbooks and new lessons to serve the Kremlin’s narrative.