Sergei Lavrov, the Russian Foreign Minister, accused the West of “directly fighting” Russia in Ukraine, at a time when kyiv claims to have killed Russian military leaders in the strategic Crimean peninsula. “You can call it what you want but they are fighting us, they are fighting us directly. We call it hybrid war, but that does not change the reality,” he said on Saturday September 23 on the sidelines of the Assembly. general of the UN, mentioning financial aid, armaments and “mercenaries” from Western countries.
The head of Russian diplomacy was questioned about the involvement of the United States in the conflict in Ukraine during a long press conference at UN headquarters in New York. “The fact that they are de facto fighting against us using the corps of Ukrainians, I think that everyone here who is interested in the situation in Ukraine knows very well that the Americans, the British and others are fighting by first supplying more and more weapons,” Lavrov accused. The United States and European countries which have supplied weapons systems to Kiev since the Russian invasion of February 2022 insist that they are not at war with Moscow but that they are helping Ukraine to defend itself.
In Ukraine, the Kiev army claimed on Saturday to have killed or injured “senior commanders” of the Russian navy during its strike the day before against the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol, in annexed Crimea. Refusing to say whether Western-made missiles had been used, the head of Ukraine’s intelligence services said the attack had killed “at least nine people”, including generals.
Sergei Lavrov also commented during his speech at the United Nations general forum on Saturday on the proposed “peace plan” presented the day before at the UN by Volodymyr Zelensky, judging it “completely infeasible, impossible to implement , not realistic.” He ended by warning that it was in “the common interest to avoid the spiral of a large-scale war and to prevent the final collapse of the mechanisms of international cooperation put in place by our predecessors” at the United Nations. .
Second Ukrainian wheat cargo arrived in Istanbul
The second Ukrainian wheat cargo arrived this Sunday, September 24 in Istanbul via the Black Sea, according to maritime traffic monitoring sites. And this despite threats from Moscow to attack boats entering and leaving Ukraine. The Aroyat, a bulk carrier flying the flag of Palau, left on Friday from Chornomorsk, near Odessa. It is the second ship to use a maritime corridor set up by kyiv, along the western coasts of the Black Sea, to circumvent Russia’s blockade.
According to the Marine Traffic and Vessel Finder sites, the cargo ship Aroyat, which transports 17,600 tonnes of Ukrainian wheat to Egypt, was on Sunday night at the southern exit of the Bosphorus, in the Sea of Marmara. It was to head towards the Dardanelles Strait to reach the Mediterranean. Despite the end of the international agreement on the export of Ukrainian grain from which Moscow withdrew in July, a first ship loaded with 3,000 tonnes of wheat left the same port without incident on Tuesday and arrived in Istanbul on Thursday.
Kiev wants to establish supply routes to Africa in order to counter the influence of Russia, which this summer promised certain African states to deliver wheat to them free of charge. Russia and Ukraine are two major agricultural powers whose production is crucial to global food security.
Zelensky stops in Poland to thank volunteers
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky made a brief, unexpected stopover on Saturday afternoon in Poland to thank and decorate two Polish volunteers, at a time when relations between kyiv and Warsaw are experiencing great tensions. He stopped in the town of Lubin on his return from the United States, but did not meet any officials there, according to Polish media.
Poland extended its embargo on Ukrainian grain last week to protect, according to it, the interests of its farmers, sparking an open crisis with kyiv, despite its close partner. In response, Ukraine lodged a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) against Poland, Slovakia and Hungary, which also maintained their restrictions on Ukrainian cereals, although lifted by Brussels.
He also denounced to the UN the fact that “certain countries feign solidarity (with Ukraine) by indirectly supporting Russia.” These comments angered Warsaw, which summoned the Ukrainian ambassador. Poland subsequently announced that it would no longer deliver new weapons to kyiv, contenting itself with ensuring previously agreed deliveries and ensuring that it wanted to concentrate on the modernization of its army. Warsaw is one of kyiv’s main allies in its armed conflict against Russia and Western military aid mainly passes through its territory.
Former head of Russian space agency named senator of occupied region
The former boss of Roscomos, the Russian space agency, and nationalist figure Dmitri Rogozin has been appointed senator for the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhia, occupied by Moscow. Russia organized local and regional elections in early September in the four regions of Ukraine for which it claimed annexation in September 2022, elections denounced as “illegal” by kyiv and the West.
“I am grateful to the elected governor of the Zaporizhia region for the trust he placed in me by allowing me to represent this liberated region belonging to former Russia in the upper house of our federal Parliament,” Rogozin reacted, cited by the TASS agency. According to the Russian public agency, its priority will be the “continuation of the liberation of the region”.