Chinese Foreign Minister Wang and Brazilian foreign policy advisor Celso Antrim at the UN in New York, September 27, 2024

Friday’s Coverage: $7.9 Billion in US Military Aid for Kyiv — But No Approval of Strikes Inside Russia

EA on RTE and Turkey’s ANews: The UN, Israel-Lebanon-Gaza, and Ukraine-Russia

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1203 GMT:

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency HUR says a Russian commander of drone forces has been killed by local agents working with Kyiv.

Col. Alexei Kolomeytsev, head of the 924 State Center for Unmanned Aviation, of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, was slain in the Moscow region by “the local movement of resistance to the Kremlin regime in coordination with the HUR”.

Kolomeytsev trained Russian specialists in the use of UAVs, including operators and service personnel using Iran-type kamikaze drones.

A Ukrainian official said:

The resistance movement is expanding, expanding its activities throughout Russia and beyond, as we warned earlier. Every Russian war criminal, everyone involved in the aggression against Ukraine is our target, regardless of position, age, gender and location.

We will destroy everyone whose hands contain the blood of Ukrainians until the Russian regime stops the war and answers for all its crimes.

UPDATE 1109 GMT:

At least nine civilians have been killed and 12 seriously injured by a “double tap” Russian drone strike on a medical center in Sumy city in northern Ukraine.

One person died in the initial drone attack that destroyed several floors on the St. Panteleimon clinical hospital. As emergency services were evacuating hospital’s patients, Russian forces struck again, with a policeman among the slain.

At least 22 people were injured.

Danielle Bell, head of the UN human rights monitoring mission in Ukraine, said the “loitering munitions” struck 45 minutes apart: “Most of the fatalities occurred during the second strike, which hit as first responders arrived at the site and patients attempted to evacuate.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted:

[Russia is] waging war on hospitals, civilian objects, and people’s lives. Only strength can force Russia into peace. Peace through strength is the only right way.

UPDATE 1100 GMT:

Ukraine air defenses down two of four Russian guided missiles and 69 of 73 Iran-type attack drones overnight.

Another drone flew toward Russia and three more disappeared from radars.

UPDATE 1052 GMT:

The trial of a 72-year-old US citizen has began in Moscow City Court on Friday.

The man is accused of “participating as a mercenary in the armed conflict on the side of Ukraine,” Russian State media reported. A judge agreed to the prosecutor’s request to detain him for six months on the grounds that he could try to flee.

RIA Novosti identified the man as Stefan Hubbard, a pensioner from Michigan who moved to Ukraine in 2014. Social media posts suggested his name is Stephen Hubbard.

It is not clear where Hubbard was seized by Russian forces.

“We are aware of the reports of the arrest of an American citizen. Due to privacy restrictions we are unable to comment any further,” the US Embassy in Moscow said in a statement.

UPDATE 1042 GMT:

Nine Ukraine children deported to Russia during Vladimir Putin’s invasion have returned home with Qatar acting as an intermediary, Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets has confirmed.

The children range in age from 13 to 17. A 20-year-old man was also freed.

Several of the juveniles suffer from disabilities. Some had been taken from an orphanage in the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, first to the Russian-occupied town of Skadovsk and then to Russia.

Moscow’s forces have forcibly transferred almost 20,000 Ukrainian children to Russian-occupied areas or to Russia. The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for Putin and Russia’s “Children’s Rights” Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova over their roles in the deportations.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: China and Brazil have presented their “peace plan” at the UN, even though it says nothing about Russia’s 31-month invasion, about Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity. or about Russia’s seizure of 27% of Ukraine.

Seventeen countries attended a meeting on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly chaired by China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Brazil’s foreign policy adviser Celso Amorim.

In comparison, around 100 countries and international organizations have endorsed June’s Global Peace Summit, with its commitment to Ukrainian sovereignty and territorial integrity, as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pursues the 10-point Peace Formula.

Wang told reporters at the UN that the meeting discussed the need to prevent escalation in the “war”, avoid the use of weapons of mass destruction, and prevent attacks on nuclear power plants.

In his address to the General Assembly on Wednesday, Zelenskiy said that proposal of “alternatives, half-hearted settlement plans, [and] so-called sets of principles” not only “ignore the interests and suffering of Ukrainians who are affected by the war the most” but also ignore reality and give Putin the “political space to continue the war”.

I want peace for my people, real peace and just peace, and I am asking for your support from all nations of the world. We do not divide the world. I ask the same of you. Do not divide the world. Be united, nations, and that will bring us peace.

After his meeting with Wang on Friday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said:

Beijing says that, on the one hand, it wants peace, it wants to see an end to the conflict, but on the other hand, is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression.

That doesn’t add up.

The Secretary of State also reiterated concerns about China’s support for the invasion through its contribution to Russia’s defense industrial base.

Beijing “is allowing its companies to take actions that are actually helping Putin continue the aggression. That doesn’t add up,” Blinken said.

Sources and documents confirmed earlier this week Russia has established a program in China to develop and produce long-range attack drones for use in Ukraine.

IEMZ Kupol, a subsidiary of Russian State-owned weapons company Almaz-Antey, has developed and flight-tested the new drone model Garpiya-3 with the help of local specialists in China. Kupol later updated the Russian Defense Ministry that it could produce drones including the G3 at scale at a factory in China for the “special military operation” in Ukraine.