Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at the Ukraine Defense Contract Group meeting, Ramstine Airbase, Germany, September 6, 2024 (Andreas Arnold/Picture Alliance/Getty)

Friday’s Coverage: Is Month-Long Offensive Into Russia’s Kursk Region Succeeding?

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1151 GMT:

Visiting Italy after his appearance at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Zelenskiy told the Cernobbio Forum in northern Italy that while he is grateful for air defenses provided by partners, they are “not enough to secure our entire territory and repel every Russian attack”.

Ukraine is not asking for anything more than what your country or any other country already has.

Our people are under constant threat of Russian missile and drone strikes every, every night and every day….Fortunately, we have air defense systems – also thanks to Italy. But it is not enough to secure our entire territory and repel every Russian attack.

UPDATE 1142 GMT:

At least five civilians were killed and 97 wounded by Russian attacks across Ukraine on Friday.

In Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine, a Russian ballistic missile killed one person and injured 74.

In the Donetsk region in the east, three people were slain and injured. Two of the fatalities were reported in Toretsk and one in Raihorodok.

In the Sumy region in the north, Russian attacks with mortars, bombs, and drones on Krasnopillia killed one person and injured four.

Eight civilians were injured in the Kharkiv region in the northeast and seven in the Kherson region in the south.

UPDATE 1045 GMT:

Three men aged 24 to 69 have been killed and three people wounded by a Russian artillery attack on the city of Kostiantynivka in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine.

The artillery attack damaged a high-rise building, a local administration building, a shop, a pharmacy, six cars, and three power lines.

Kostiantynivka, with a pre-invasion population of around 67,000, is 10 km (6 miles) southwest of the frontline at Chasiv Yar.

The city has been recurrently attacked by the Russians. On August 24, artillery killed five and injured five. Earlier in the month, a Russian strike on a supermarket killed 17 civilians, including three children, and injured more than 40.

See also Ukraine War, Day 899: Russia’s Mass Murder At A Supermarket In The East

A strike on a local market in September 2023 killed 17 people and injured more than 30.

UPDATE 1036 GMT:

Drones operated by Ukraine’s State security service SBU struck an ammunition and military equipment warehouse in Russia’s Voronezh region, confirms an SBU official.

Authorities in Voronezh, in western Russia, reported a drone attack and a fire at an unspecified facility. Local Telegram channels said ammunition storage near the village of Soldatskoye caught fire.

Soldatskoye is more than 100 km (62 miles) north of the Ukrainian border.

UPDATE 0649 GMT:

US and European officials say Iran has sent short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for Moscow’s attacks on Ukraine.

A US official confirmed to the Wall Street Journal that the missiles had been delivered, despite Wstern warnings, and a “senior European official” said more shipments are expected.

Iran and Russia signed a contract in December 2023 for the provision of Iranian Ababil close-range missiles and Fateh-360 short-range missiles.

Last month, two European intelligence sources said dozens of Russian military personnel are being trained in Iran to use the Fateh-360s.

US National Security Council spokesperson Sean Savett commented:

We have been warning of the deepening security partnership between Russia and Iran since the outset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and are alarmed by these reports.

We and our partners have made clear both at the G7 and at the NATO summits this summer that together, we are prepared to deliver significant consequences. Any transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia would represent a dramatic escalation in Iran’s support for Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine.

European officials said they are working with the US on a response that will likely include further sanctions on Iran and a ban on Iran Air,from flying to European airports.

UPDATE 0630 GMT:

A distraught husband and father looks over the coffins of his wife and three daughters at their funeral in Lviv on Friday.

Yevheniia Bazylevych, 43, and daughters Yaryna, 21, Dariia, 18, and Emiliia, 7, were among seven civilians killed in a Russian drone and missile strike on the city in western Ukraine on Wednesday.

UPDATE 0621 GMT:

A 66-year-old woman has been killed and five people wounded, including a 15-year-old girl and a 16-year-old boy, in a Russian attack on the Sumy region in northern Ukraine.

The Russians dropped three guided bombs on Krasnopillia around 3 p.m., damaging 15 homes.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: At a gathering of international ministers in Germany, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has forcefully made the case for long-range strikes inside Russia to check Vladimir Putin’s 30-month invasion.

But US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin immediately rejected the appeal, saying that “there’s no one capability that will in and of itself be decisive in this campaign”.

At the meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany, Zelenskiy addressed the refusal by the US, Britain, and France to permit strikes with the long-range missiles they have sent to Kyiv:

Long-range capability. I’m glad that the US, the UK, and France are represented here. Thanks to our joint courage, we have implemented very important operations, in particular in Crimea.

These operations allowed us to return security to the Black Sea and our food exports. Now we hear that your long-range policy has not changed, but we see changes in the ATACMS, Storm Shadows and Scalps – a shortage of missiles and cooperation.

This applies even to our territory, which is occupied by Russia, including Crimea. We think it is wrong that there are such steps. We need to have this long-range capability not only on the occupied territory of Ukraine, but also on the Russian territory, so that Russia is motivated to seek peace.

Most countries expressed support, but German Defense Minister Pistorius said Berlin has not lifted its objection, even as he maintained that Germany will help Ukraine as long as necessary.

Britain’s Defense Ministry said there was no change in its position: “We are clear that equipment provided by the UK is intended for the defence of Ukraine.”

Austin asserted that Russia had already moved warplanes, responsible for deadly attacks with “glide bombs” on Ukraine, beyond the 300-km (186-mile) range of US-supplied ATACMS missiles.

After the US rejection, Lithuania Defense Minister Laurynas Kasčiūnas summarized, “Many countries are in favour. Many, many. But the question is not the number of countries, but countries who give [those] missiles.”

New Military Aid for Ukraine

Zelenskiy had to settle for a series of new military aid packages from partners.

Austin said $250 million from the US “will surge more capabilities to meet Ukraine’s evolving requirements, to include additional support for Ukraine’s air defense and artillery needs”.

Zelenskiy responded, despite his disappointment over the long-range missiles, I am grateful for the clear position on continuing to provide all necessary military support and for the US leadership in the Ramstein format. This is the key to success on the battlefield.”

Canada announced the provision of rocket motors and warheads, machine guns, pistols, vehicle chassis, and ambulances. The UK will send another 650 Lightweight Multirole Missiles, worth more than $213 million, by the end of the year to counter Russian drones and other aerial threats. Germany pledged additional 12 self-propelled howitzers to Kyiv,

Still, Zelenskiy was denied what Kyiv sees as the most important support, amid Moscow’s offensive in eastern Ukraine and the Ukrainian incursion which has seized part of the Kursk region in western Russia:

It is Putin who doesn’t want peace. He is obsessed with territorial conquests. He wants our cities or the ruins that remain of them.

And that is why we need strength. We need to force Russia to seek peace. We need to make Russian cities and even Russian soldiers think about what they need – peace or Putin?