Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit in Croatia, October 9, 2024

Wednesday’s Coverage: Zelenskiy — “We Need Faster Results With Missiles”

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1729 GMT:

Ukrainian journalist Viktoria Roshchyna has died in Russian captivity.

The circumstances of her death are still being confirmed, said Petro Yatsenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War.

Roshchyna disappeared in August 2023 while reporting in Russian-occupied territory. Her father received a letter from Russia’s Defense Ministry in April 2024 confirming that she was in detention.

Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, said Roshchyna was supposed to be included in an upcoming prisoner exchange.

The journalist covered the Russian invasion for Ukrainian news outlets including Hromadske, Ukrainska Pravda, and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

UPDATE 1441 GMT:

Ukraine’s military has confirmed its drone strike on Russia’s Khanskaya military airfield in the Adygea Republic in the northern Caucasus (see 0615 GMT).

“During the attack, 57 warplanes, trainer aircraft, and helicopters were based at the airfield. This included Su-34 and Su-35 jets and Mi-8 helicopters,” a Ukraine military official said.

Sources said the operation was carried out in cooperation between the State security service SBU, the military intelligence agency HUR, and the Special Operations Forces.

UPDATE 1525 GMT:

The consumer goods giant Unilever, finally giving into pressure from campaigners, has sold its Russian operations to a local manufacturing group.

Unilever Rus and its four factories have been taken over by the Arnest Group, a Russian manufacturer of perfume, cosmetics, and household products which also bought the brewer Heineken’s business in Russia last summer.

Unilever Rus, which employed around 3,000 people, had refused to follow ohter British and international companies out of Russia after Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Unilever did halt all imports and exports into and out of Russia in March 2022 and said it stopped all media and advertising spend and capital flows. However, it maintained that it was unable to find a way to sell the business that “avoids the Russian state potentially gaining further benefit, and which safeguards our people”.

Pressure grew on the company, which continued to make and sell “essential” products from shampoo to ice cream, with the revelation that it paid the Kremlin $331 million in taxes in 2022.

The terms of the deal, which must be approved by the Russian Government, were not disclosed. It has been reported that the sale could be worth more than $546 million to Unilever.

UPDATE 1419 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has posted about his talks with UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte at 10 Downing Street in London:

Zelenskiy said he presented his “Victory Plan” to Starmer and wrote about specific aspects in the trilateral meeting.

UPDATE 1044 GMT:

At least nine people have been killed and at least 34 injured by Russian attacks across Ukraine over the past day.

Ukraine air defenses downed 41 of 62 Iran-type drones fired by Russia, and another 14 were lost to electronic warfare. Moscow also attacked with eight missiles.

Eight of the fatalities were suffered in Russia’s attack on port infrastructure in the Odesa region, hitting a Panama-flagged civilian cargo ship (see 0603 GMT).

In the Kherson region in the south, one person was killed and 10 injured over the past day. A high-rise building, six houses, a utility company, and educational and medical institutions were damaged.

Civilians were also wounded in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, and Donetsk regions.

UPDATE 0805 GMT:

Tom Wilson of the Financial Times investigates how Russia circumvents international sanctions on its oil exports through a “shadow fleet”:

Since the first western restrictions on Russian oil exports were introduced in December 2022, Moscow has assembled a fleet of more than 400 such vessels currently moving some 4mn barrels of oil a day beyond the reach of the sanctions and generating billions of dollars a year in additional revenue for its war in Ukraine.

Western governments have added individual vessels to sanctions list, but officials are struggling to identify who owns the tankers, how they were acquired, or who oversees their operations.

In one case, Russia’s Lukoil used a 74-year-old British accountant, John Ormerod, to acquire at least 25 second-hand tankers between December 2022 and August 2023 at a total cost of more than $700 million.

Each ship was bought by a different special purpose company, incorporated by Ormerod in the Marshall Islands. Lukoil’s Dubai-based Eiger Shipping DMCC provided the funds.

Dubai-based companies linked to a Pakistan-born British shipping magnate, Muhammad Tahir Lakhani, were appointed to manage the ships.

The 25 ships have transported around 120 million barrels of oil from Russia since they were originally acquired.

UPDATE 0640 GMT:

The European Union has backed a loan of up to €35 billion ($38.3 billion) to Ukraine before the end of 2024, part of a G7 plan to fund the defense against Russia’s invasion.

A majority of EU ambassadors backed the issuance of a loan guaranteed by the bloc’s common budget. The decision follows months of discussion on the structuring of the EU share of the G7’s $50 billion plan.

Under the G7 plan, the $50 billion loan will be repaid by profits from Russian state assets frozen in the West. More than €200 billion of the assets are in the EU.

The European Parliament is scheduled to approve the loan later this month.

Hungary, whose leader Viktor Orbán is a long-time ally of Vladimir Putin, and Slovakia complicated the scheme on Wednesday when it blocked a change to the EU sanctions regime. The objection could prevent US participation in the $50 billion loan.

The US has conditioned its participation in the loan on the EU extending the length of its sanctions regime from 6 months to 36 months.

UPDATE 0628 GMT:

Men over 45 now make up half of new recruits in Moscow, according to a “senior source” in the Mayor’s office.

The investigative news outlet Vyorstka, citing military and parliamentary sources, reported the Russian military’s increased reliance on older recruits.The average age of recruits has risen from 40 at the start of the year to about 50, said another source in the Mayor’s office.

“They’re all sick,” said a Russian soldier fighting in Ukraine. “Their legs hurt, their heads hurt, and they’re slow.”

BBC Russian and the independent news website Mediazona have identified 2,475 volunteer soldiers over 45 years old who died in Ukraine so far this year.

UPDATE 0615 GMT:

Ukraine’s General Staff says it struck a depot for Iranian attack drones in the Krasnodar region in southwest Russia on Thursday.

The General Staff said around 400 UAVs were stored at the site. It summarized, “Based on objective control results, a direct hit was made on the target. Secondary explosions were observed at the site.”

The operational headquarters of the Krasnodar region reported a fire in warehouses in the village of Oktyabrsky, but did not specify the cause. The fire was contained over an area of ​​1,600 square meters, the headquarters said.

Drones also attacked a military airfield in the Adygea Republic in the north Caucasus. The head of the region, Marat Kumpilov, said a fire was started and residents of the village of Rodnikovoye evacuated.

Kumpilov said there were no casualties.

UPDATE 0603 GMT:

At least six people were killed and 11 injured in a Russian missile strike on the Odesa region in southern Ukraine on Thursday.

Russian forces targeted the Panama-flagged civilian container ship Shui Spirit, the third vessel hit within four days.

All the victims are Ukrainian citizens. At least seven of the wounded are in serious condition in local hospitals.

Oleksii Kuleba, the Development of Communities, Territories, and Infrastructure Minister, said, “Today, Ukraine remains the guarantor of food security. Therefore, it is important to stop the practice of this terror – with sufficient weapons, air defense, diplomacy, sanctions, and punishment for every war crime.”

Seeking military assistance and support for his Victory Plan, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy is embarking on a tour to meet European leaders, following the postponement of an international summit in Germany.

Saturday’s summit at the US base in Ramstein, Germany was put back after US officials, including President Joe Biden, said they could not attend. The White House cited preparations for the powerful Hurricane Milton, which made landfall in Florida late Wednesday.

In London on Thursday, Zelenskiy will meet the new NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. The President will then see German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin on Friday. He said there will also be discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

Zelenskiy will also visit Pope Francis on Friday.

German officials said the Ramstein summit will be held soon, but it is unclear if it would be before the US Presidential election on November 5.

Zelenskiy said at the Ukraine-Southeast Europe summit in Croatia on Wednesday:

In October, November, and December we have a real chance to move things toward peace and lasting stability. The situation on the battlefield creates an opportunity to make this choice — the choice for decisive action to end the war no later than in 2025.

He said Ukraine is counting on the leadership of Biden, as well as “strong and wise steps” from the UK, France, Germany, and Italy, “to bring security and peace to Europe”.