Saturday’s Coverage: Trump’s Confused Feelings for Putin

UPDATE 1503 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has emphasized that Kyiv can strike Russian targets without coordination with the Trump Administration.

Zelensky spoke during Ukraine’s Independence Day after a report that the Administration has implemented a “review process” enabling Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to bar Ukrainian long-range strikes with American missiles since late spring.

Alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, Zelensky said, “At the moment, we are using our long-range domestically produced weapons, and we haven’t been discussing such matters with the US lately.”

The President said Ukraine’s new domestically-produced missile, the Flamingo, with a range of up to 3,000 km (1,864 miles), has undergone successful tests.

“By December, we’ll have more of them. And by the end of December or in January–February, mass production should begin,” Zelensky explained.

UPDATE 1455 GMT:

Ukraine and Russia have carried out another prisoner exchange.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky announced the return of soldiers and civilians, most held by Russia since 2022.

The Coordination Headquarters for the Treatment of Prisoners of War named eight civilians, including journalists Dmytro Khyliuk and Mark Kaliush and the former mayor of Kherson city, Volodymyr Mykolaienko.

Khyliuk, a reporter with the UNIAN news agency, was kidnapped alongside his father from their home in the Kyiv region in March 2022.

Medic Serhii Kovalov “saved the lives of both defenders and civilians during the siege at the Azovstal steel plant in Mariupol”, the port city overrun by the Russians in spring 2022, the Coordination Headquarters said.

UPDATE 1001 GMT:

During visit to Kyiv, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced another C$2 billion (US$1.45 billion) military aid to Ukraine, including drones, ammunition, and armored vehicles.

Deliveries are expected from next month.

Carney said during Ukraine’s Independence Day ceremony, “Canada has no illusions about the greatness of your struggle. You should have no doubts about Canadians’ commitment to your cause. And your cause is freedom and sovereignty.”

Other senior officials at the ceremony in Kyiv include Donald Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, and the defense ministers of Sweden, Denmark, Romania, Lithuania, and Latvia.

UPDATE 0859 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky has said in an address in Kyiv on Independence Day:

We are building a Ukraine strong enough to live in safety and peace. So that on this square, on the Maidan of our Independence, under our flags, on our land, our children and grandchildren will celebrate Independence Day. In peace. In calm. With confidence in the future. With respect and gratitude to all who defended Ukraine in this war, the war for independence. Who endured, who were able, who triumphed. This is the purpose worth living for. This is why we stand.

UPDATE 0853 GMT:

Ukraine has reportedly hit energy targets inside Russia this morning.

A gas terminal in the Baltic port of Ust Luga in the Leningrad region, not far from the Finnish border, has been set ablaze. An oil refinery in the Samara region has been hit.

Output at the Kursk Nuclear Plant has been reduced.

Several Russian airports, including Pulkovo at St. Petersburg, temporarily suspended operations, delaying more than 60 flights.

UPDATE 0730 GMT:

Russia launched 72 drones and a ballistic missile overnight on Ukraine’s Independence Day.

Air defenses downed 48 UAVs. The missile and 24 drones struck 10 locations.

At least three civilians were murdered and at least three injured over the past day.

One person was slain in the Donetsk region in the east, one in Kherson in the south, and one in Dnipropetrovsk in south-central Ukraine.

Casualties were also reported from the Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions.

UPDATE 0648 GMT:

Former Ukraine Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba dismantles the pro-Kremlin propaganda that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the US blocked an agreement to end Russia’s invasion in April 2022.

UPDATE 0644 GMT:

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomes a friendly note from Chinese leader Xi Jinping:

UPDATE 0635 GMT:

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen marks Ukraine’s Flag Day and points to Kyiv’s future in the European Union.

UPDATE 0624 GMT:

One civilian was murdered and nine injured by Russian strikes on the Dnipropetrovsk region in south-central Ukraine on Saturday.

Seven houses and a bus were damaged in the Synelnykove district by KAB aerial bombs and drones.

In Nikopol, across the Dnipro River from the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, first-person-view drones and artillery struck a gas pipeline and a power line.

UPDATE 0608 GMT:

Vladimir Putin has held a secret meeting about testing of a new nuclear-powered missile and whether it can be put into service, according to a journalist in the Kremlin’s press pool.

Putin visited Sarov in the Nizhky Novgorod region on Friday. The closed town is the center of Russia’s nuclear industry where the first Soviet atomic bomb was developed.

Andrei Kolesnikov of Kommersant reported that the meeting discussed the Burevestnik nuclear-powered missile, whose creation was announced by Putin in 2018. It took place after Burevestnik tests were scheduled from August 9 to August 22 on Novaya Zemlya Island in the Arctic Ocean.

Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis, citing satellite data, said it is unclear whether the missile was launched.

Designed as a missile with unlimited range, Burevestnik has been scheduled for launch at least 13 times. Only two attempts had partial success. In 2019, the missile crashed into the Barents Sea. During the mission to retrieve it, an explosion killed seven people, including scientists from the Sarov nuclear center, and a radiation cloud covered part of Russia and reached Scandinavia.

Putin insisted that the most recent Burevestnik test in October 2023 was “successful” and work on the missile was “practically finished”.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Trump Administration has approved the sale of Extended-Range Attack Munition missiles to Ukraine, say two US officials.

The officials said the US is selling 3,550 ERAM missiles, which will arrive in approximately six weeks. The European-funded purchase, valued at $850 million, was postponed until after Donald Trump met Vladimir Putin in Alaska on August 15 and after Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky and seven European leaders met Trump in the White House three days later.

The ERAM has a range of around 241 to 450 km (150 to 280 miles) and is relatively quick to produce and low-cost.

Ukraine has proposed buying US weapons worth $90 billion as part of security guarantees, now being discussed with the Administration and Kyiv’s European and international partners.

The use of the ERAMs will require US approval, particularly for strikes inside Russian territory. A review mechanism, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth able to block the long-range strikes, has restricted the operations since the late spring.

The use of Army Tactical Missile Systems, missiles with a range of around 300 km (190 miles) approved by the Biden Administration for Ukraine, has been affected. The British-made Storm Shadow missile, which relies on US targeting data, is also subject to the review process.

The mechanism was drawn up by Pentagon official Elbridge Colby, an opponent of military aid to Ukraine. His “review” this spring prompted Hegseth to suspend briefly all deliveries of assistance to Kyiv.