Ukraine-Russia war – live: Putin’s troops pushed back in ‘thunderous assault operation’ in Donetsk

A North Korean train presumably carrying North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has departed for Russia for a possible meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin, South Korean media said Monday.

Citing unidentified South Korean government sources, the Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported that the train likely left the North Korean capital of Pyongyang on Sunday evening and that a Kim-Putin meeting is possible as early as Tuesday.

The Yonhap news agency and some other media published similar reports. South Korea’s National Intelligence Service didn’t immediately confirm those details.

US officials released intelligence last week that North Korea and Russia were arranging a meeting between their leaders that would take place within this month as they expand their cooperation in the face of deepening confrontations with the United States.

The G20 summit in India has ended without the usual “family photo”, as some members questioned the watered-down language used in the joint declaration issued by leaders in relation to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Most of the leaders departed from Delhi earlier in the day, having paid tribute to Mahatma Gandhi at his memorial on the banks of the Yamuna River. The absence of the customary group photograph – intended to signify unity between the world’s largest economies – exemplified the fact that deep divisions still remain over the Ukraine war.

Volodymyr Zelensky has paid tribute to aid workers after a Russian anti-tank missile struck a volunteer van in Donetsk yesterday.

Canadian Anthony Ignat was killed in the incident and it is likely Emma Igual of Spain also died, the Ukraine president said.

German citizen Mawick Ruben and Swedish citizen Johan Mathias, two other volunteers, were seriously injured and are being treated in hospitals in Dnipro.

“This Russian shelling once again confirms how close the war against Ukraine is to everyone in the world who truly values human life and who believes it is the common moral duty of humanity to stop terror and defeat evil,” Zelensky said in a Telegram post.

German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock stressed that Ukraine‘s place is in the European Union during a visit to the embattled country’s capital, Kyiv, on Monday morning.

Ukraine can “rely on us and on our understanding of EU enlargement as a necessary geopolitical consequence of Russia‘s war,” said Baerbock upon arrival, according to a statement.

Ukraine already has candidate status, said Baerbock. “And now we are preparing to take a decision on opening EU accession talks.”

On judicial reform and media legislation, Ukraine‘s reform results are already impressive, she said.

But there is still a long way to go in the implementation of the anti-oligarch law and the fight against corruption, added the foreign minister.

The visit is Baerbock’s fourth since the war in Ukraine broke out in February 2022.

The Russian military intends to recruit 420,000 contract personnel by the end of 2023, Britain’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said today, warning of the negative effect this would have on its industrial workforce.

On 3 September, Russian Security Council deputy chairman Dimitry Medvedev stated that so far 280,000 personnel had been recruited, the ministry said, adding that the numbers cannot be verified.

“Russia’s conscription continues to have negative effects on its industry workforce. The Yegor Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy found that Russia’s industry shortage of workers reached a new high of 42% for July 2023, 7% higher from April 2023,” the MoD said.

It added that in contrast to conscription efforts elsewhere, the IT sector Russia has taken steps to preserve the workforce. “This likely highlights the particularly acute shortages in the sector after about 100,000 IT workers left Russia in 2022,” it said.

“This equates to 10% of the IT sector workforce. On 4 September 2023, President Putin signed a decree to increase the exemption age of military recruitment for IT professionals from 27 to 30.”

“This shows that mobilisation and conscription within Russia has worsened non-defence workforce shortages. In the run-up to the Russian presidential elections scheduled for March 2024, Russian authorities will likely seek to avoid further unpopular mobilisations,” the MoD said in its latest intelligence update.

Ukraine’s armed forces have made gains in different parts of eastern Donetsk region, the focal point of Russia’s continuing invasion of the country, and in the south, officials said yesterday.

Ukrainian troops near the frontline town of Avdiivka took advantage of Russian forces focusing on one sector to advance and capture part of the village of Opytne south of the city, the head of the local military administration said.

“In my opinion, this is very significant,” Vitaliy Barabash told national television. “To be frank, the enemy overlooked this southern direction a bit.”

He called the advance a “thunderous assault operation” and said fighting was underway in the settlement.

Avdiivka, site of a major coking plant, has been under near-constant Russian attack for many months.

The General Staff of Ukraine‘s armed forces reported successes near Bakhmut.

In its evening report, the General Staff reported “partial success as a result of assault operations” near Klishchiivka, a village on heights south of Bakhmut, seen as critical to recapturing the town.

The report also described a measure of success near Robotyne – a settlement it captured late last month – as part of its drive southward through Russian-held areas to the Sea of Azov.

The US treasury secretary Janet Yellen has denied the G20 toned down its stance on Ukraine in the Delhi Declaration released over the weekend, which did not mention Russian aggression in Ukraine directly.

Calling the statement “substantively very strong”, Ms Yellen said: “The US does not see this language as in any way weakening the G20’s stance on Ukraine.”

“Clearly it was hard to find language that would satisfy the US and other countries but we felt we wanted strong language, and substantively strong language, and this was substantively very strong,” she told the Financial Times.

Ukraine rejected the joint statement, saying “the G20 has nothing to be proud of in the part about Russia’s aggression against Ukraine”.

In an interview with The Economist published yesterday, Volodymyr Zelensky said steady progress was essential to maintaining Ukrainian morale.

“Keeping morale high is crucial. This is why even limited progress on the frontline is essential,” Mr Zelensky told the publication.

“Now we have movement. It’s important,” the publication quoted him as saying.

“If we push them from the south, they will run,” he said, hinting that a big breakthrough can still come before the onset of Ukraine’s infamously wet autumn weather makes battlefield movement more difficult.

Ukraine has had some success in dismantling the first of Russia’s three main defensive lines in the Zaporizhzhia region after facing initial losses in the early stages of the counteroffensive.

Mr Zelensky added that victory will not come “tomorrow or the day after tomorrow”. The Russian army is losing “lots of people”, Mr Zelensky said, adding that the invading country has had to redeploy its reserves to stop the Ukrainian advance.

“It means they lose,” he said.

Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian troops pressing a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces have advanced on the southern front in the past week while there had also been movement near Bakhmut in the east.

“Over the past seven days we have made an advance in the Tavria (southern) sector,” Mr Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

“There is movement in the Bakhmut sector. Yes, there is movement.”

He added that Ukrainian forces were holding their ground on other fronts in the east – Avdiivka and Maryinka near the focus of Russia’s main attacks, and Lyman and Kupiansk, also subject to Russian attempts to advance further north.

The war-time president’s latest comments confirm assessments by other officials of gains, however modest, in the east and south.

Near Avdiivka, the head of the local military administration said Ukrainian troops took advantage of Russian forces focusing on one sector to advance and capture part of the village of Opytne south of the city.

Russia’s air defence systems destroyed two drones over the Belgorod region in the early hours today, the Russian defence ministry said on its Telegram channel, claiming to have thwarted an attack by Ukraine.

No immediate injuries have been reported after drone debris fell on a road in the Yakovlevsky district, according to Belgorod governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.