Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.
Key developments
- Ukrainian officials discovered a mass grave in the recently liberated city of Izyum in the eastern Kharkiv region, Zelensky said in his nightly address Thursday. “The necessary procedural actions have already begun there,” he said, adding that more information would be available Friday. A top police official for the Kharkiv region told Sky News the site contained more than 400 graves.
- Zelensky and von der Leyen discussed trade policy and Ukraine’s bid for membership in the European Union. The visit is her third since the start of the war nearly seven months ago. Zelensky presented von der Leyen with an award, and she called for additional military equipment for Ukraine. The E.U. will provide about $100 million to help Ukraine rebuild schools, she said.
- Putin met with Xi Thursday at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security group. “We highly value the balanced position of our Chinese friends regarding the Ukrainian crisis, we understand your questions and concerns on this matter, and during today’s meeting we will of course clarify all of these in detail,” Putin said in his opening remarks. Xi said Beijing was willing to work with Moscow to “inject stability into a turbulent world.”
- The International Atomic Energy Agency called on Russia to “immediately cease all actions against, and at” the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant in a resolutionpassed by its Board of Governors on Thursday, Reuters reported. Twenty-six countries voted in favor, while only Russia and China opposed it, according to Reuters. Zelensky praised the resolution’s passage in his nightly address, saying “the complete demilitarization of the plant, the immediate withdrawal of all Russian troops from there is the only thing that can ensure the implementation of this IAEA resolution.”
- The United States announced further sanctions on Russian officials. Among the 22 people facing new sanctions are Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, along with three of his wives and three daughters, the Treasury Department said in a statement. A Russian neo-Nazi militia allegedly fighting in Ukraine, Task Force Rusich, was also on the list.
- Ukraine recorded its first case of monkeypox. The patient, who had no known contact with monkeypox patients and had not traveled abroad, has been hospitalized with mild symptoms, according to the health ministry’s announcement. Ukraine is not providing monkeypox vaccinations so far.
Battleground updates
- Any moves by the United States to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles would give Russia “the right to defend its territory by all available means,”the country’s Foreign Ministry said Thursday.
- Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine was hit by Russian shelling overnight. The attack damaged a hydraulic structure, leaving hundreds of homes flooded and some citizens without water, Ukrainian authorities said. Zelensky said the structure had “no military value at all.”
- Russian forces retreating from the Kharkiv region left behind “high-value equipment,” which is essential to Moscow’s artillery-focused style of warfare, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a daily update Thursday. It said the abandoned weaponry revealed a “disorganized retreat of some Russian units and likely localized breakdowns in command and control.”….
As of Sept. 8, the U.S. has sent 807,000 155mm rounds to Ukraine. An anonymous defense official told the Wall Street Journal last month that U.S. stocks are now “uncomfortably low.”
Bush dismissed the official’s characterization of the stocks, saying that only Army leaders should be making those judgements. He added that the service is still making and stockpiling enough for normal training and missions.
Bush did say that restocking the rounds is getting “the biggest attention right now.”
The 155mm rounds are “the thing that we’re expending the most effort on, and [that] we’ve gotten tremendous support from Congress on, because of the lead times and the necessity to dramatically increase those production rates,” he said.
Other top priorities are GMLRS, anti-tank Javelin missiles, and Stinger missiles, that latter of which Bush said is “well under control now.”
The U.S. has sent “thousands” of GMLRS rounds to Ukraine, Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said last week.
It has also sent more than 8,500 Javelins. Congress has since provided the military over $1 billion to replace the missiles. On Tuesday, the Army ordered more than 1,800 Javelins for delivery by Nov. 30, 2026, under a $311 million contract to Raytheon and Lockheed Martin’s Javelin Joint Venture. More than 1,800 of those will replenish U.S. stocks, but the contract also covers an unspecified number of Javelin systems and production support for the U.S. Army and international customers Lithuania and Jordan.
Bush said their goal is to obligate all the money for Javelin production by the end of the 2023 fiscal year.
The Pentagon is working with allied countries to also produce more of these munitions as well as encourage them to donate to Ukraine to relieve some of the pressure on the U.S., Bush said….