The Ukraine President makes it to meeting of the leaders of the Western World, while Russian President is at home….
Zalensky is ona victory lap having gotten the American President, who he will meet face to face again, to relent on for filling his wish for Amwerican made F-16 Fighetr Jets….He askis for still more aid…..
The head of the Wagner Group syas he his troops have control opf ALL of bakhmut, just when the reports where that he was lossing parts of it?
The Ukraine forces seem to getting ready to try to take back their nuclear energy plant, the largest in Europe….
The US will have to help Europe supply the Ukraine with arms….
It appears that Patriot missiles are stopping Russian missile attacks on Kyiv from being effective….
Zelensky may have a ‘best friend’ in British PM Rishi Sunak…..
The head of Russia’s Wagner paramilitary group said his forces had captured Bakhmut on Saturday, a claim the Ukrainian military denied even as its grip on the ruined city in eastern Ukraine has been reduced to just a few small blocks.
The competing claims came at a pivotal moment for President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, who arrived in Japan on Saturday to press the leaders of the world’s wealthiest nations for more support as his forces prepared a counteroffensive against Russia.
Russia’s Defense Ministry did not immediately comment on the declaration about Bakhmut by Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, the Wagner chief, whose forces have been spearheading Russia’s monthslong campaign to take the city. The battle has cost thousands of lives on both sides and reduced much of the city to rubble.
The Ukrainians have been pulling back, step by step, in some of the most intense urban combat in a generation even as Kyiv’s forces have pushed the Russians out of some positions to the north and south of the city in recent days.
Here are the latest developments:
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Mr. Zelensky’s arrival in Japan for the Group of 7 summit came after a major shift from President Biden that opens a path for Ukraine to get the American-made F-16 fighter jets that the Ukrainian president has been pleading for. The world leaders gathered in Hiroshima will be talking over the weekend about all dimensions of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
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The White House confirmed that President Biden and Mr. Zelensky would meet on Sunday. In addition to meeting with European leaders, Mr. Zelensky sat down on Saturday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. It was his first meeting since Russia’s full-scale invasion with Mr. Modi, whose straddling position on the war has frustrated both Kyiv and Mr. Modi’s Western supporters.
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China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a sharp denunciation of the G7 summit, warning leaders of the democratic powers gathered in Japan against putting pressure on Beijing. It did not comment directly on the G7 leaders’ call for Beijing to press Russia to abandon its invasion of Ukraine….
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Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
- Wagner chief Yevgeniy Prigozhin said on Telegram that Wagner has “taken” Bakhmut, a claim Ukraine disputes. Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, said fighting continued in Bakhmut, though the situation was critical. The Russian-backed mercenary group has been fighting for control of the Ukrainian city for at least nine months and has argued that the Kremlin hasn’t supplied enough ammunition to properly manage the campaign.
- The United States will not block its European allies’ exports of F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine. The turnaroundfrom the Biden administration, which had repeatedly said no to Ukraine’s requests for the fighter jets, came after steady pressure from allies, Congress and Zelensky. Ukraine hopes to have the F-16s in the air by “the end of September,” according to a Defense Ministry adviser.
- Moscow warned of “enormous risks” if Western countries send F-16 jets to Ukraine. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Grushko told the Tass state news agency that moves by Kyiv’s backers to send the fighter jets were a continued escalation in the conflict.
- Zelensky has been boosted by Washington’s decision not to block allies from responding to Kyiv’s appeals for U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets. The United States will also support the joint effort to provide training to Ukrainian pilots, Sullivan said.
- Biden informed his G-7 counterparts that the United States will support the joint effort to train Ukrainian pilots on fourth-generation fighter aircraft, including F-16s,Sullivan told reporters in Hiroshima. Sullivan described the training as the next phase, after Washington provided artillery, tanks and other arms.
- Zelensky’s trip to Japan is his first to Asia during the war. Sullivan told reporters in Hiroshima it was “a safe bet” that Zelensky would meet Biden while in Japan. Upon his arrival, Zelensky tweeted that he would have meetings with Ukraine’s partners over “security and enhanced cooperation for our victory” and “peace will become closer today.”
- The Ukrainian president has been on a whirlwind diplomatic tour in recent days, visiting Western European capitals and Saudi Arabia. Zelensky landed in Hiroshima airport on a French plane Saturday and met with leaders from India, France, Germany and more. His precise plans for the weekend remain unclear.
- Zelensky urged Arab countries to help secure the release of Ukrainians in Russian detention in a Friday speech at the Arab League summit in Saudi Arabia. Even “if there are people here at the summit who have a different view of the war on our land, calling it a conflict, I am sure that we can be united in saving people from the cages of Russian prisons,” he said. He criticized unnamed nations for turning “a blind eye to those cages and illegal annexations,” in an apparent rebuke of countries including Russian ally Syria, whose leader, Bashar al-Assad, was at the summit for the first time in 12 years.
- Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced a travel ban for 500 Americans, describing it as a response to U.S. sanctions. The list of Americans banned from entry includes former president Barack Obama, White House staff, think tank and NGO members, as well as late-night comedians such as Stephen Colbert, Seth Meyers and Jimmy Kimmel.
- The Russian foreign ministry said it had denied a U.S. consular visit to detained journalist Evan Gershkovich. The Wall Street Journal reporter has been detained in Russia since his arrest in March while on a reporting trip. He is being held on espionage charges that his colleagues and the Journal have condemned as bogus. Press advocates are calling for his release and the United States deems him “wrongfully detained.”
- Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 20 drones overnight, most of them over the Kyiv region. Washington Post journalists heard loud blasts in central Kyiv early Saturday and city authorities said that the explosions were from air defenses.
- The attack caused a fire and damage to some buildings in Kyiv, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, the city’s administration said. Russia has launched a barrage of air attacks on the Ukrainian capital this month as it seeks to exhaust Ukraine’s air defenses, the officials said on Telegram.
Ukrainians, crossing Dnieper River, test Russian lines on southern front: Intrigue about where Ukraine’s counterattack will occur has focused on the Zaporizhzhia region, or in the east around the embattled city of Bakhmut, Isabelle Khurshudyan and Kamila Hrabchuk report from Ukraine’s southern Kherson region.
“Those scenarios are more likely, but Ukrainians also have been quietly testing their ability to push across the Dnieper and training units in how to conduct a possible river landing,” they write…..
image..Agenzia Nova…Zelensky at the table in Hiroshima.