The Russian drone bomb a Central Ukraine theatre in daylight resulting in 100 injuries…
Ukraine President Zelemsky drops into Sweden to ask for that countries Saab Gripen Fighter Jets and gets an deal to have that countries CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles also made in the Ukraine….
Zelenssky also expresses support for Sweden’s entre into NATO as a full member, something Turkey and Hungary have NOT formally agreed to test…
British intelligence will NOT agree with the US Military’s view that the Ukraine Offense will NOT be able to close to their coast in their effort to seal the Russian military supply lines to the Crimea area…
Ukraine pilots begin F-16 training…The first group is smal no more than. 20 pilots who have to lewarn English in addtion to the complicated aircraft….The OTHER part of this is maintance training for Ukraine crews to keep the planes in service….
Russia is ramping up production of Iran drone’s…..
The US is ramping up supplying ammo…..
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
With more than 100 injured, Chernihiv was reeling from the daytime attack — rare for a central Ukrainian city far from the front lines. Chernihiv will observe three days of mourning, from Saturday to Monday, acting mayor Oleksandr Lomako said on Telegram. The injured included bystanders, the region’s administration said on Telegram. The city was besieged by Russian troops for weeks early in the war, with more than half the city’s population fleeing — but Ukrainian troops regained control.
Videos verified by The Washington Post showed an explosion on the roof of the theater before a fiery projectile slammed into a building about 320 feet away. Some homes were damaged by the blasts, Lomako said, and the wounded were being treated in hospitals Saturday evening. Among the injured were 15 children and 15 police officers, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said. Videos posted by Ukrainian officials showed damage at the theater, broken glass and debris in the street, damaged cars and blown-out windows, and firefighters spraying down a flattened rooftop.
The venue reportedly hosted a gathering for drone demonstrations on Saturday. Mariya Berlinska, an activist, said she took part in the event, which had been approved by the local authorities, but said it was stopped as soon as the air raid sirens rang out. “Participants were told several time about the need to take shelter,” Berlinska wrote on Facebook. “Unfortunately, some people still went outside.”
The United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Ukraine condemned the attack. “It is heinous to attack the main square of a large city, in the morning, while people are out walking, some going to the church to celebrate a religious day for many Ukrainians,” Denise Brown said in a statement.
Zelensky is visiting Sweden for meetings with the country’s leaders, including Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and King Carl XVI. The Ukrainian president expressed his “full support” for Sweden’s bid for NATO membership. Sweden applied to join the military alliance as a direct result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, although its accession has not been ratified by Turkey and Hungary.
Zelensky and Kristersson discussed Ukraine’s desire for Gripen fighter jets from Sweden, Zelensky said, which Sweden agreed earlier this summer to allow Ukrainian pilots to test. The two leaders also signed an agreement to manufacture Swedish-provided CV-90 infantry fighting vehicles in Ukraine. On Telegram, Zelensky expressed his thanks to Sweden “for supporting our struggle for freedom and independence.”
In his nightly address on Saturday, Zelensky said he has an agreement with Sweden to produce armored vehicles known as CV-90s inside Ukraine. He did not specify how many, or what the agreement entailed. “Everything powerful that serves us now, we must localize and produce,” he said. The leader added that Ukrainian soldiers are studying in Sweden to use Archer artillery systems, a self-propelled howitzer that he said Ukraine is working to obtain more of to use in the fight.
Russian President Vladimir Putin visited military officials in Rostov-on-Don, the Associated Press reported, his first trip to the city since Wagner Group mercenaries briefly took control there during their short-lived June rebellion. The Kremlin said Putin talked with top military leaders, AP reported.
It is “premature to make assessments about the overall success” of Kyiv’s counteroffensive, the Institute for the Study of War said in a report Friday, responding after people familiar with a classified forecast from the U.S. intelligence community told The Post that Ukraine would fail in its objective of severing Russia’s land bridge to Crimea in this year’s push. The ISW said it continues to assess that “the overall degradation of the Russian defensive line creates opportunities for any Ukrainian breakthrough to be potentially operationally significant.”
Most of the front line in Ukraine “has remained static” over the past week, according to the British Defense Ministry’s intelligence update Saturday. Both Russian and Ukrainian forces face a similar challenge of “attempting to defeat well-entrenched forces while having limited uncommitted forces to open new assaults,” the ministry wrote.
The United States will approve the transfer of F-16 fighter jets from Denmark and the Netherlands to Ukraine once pilot training is complete, national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters Friday. He said the process was “formalized” in a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken to his European counterparts and is a “natural extension” of Biden’s announcement in May that the United States would not block the transfer of the jets. Dutch Foreign Minister Wopke Hoekstra described the move as “a major milestone for Ukraine to defend its people and its country” on social media.
Ukrainian forces have begun training on flying the jets, Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told news station Kanal 24 in an interview published Saturday. The training takes about six months, Reznikov told the outlet, but senior U.S. and Ukrainian have told The Post that pilots probably won’t be ready until next summer.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov defended Moscow’s nuclear weapons, claiming they are for security purposes only in an interview published on the Foreign Ministry website Saturday. “Possessing nuclear weapons is for today the only possible response to certain significant external national security threats,” he said. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said last month that Russia would have to use nuclear weapons if Kyiv’s counteroffensive were successful, Reuters reported.
The U.S. will soon reach double its prewar monthly production of the standard NATO artillery round, The Post reports, increasing its output from 14,000 units a month before Russia’s invasion to eventually 28,000 units a month. But industry experts warn of challenges in sustaining the elevated production levels, not just for Ukraine war efforts but also for the U.S. military’s own stockpiles.
Russia added a former Putin adviser to its list of “foreign agents,” state-owned news agency Tass reported. The designation was expanded in recent years to apply to anyone who is openly critical of the authorities or who is accused of receiving payments or donations from abroad. Andrey Illarionov, who is based outside the country, resigned from his position as Putin’s top economic adviser in 2005, after statingpublicly that Russia “is no longer a democratic country.”
Canada is imposing sanctions on 15 Russian individuals and three entities over human rights abuses, the foreign ministry announced Friday. The individuals include senior Russian officials and federally funded courts which have been “directly involved in human rights abuses against opposition leaders” including Alexei Navalny, the statement said.
Ukraine and neighboring Romania signed an agreement Friday to work together on grain exports, following Russia’s departure last month from the U.N.-backed grain deal, which had allowed for the safe wartime transport of foodstuffs over the Black Sea. Ukraine is one of the world’s major grain producers, and its exports play a vital role in global food security.
Inside the Russian effort to build 6,000 attack drones with Iran’s help: A billion-dollar weapons deal with Iran has come to life at a facility 500 miles east of Moscow as Russia strives to make 6,000 drones by the summer of 2025. If the plan succeeds, the new drone factory could thwart Ukraine’s counteroffensive and significantly advance Moscow’s position in the drone arms race that is remaking modern warfare, Dalton Bennett and Mary Ilyushina write.
Documents leaked from the program and obtained by The Washington Post provide new information about the efforts of two self-proclaimed enemies of the United States to expand the Kremlin’s capabilities……