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Morning Headlines
Reuters: A Russian attack on a town west of Donetsk near Ukraine's eastern front has injured 13 people, including one pulled out from under rubble, an official from the area was quoted as saying early on Friday.
The United States will give $128 million in new security assistance to Ukraine as well as $197 million in arms and equipment in previously authorized drawdowns, the secretary of state announced.
CNN Exclusive: Russia, the United States and China have all built new facilities and dug new tunnels at their nuclear test sites in recent years, satellite images obtained exclusively by CNN show, at a time when tensions between the three major nuclear powers have risen to their highest in decades.
Reuters: Western nations are sending representatives to India, home to 90% of the world's cutting and polishing of the rare gems, to discuss potential effects of any G7 restrictions on imports of rough Russian diamonds, two Biden administration officials said.
ISW: Ukrainian armored vehicles are operating beyond the final line of the Russian defensive layer that Ukrainian forces in western Zaporizhzhia Oblast are currently penetrating, although ISW is not yet prepared to assess that Ukrainian forces have broken fully through this Russian defensive layer.
AP News: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will speak to the Canadian Parliament on Friday as part of his campaign to bolster support from Western allies for Ukraine’s war against the Russian invasion.
More News
POLITICO: The Pentagon will exempt its Ukraine operations from a potential shutdown if lawmakers can’t agree on a deal to fund the government by the end of the month, allowing key training and other activities in support of Kyiv’s forces to move ahead uninterrupted, according to a Defense Department spokesperson.
Reuters: U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and British Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt signaled support on Thursday for a European Union plan to impose a windfall tax on profits generated by frozen Russian sovereign assets to help finance the reconstruction of Ukraine.
The Kyiv Independent: Ukraine has received 10 Swedish variants of Leopard 2A5 tanks known as Stridsvagn 122, manned by Ukrainian crews trained in Sweden, the Swedish military announced on Sept. 21.
RFE/RL: Around 3,500 Russian citizens in Latvia will receive letters from the migration authority this week asking them to leave the country. The government body said on September 21 that they were people who hadn't submitted documents to extend a permanent residence permit or hadn't registered for a Latvian language test by September 1.
Reuters: Russia's leverage over Ukraine's export of grain via the Black Sea will likely erode in weeks to come as more ships are able to leave Ukrainian ports and rising costs could prompt Moscow to reconsider its abandonment of the grain deal, a senior U.S. State Department official said.
Meduza: How new propaganda films targeting college students seek to reframe Russia’s role in the world.
Reuters: Hundreds of protesters opposing Bulgaria's support for Ukraine in its war with Russia gathered in front of the parliament building, waving Bulgarian and Russian national flags, blowing whistles and demanding an early election in the country which has gone through five polls in the past two years.
AP News: Bulgaria is expelling one Russian and two Belarusian nationals for carrying out activities against Bulgaria’s national security and interests, authorities said on Thursday. The country’s agency for national security said in a press release that the three had worked to “purposefully influence the social and political processes in Bulgaria in favor of Russian geopolitical interests.”
The Guardian: The UK’s Crown Prosecution Service has authorised charges against five people suspected of spying for Russia. The three men and two women, aged between 29 and 45, are accused of “conspiring to collect information intended to be directly or indirectly useful to an enemy”, the CPS said.
Reuters: Ukraine agreed to license its grain exports to Slovakia on Thursday and pushed for a deal with Poland to end restrictions by its neighbours on grain that it has been forced to send overland since Russia's invasion last year.
Business Insider: Russia's lack of training is hindering its troops' ability for successful attacks, the UK MOD said. A leading factor is the absence of unit rotations away from the battlefield, it said. Russia has struggled to recruit new soldiers since Putin's call-up last fall.
Reuters: Ukraine's military said on Thursday its forces had struck a Russian air base in Crimea, but an adviser to a Russian-installed official on the peninsula said none of Ukraine's missiles had hit their target. A brief statement released by the Ukrainian military said its forces had attacked the Saky air base in western Crimea overnight, but gave no further details.
The Moscow Times: One in five mobilized Russian soldiers are killed less than two months after being sent to the war in Ukraine, the independent investigative outlet IStories and the war monitoring project Conflict Intelligence Team reported Thursday, citing publicly available data.
Reuters: Russia has temporarily banned exports of gasoline and diesel to all countries outside a circle of four ex-Soviet states with immediate effect in order to stabilise the domestic market, the government said on Thursday.
Bloomberg: Russia plans a new tax on exporters to soak up excess revenue companies reap when the ruble depreciates past a certain level and support its strained wartime budget.
Reuters: Russia pounded energy facilities across Ukraine on Thursday in its biggest missile attack for weeks, firing what Ukrainian officials saw as the first salvo in a new air campaign against the national power grid.
The Guardian: Denis Nikitin arrived for an interview at a Kyiv restaurant with a pistol strapped to his side and flanked by two armed bodyguards. It would not have been a surprising sight in wartime Ukraine but for one detail: Nikitin is Russian.
worth mentioning
Swiss Attorney General's Office turns blind eye to machinery supplies for Russian military plant
Former CFO of Russian natural gas firm Novatek sentenced to 7 years in US prison
Germany Faces Criticism Over SEFE’s Renewed LNG Trade With Russia
One year after ‘partial’ mobilisation, Russians avoiding the draft speak out
Russia’s Hunt for New Crude Buyers Shows Signs of Success
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