Russia-Ukraine war updates: Putin signs decree on military draft

German parasport chief Julius Beucher has slammed the decision by the IPC to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete as neutrals at the Paralympics in Paris next year.

“This is not a great moment for the IPC’s community of values,” Beucher told dpa news agency. “There is still a war going on. More terrible than before.”

Beucher asserted there had not been “a single word of regret” on the war from Russia’s Paralympic Committee. “On the contrary. They call for war, glorify the murder and the killing.”

The US believes an oil price cap on Russian exports remains an important tool, the White House has said.

National security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters that “nobody should be buying Russian oil in violation of the price cap.”

Kyiv, Ukraine – In Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s opinion, Russia and the West are “equally” reliable and trustworthy.

That is what the Turkish president said on September 18 commenting on the collective West’s dependability and on his frustration with Turkey’s long-stalled attempts to join the European Union.

“To the extent the West is reliable, Russia is equally reliable,” he told the PBS, a US broadcaster. “For the last 50 years, we have been waiting at the doorstep of the EU, and, at this moment in time, I trust Russia just as much as I trust the West.”

After his September 4 visit to Russia to meet President Putin, Erdogan also believes the Kremlin’s master wants a prompt end to his faltering quagmire in Ukraine.

“Mr Putin is on the side of ending this war as soon as possible. That’s what he said. And I believe his remarks,” Erdogan said.

Read more here.

Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) has condemned US aid for Ukraine and economic sanctions on Venezuela, Cuba and other nations as the first of two high-level US-Mexico meetings got under way in Washington.

AMLO said the US should spend some of the money sent to Ukraine on economic development in Latin America.

“They [the US] don’t do anything,” he said. “It’s more, a lot more, what they authorise for the war in Ukraine than what they give to help with poverty in Latin America and the Caribbean.”

He called for a US programme “to remove blockades and stop harassing independent and free countries, an integrated plan for cooperation so the Venezuelans, Cubans, Nicaraguans and Ecuadorans, Guatemalans and Hondurans wouldn’t be forced to emigrate”.

A Russian blogger who criticised highway patrol officers was jailed for eight and a half years, after a court alleged he posted “fake news” about Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine.

Alexander Nozdrinov, 38, ran a small Youtube channel where he posted videos of highway patrol officers from his home region of Krasnodar allegedly breaking the law.

He was detained in March 2022 after investigators accused him of posting a photo of destroyed buildings on social media with the caption: “Ukrainian cities after the arrival of liberators”.

Swiss Foreign Minister Ignazio Cassis has said his country plans to finance a quarter of the mine clearance operations needed in Ukraine.

Switzerland, which has remained true to its law of neutrality amid the Kremlin’s war, has not provided weapons for Ukraine, unlike many
other European countries.

However, Switzerland plans to provide $100m of the $400m Kyiv has said it needs to remove the mines from its territory.

“In the field of humanitarian demining, we are generous,” Cassis said. “Only military aid is excluded because of neutrality.”

The UK has announced new sanctions against almost a dozen senior Russian officials and the country’s election commission over “sham” elections held in occupied Ukrainian territory this month and last year.

The move takes the number of individuals and entities sanctioned by Britain in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly 20 months ago to more than 1,600.

London said it was targeting the 10 officials and electoral organisation after they “all directly acted to undermine Ukraine and threaten its territorial integrity” in the condemned referendums and elections staged last October and earlier this month.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says he was confident that Poland will find ways to address disagreements with Ukraine without affecting military support for its neighbour’s war against Russia.

“I’m expecting and I’m confident that Ukraine and Poland will find a way to address those issues without that impacting in a negative way the military support to Ukraine,” Stoltenberg told the Reuters news agency in an interview in Copenhagen.

Poland said last week it would only be carrying out previously agreed arms deliveries to Ukraine and would instead focus on rebuilding its own weapon stocks.

Relations between the two countries have soured after Poland’s decision to extend a ban on Ukrainian grain imports.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the leaders of five Central Asian nations have pledged to cooperate closely on sanctions in a carefully worded statement that did not pinpoint Russia.

The gathering of Scholz and the leaders of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan in Berlin was the first of its kind in a European Union country.

It came amid suspicions that Moscow is flouting sanctions the EU imposed over the war in Ukraine by receiving vital goods via Central Asian nations.

“The leaders emphasised the significance of close exchanges on sanctions regimes, including dialogue with the EU, and of further efforts to prevent the evasion of sanctions,” the leaders said in a joint statement.

The declaration did not mention Russia or Ukraine but the leaders pledged a “continuing commitment to uphold the UN Charter, in particular the principles of respect for the independence, state sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries”.

Specialists will arrive in Ukraine in the near future to draw up plans to establish production of military equipment including air defences, the Ukrainian President Zelenskyy’s chief of staff has said.

“I think very soon specialists will arrive here who will make a plan for our own production of everything that we need. First and foremost, this relates to air defences,” Andriy Yermak told reporters.

The head of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) says the organisation has provided 1.2 billion euros ($1.3bn) this year to date to help finance the rebuilding of Ukraine.

“I reaffirmed EBRD’s full solidarity with Ukraine and strong commitment to continue supporting its real economy,” Odile Renaud-Basso said in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter.

My third meeting with you in Kyiv @ZelenskyyUa since February of last year.

Happy to report on the scale of our financing this year to date (€1.2 billion)

I reaffirmed @EBRD's full solidarity with #Ukraine and strong commitment to continue supporting its real economy. https://t.co/cpDS9hsjST

— Odile Renaud-Basso (@OdileRenaud) September 29, 2023

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed a decree setting out the routine autumn conscription campaign, calling up 130,000 citizens for statutory military service, a document posted on the government website showed.

All men in Russia are required to do a yearlong military service between the ages of 18 and 27 or equivalent training while pursuing higher education.

President Putin has hailed Russian prisoners who died fighting in Ukraine, saying they had “fully redeemed” themselves.

“Everyone can make some mistakes, they once did. But they gave their lives for the Motherland, and fully redeemed themselves,” Putin said at the meeting with servicemen who fought near Ukraine’s Urozhaine on the southern front.

To boost regular troops fighting in Ukraine, the army and mercenary group Wagner have extensively recruited from Russian penal colonies.

Athletes from Russia and Belarus will be able to compete as neutrals at next year’s Paris Paralympics Games.

The ruling means the athletes will compete without a national team or emblems, flags and anthems.

Earlier on Friday the IPC voted against fully suspending the National Paralympic Committee Russia by a vote of 74-65 (13 abstentions), and then voted 90-56 in favour of a motion to partially suspend Russia for two years, subject to reassessment at a next general assembly.

“As a result of the General Assembly’s decision, [National Paralympic Committee] Russia’s membership rights are suspended for two years,” the IPC said in a statement.

“With the exception that its athletes (and related support personnel) will be eligible to participate in an individual and neutral capacity in the Paralympic Games and World and Regional Championships and sanctioned competitions in the six sports for which the IPC acts as international federation.”

The IPC also voted not to suspend Belarus, which has been a staging ground for Russian troops and weapons during the invasion.

Switzerland adopted further sanctions in connection with Iran’s drone deliveries to Russia, in line with European Union measures, the government has said in a statement.

The sale, supply, export and transit of components used for the manufacture and production of drones is now prohibited, and targeted financial and travel sanctions against persons and entities connected with support for Iran’s drone programme are in place, added Switzerland’s Federal Council.

Norway has announced Russian-registered passenger cars will no longer be allowed to enter its territory starting next week.

Norway, which is a member of NATO but not of the EU, has a 198-kilometer-long (123-mile-long) border in the Arctic with Russia.

The Scandinavian country “stands together with allies and like-minded people in the reactions against the brutal war of aggression by Russia [against Ukraine],” Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt said in a statement.

The ban means that Russian-registered passenger cars with nine or fewer seats can no longer be brought into Norway. Buses and minivans with 10 or more seats will still be able to cross the border at Storskog, the sole crossing point between Norway and Russia.

The government in Oslo said there will be exceptions for diplomatic vehicles, for cars owned by Norwegian citizens and their family members with permanent residence in Russia, and for travel necessary for humanitarian reasons, such as acute illness, death or family funerals.

Italian bank Intesa Sanpaolo has secured approval from Russian President Putin to sell or dispose of its assets in the country, according to a document posted on a Russian government website.

The decree said Moscow was permitting transactions that would lead to the direct or indirect disposal of 100 percent of Intesa’s shares.

Earlier this year, supervisors from the European Central Bank stepped up pressure on lenders to cut their exposure to Russia amid the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s annual budget spending on servicing its state debt will more than double to 3.32 trillion roubles ($34bn) between now and 2026 as Moscow ramps up military spending to fund the war in Ukraine, draft budget documents showed.

Moscow has been diverting more and more funds to its military as it prosecutes what it calls a “special military operation” in Ukraine and is counting on a recovery in oil and gas revenues to pre-invasion levels and a sharp increase in state debt to do so.

Switzerland’s Federal Council has approved a 100 million Swiss franc ($110m) package to demine parts of Ukraine, the government said on Friday.

“A total of CHF 100 million will be earmarked for humanitarian demining between 2024 and 2027, funded in equal parts by the Department of Defence, Civil Protection, and Sport (DDPS) and the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs (FDFA),” the government said.

Seven EU countries have ordered ammunition under a landmark European Union procurement scheme to get urgently needed artillery shells to Ukraine and replenish depleted Western stocks, according to the European Defence Agency (EDA).

The orders – placed under contracts negotiated by the EDA – are for 155mm artillery rounds, one of the most important munitions currently used in the war.

“Seven Member States have already placed orders for 155mm ammunition through the EDA’s fast-track procedure,” the agency said in an email in response to questions from the news agency Reuters, without disclosing the names of the countries or the value of the contract.

The Kyiv Independent claims that the city of Berdiansk, which is occupied by Russian forces, has been rocked by a “powerful” explosion.

The explosion was reportedly followed by power supply interruptions in the city, according to the news outlet, which cited the city military administration.

⚡️Official: Electricity cut-offs follow 'powerful' explosion in Berdiansk.

A "powerful" explosion was heard in Russian-occupied Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, on the afternoon of Sept. 29, reported Viktoriia Halitsina, head of the city military administration.

— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 29, 2023

Moscow is “concerned about the attempts of extra-regional players to become more active in the Afghan direction,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said in a written address to the Moscow format consultations on Afghanistan being held in Kazan, Russian news agency TASS has reported.

Lavrov added that the countries in the region will only fully cooperate with the member states of the NATO bloc when they “fully acknowledge their full responsibility for the baleful results of their 20-year military presence in Afghanistan, which ended in a complete fiasco”.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a military analyst, says Russia needs the former Wagner soldiers in its battle with Ukraine forces but questions about their deployment remain under ex-commander Andrei Troshev’s direction.

“The problem is most of them don’t want to work directly with the ministry of defence and that means they’re trying to put together something like Wagner but not in its name,” he told Al Jazeera.

He noted some fighters have already signed up with the defence ministry, but others are reluctant to after Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin and other senior leaders died in a mysterious plane crash in August.

“Troshev doesn’t have much of a following compared to those killed in the crash,” Felgenhauer said.