Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said its forces recaptured a strategic group of oil and gas drilling platforms off the coast of the Crimean Peninsula, which were seized by Russia in 2015 and used for military purposes. A video posted to the agency’s Telegram channel Monday and verified by The Washington Post showed Ukrainian soldiers climbing onto a drilling platform and removing a radar system.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Kim Jong Un’s trip to Russia
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told a Russian reporter to expect a “full-blown” visit by Kim, including talks between delegations and a “formal dinner.” The two leaders last met in 2019 and have become increasingly aligned in efforts to curb U.S. influence in the region. Kim is expected to meet Putin, who is attending an economic forum in the Russian port city of Vladivostok this week. Peskov said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu will also participate in the talks between Kim and Putin.
Kim departed for Russia late Sunday, joined by his foreign minister and senior military officials, North Korea’s official Korea Central News Agency said. The Russian Ministry of Natural Resources said that Kim disembarked for a stop in Khasan, a town on Russia’s border with North Korea, and was met by Russian Natural Resources Minster Alexander Kozlov. The Russian state news agency RIA Novosti posted a video Tuesday that appeared to show Kim stepping off his train. The Washington Post could not independently verify the footage. Kim’s journey from Pyongyang is his first known trip outside North Korea in nearly four years and was estimated to take 20 hour in travel time.
On Tuesday, Putin announced plans to visit the Vostochny Cosmodrome — Russia’s main spaceport since 2016, and a symbol of Moscow’s national ambitions for space flight. Citing unnamed Russian officials, Japanese media reported that it was where Putin is scheduled to meet Kim.
State Department spokesman Matt Miller said that if North Korea arms Russia, more sanctions could follow. The United States has “aggressively enforced our sanctions against entities that fund Russia’s war effort,” Miller told reporters Monday, adding that the United States “will not hesitate to impose new sanctions if appropriate.”
Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia in recent weeks has “recalibrated” the air defense system protecting Moscow. The move is “almost certainly” designed to “allow the system to detect and engage” drones, which have been used in near-daily attacks against the Russian capital, the ministry said Tuesday in its daily intelligence assessment. “However, it is probably also intended to act as a high-profile reassurance to the public that the authorities have the threat under control,” the ministry added.
Putin said Western delivery of F-16s to Ukraine “just prolongs the conflict” and will not “change” the course of the war. Denmark and the Netherlands have pledged to send the advanced fighter jets to Ukraine and are training Ukrainian pilots to fly them. Speaking in Vladivostok, Putin said Tuesday that Ukrainian forces are sustaining heavy losses in their counteroffensive. The Post has reported that Russian occupying forces, often learning from past mistakes, have largely been able to hold their positions despite Ukrainian efforts to reclaim territory in the east and south.
Zelensky called on citizens to maintain their focus on the war in his nightly address, suggesting they are gearing up for the long haul. Even on the 565th day of war, everyone “should remain focused on defending the state just as we did in the early days,” he said. Russia “hopes only that we will not endure.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vetoed a law passed by Ukraine’s parliament that would have reinstated mandatory disclosures of assets by Ukrainian lawmakers — with a year-long delay. “I think everyone perfectly understands the reason for this veto: declarations must be open. At once. Not in a year,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram. The requirement was first instated as part of an economic assistance deal with the International Monetary Fund but was suspended after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. As The Post reported, the delay voted on by lawmakers raised questions about Ukraine’s commitment to fighting graft at the highest levels of government
Putin said Russia’s economic ties with China are growing exponentially and yielding “excellent” results. Speaking Tuesday during a meeting with Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing on the sidelines of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok, Putin said annual bilateral trade with China may reach $200 billion — a goal announced last year — “in the near future,” according to Russian state media outlets. Russian outlets reported that Zhang said the milestone of $200 billion could be reached this year.
Two volunteer aid workers killed near Ukraine’s front line were identified as 32-year-old Spanish national Emma Igual and Canadian Anthony “Tonko” Ihnat, according to the Spanish government and Road to Relief, the international aid group they worked for. They were traveling to visit residents on the outskirts of Bakhmut when their van was hit by Russian shelling, the Ukraine-based charity said.
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin spoke to newly appointed Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov by phone. Ryder, the Pentagon spokesman, said at a news conference that Austin updated Umerov on U.S. security assistance efforts and discussed priorities to support Ukraine’s “immediate battlefield needs and capability requirements over the long term.”
In time of war, Russia turns up aggression on transgender citizens: When Russian authorities took away Yan Dvorkin’s 10-year-old adopted son last spring, there was nothing he could do but shout in frustration. His crime? He is a transgender, nonbinary person, married to a man, Robyn Dixon reports. Dvorkin was open about his gender identity on social media — a crime in Russia for which he was convicted and then ordered to give up his son.
Putin has framed the invasion of Ukraine as a war against liberal Western values, and in July, he signed a repressive law dissolving transgender people’s marriages, barring them from adopting children and preventing them from changing their gender in state documents. As the war has ground on, Russia has witnessed increasingly harsh measures against transgender people.
David L. Stern, Natalia Abbakumova and Adam Taylor contributed to this report.
