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Russia-Ukraine war news: Zelensky, Biden speeches expected at United Nations


Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited wounded Ukrainian soldiers at a New York City hospital on Sept. 18, ahead of the United Nations General Assembly. (Video: Volodymyr Zelensky via Storyful)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will address fellow world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on Tuesday, his first in-person visit since the invasion began, as he aims to galvanize support for his embattled country and promote Ukraine’s food security, defense and recovery initiatives.

He will also take part in U.N. Security Council meetings and hold bilateral talks with other leaders, Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba told The Washington Post. “We are now at a critical juncture in time, as Ukraine continues to advance on the battlefield, and it is critical to sustain and strengthen worldwide support for Ukraine,” Kuleba said.

Here’s the latest on the war and its impact across the globe.

Zelensky is expected to use his address to emphasize how the Kremlin’s invasion violates the U.N.’s most sacred principle of sovereignty of borders. “He will put forward some very specific steps that the organization can take to fortify the principle of territorial integrity,” Kuleba told The Post. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping are not scheduled to attend the annual U.N. summit.

President Biden will also speak at the meeting ahead of Zelensky, according to a published schedule of the annual summit of world leaders, which takes place in New York. The two leaders must win the hearts and minds of developing nations that have increasingly called for a negotiated settlement with Russia because of the war’s toll on global food and energy prices.

Zelensky’s first stop during his U.S. trip was to wounded Ukrainian troops rehabilitating in New York. “Thanks to the team of doctors who are helping our boys recover from their injuries,” Zelensky’s office said on Telegram. Photos showed the Ukrainian leader shaking hands with injured soldiers.

Zelensky is also expected to meet with Biden in Washington later this week, his foreign minister said. The pair will hold talks and Zelensky will also meet with leaders of both chambers and parties of Congress, as well as other senior American officials, Kuleba said. “The visit will reaffirm the unbreakable Ukrainian American partnership in the face of Russia’s ongoing aggression and our shared determination to put an end to it through a Ukrainian victory,” he added.

Ukraine’s cabinet dismissed seven top Defense Ministry officials, including Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar, according to an update shared on Telegram. The announcement comes after Zelensky ousted defense chief Oleksii Reznikov this month, as the ministry grappled with corruption claims. No reason was provided for the dismissals in Monday’s announcement.

Germany will prepare a new military and humanitarian assistance package for Ukraine worth about $427 million, according to German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. Speaking to Bild, a German newspaper, the minister said the package will include ammunition, clothing and heat generators for the coming winter.

A Russian national accused of smuggling U.S.-sourced dual microelectronics that can be used for rifle scopes, night-vision goggles and thermal optics was arrested, the Justice Department said in a news release. Maxim Marchenko, 51, is accused of operating shell companies in Hong Kong for this purpose, the department added.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov discussed Ukraine, among other topics, during a meeting in Moscow. The two compared notes and “coordinated positions” on where the two countries stand on regional and international issues of common concern, including Ukraine, according to a readout by China’s foreign ministry.

Local officials in cities and regions across Ukraine said at least two people were killed in another night of Russian attacks. Local authorities in Kharkiv, Mykolaiv, Odessa, Kryvyi Rih and Khmelnytskyi regions reported overnight strikes early Tuesday. In the western city of Lviv, officials said three industrial warehouses were destroyed in strikes, with one man found dead under the rubble and about 10,000 square meters of land burned. In Kherson, officials said a police officer had been killed Tuesday as a result of Russian artillery fire and two other civilians were hospitalized with injuries.

Whatever the fuss over Elon Musk, Starlink is utterly essential in Ukraine: The internet services provided by SpaceX, a company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, are critical to Ukrainian troops, Alex Horton and Serhii Korolchuk report. Losing Starlink, one Ukrainian soldier said, would force Ukraine to fall back on inferior alternatives such as radio. It could be done, he said, but it would require difficult trade-offs such as soldiers being forced to leave the relative safety of trenches to pass on information orally.

“If they stopped working at some point, it wouldn’t be the end of the world,” one Ukrainian deputy battalion commander said, “but it would significantly worsen our situation at the front, our effectiveness.”

Kostiantyn Khudov and Lyric Li contributed to this report.

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