September 27, 2023 at 3:20 a.m. EDT
The Washington Post did not detect any signs of obvious manipulation in the video but could not independently confirm its authenticity.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov condemned the arrival of U.S.-made M1 Abrams tanks in Ukraine, accusing the United States of continuing “to increase their indirect involvement in this conflict,” while asserting that the weapons would not affect the outcome of the war.
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
In response to the video, Ukraine’s special operations forces said that its units were “clarifying the information” regarding Sokolov’s status and that 34 Russian officers had been killed in the attack. It also said on Telegram that many bodies still had not been identified.
The attack in Crimea has been the source of conflicting claims from Russia and Ukraine, with Moscow originally saying it had shot down all of the missiles fired at the site in Sevastopol. Ukrainian officials mocked that claim, and a video verified by Storyful and confirmed by The Post, showed smoke rising from the Black Sea Fleet’s headquarters.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre declined to comment Tuesday about whether Sokolov was alive. “We are aware of the video,” she told reporters, but “don’t have anything to confirm at this time.”
The speaker of the Canadian House of Commons, Anthony Rota, resigned Tuesday after honoring a Ukrainian veteran who fought in a Nazi unit. Calls for Rota’s resignation had piled up since Friday, when he invited 98-year-old Yaroslav Hunka to an address by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Parliament. Zelensky is Jewish and has relatives who were killed by the Nazi regime during World War II.
The Ukrainian government has fully implemented seven recommendations from the European Commission, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said, furthering its progress on the path to E.U. membership. In the announcement, included in a statement on Tuesday unveiling a program aimed at improving opportunities for minorities and Indigenous people, he cautioned that there was “still a long and difficult way ahead” on Ukraine’s accession to the European Union.
Zelensky appointed former soccer player and national team coach Andriy Shevchenko as a presidential adviser, according to a decree posted Tuesday. Shevchenko has been involved in politics since at least 2012, when he ran in a Ukrainian parliamentary election, according to the Kyiv Post, but failed to win a seat.
Since the start of Russia’s invasion, at least 504 children have been killed in Ukraine, according to data from the Ukrainian prosecutor general’s office released Tuesday. More than 1,125 children have also been injured, it said.
The U.S. Defense Department declined to share information about the U.S. providing ATACMS long-range missiles to Ukraine. “I don’t have any announcements to make on ATACMS,” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters during a news conference on Tuesday. The Post reported last week that the Biden administration plans to provide a version of the long-range missiles, citing people familiar with the matter.
Russian representation on the U.N. Human Rights Council is “not consistent with their actions in Ukraine,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Tuesday during a news conference, pointing to alleged war crimes. Russia was expelled from the council shortly after its invasion of Ukraine, but the BBC reported this week that Moscow is seeking to rejoin.
Belarusian Foreign Minister Sergei Aleinik said he could not imagine his country joining the war in Ukraine alongside Russia, in an interview with the Associated Press. Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, permitted Russia to use Belarusian territory to send troops into Ukraine in February 2022. Lukashenko has said his troops would join the fighting only if Belarus were attacked.
Norway is providing about $92.5 million worth of additional aid to Ukraine, to ensure that “Ukrainians in need have access to the necessary protection and vital assistance” ahead of another winter of war, the government said in a statement.
Russia attacks Odessa port in latest assault on Ukrainian grain: A Russian attack on Odessa was the latest assault on Ukraine’s vital agriculture sector as Moscow seeks to exploit divisions between Kyiv and its European neighbors over grain exports, Alex Horton and Kamila Hrabchuk report. The strike killed at least two people, destroyed granaries and damaged port facilities.
Russian disruptions to Ukraine’s use of the Black Sea as a highway for exporting food have forced Kyiv to explore overland routes, but Ukraine has faced resistance from some of its closest neighbors.
