Ukraine war briefing: Fight hard through autumn, Zelenskyy urges forces

Mark Rutte to take Nato reins from Jens Stoltenberg; ‘I don’t really buy it’ says former Trump adviser of boasts about ending war. What we know on day 951

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Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that the situation was “very, very difficult” on the frontline of the war against Russia, as well as in terms of “our capabilities, our future capabilities and our specific tasks”, with Ukraine’s forces needing to do everything they could over the autumn period.

Ukrainian military bloggers have reported in recent days that the Russians have been advancing on the hilltop town of Vuhledar, which Ukraine’s forces have defended over the course of the war, in the south of the Donetsk region. Russian troops have also been advancing slowly for months further north, with the aim of capturing the entire Donbas region, made up of the Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts.

Nato members should not be deterred from giving more military aid to Ukraine by Vladimir Putin’s “reckless Russian nuclear rhetoric”, the alliance’s outgoing secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said as he hands the job over to Mark Rutte. “Every time we have stepped up our support with new types of weapons – battle tanks, long-range fires or F-16s – the Russians have tried to prevent us,” Stoltenberg said. “They have not succeeded and also this latest example should not prevent Nato allies from supporting Ukraine,” he added, referring to Vladimir Putin’s recent supposed changes to Russian nuclear doctrine. Stoltenberg said Nato had not detected any change in Russia’s nuclear posture “that requires any changes from our side”.

Mark Rutte, writes Jennifer Rankin, takes the reins of Nato at a perilous moment for Ukraine as it faces a third winter fighting Russia’s brutal invasion. Nato allies recently pledged to bolster long-term support to Ukraine “so it can prevail in its fight for freedom”. Rutte is a blunt-speaking liberal who led four Dutch coalition governments over 13 years. He will formally take over as Nato secretary general on Tuesday morning.

HR McMaster, a US national security adviser during Donald Trump’s presidency, has dismissed as “a real myth” the Republican presidential nominee’s boasts that he would broker an end to Russia’s war in Ukraine if elected in November. “I don’t really buy it,” HR McMaster said Sunday on CBS’s Face the Nation. “It’s a real misunderstanding of war to assume that you can get a favourable political outcome without a favourable military outcome. That’s never really happened in war.”

Three journalists working for independent Russian media outlets were arrested in Moscow on Monday outside a concert celebrating the Kremlin’s claimed annexation of Ukrainian regions, a rights group said. Citing the detainees’ relatives, human rights NGO OVD-info said one of the journalists worked at the news site Republic and the other two for SOTAvision, which said its reporters – who were denied access to the celebration on Red Square – had been arrested while interviewing spectators. The outlet is one of the last Russian media still working to document the Kremlin’s crackdown on dissent.

Russia is planning to draft 133,000 troops between October and January, according to a decree signed by Vladimir Putin that affects those not in the reserve and who are eligible for military service. Russia plans to boost its defence budget by almost 30% next year as it diverts resources to its war on Ukraine, spending more on the military than welfare and education combined, a draft budget indicates.

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