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The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.
9:12 p.m.: Ukraine has set its sights on freeing all of the territory occupied by invading Russian forces, a goal U.S. President Joe Biden said would be "a long haul" to achieve.
In a Tuesday evening address, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said around 8,000 square kilometers have been liberated by Ukrainian forces so far this month, apparently all in the northeastern region of Kharkiv.
"Stabilization measures" had been completed in about half of that territory, Zelenskyy said, "and across a liberated area of about the same size, stabilization measures are still ongoing."
Reuters was not able to immediately verify the full scope of battlefield successes claimed by Ukraine.
Asked whether Ukraine has reached a turning point in the six-month war, Biden said it was hard to tell.
"It's clear the Ukrainians have made significant progress. But I think it’s going to be a long haul," he said.
8 p.m.: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Tuesday called on Russian President Vladimir Putin to withdraw his troops from Ukraine, as a counter-offensive by Kyiv's forces made quick advances.
Scholz urged Putin in a 90-minute telephone call to "come to a diplomatic solution as quickly as possible, based on a cease-fire, a complete withdrawal of Russian forces and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Ukraine," according to the chancellor's spokesman Steffen Hebestreit, Agence France-Presse reported.
In a phone call, Scholz also urged Putin "not to discredit and continue to fully implement" the grain deal in light of the stretched global food supply, Hebestreit said.
7:04 p.m.:
5:51 p.m.: In Balakliya, a crucial military supply hub taken by Ukrainian forces late last week, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Maliar said 150,000 people had been liberated from Russian rule in the area, Reuters reported.
Maria Tymofeeva, 43, said fighting had raged for three days last week before going quiet.
"A lot of people have disappeared," she said. Asked if there were many collaborators in the town, she said, "I think so, yes," before adding, with a laugh, "I think they have fled!"
Fighting was continuing elsewhere in the northeastern Kharkiv region, Maliar earlier told Reuters, saying Ukraine's forces were making good progress because they were highly motivated and their operation well planned.
4:29 p.m.: The Biden administration is likely to announce a fresh military aid package for Ukraine in "coming days," the White House said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
"I do think you'll see another one here in coming days," White House national security spokesperson John Kirby told reporters.
3:25 p.m.: The United Nations is trying to broker a resumption of Russian ammonia exports through Ukraine, a Western diplomat said on Tuesday, a move that could stabilize a landmark deal allowing Ukrainian food and fertilizer shipments from Black Sea ports, Reuters reported.
Ammonia is a key ingredient in nitrate fertilizer. A pipeline transporting ammonia from Russia's Volga region to Ukraine's Black Sea port of Odesa was shut down when Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24.
Facilitating Russia's food and fertilizer exports is a central aspect of a package deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey on July 22 that also restarted Ukraine's Black Sea grain and fertilizer shipments. Russia has recently criticized the deal, complaining that its exports were still hindered.
The United Nations has proposed that ammonia gas owned by Russian fertilizer producer Uralchem be brought via pipeline to the Russia-Ukraine border. There it would be purchased by U.S.-headquartered commodities trader Trammo, according to the proposal.
2:30 p.m.: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday posted a promotional video on Twitter encouraging people to buy Ukrainian-made goods, saying a percentage of the profits will go toward efforts to rebuild the country.
2:10 p.m.: A group of St. Petersburg local politicians who called for President Vladimir Putin to be sacked over the war in Ukraine faces the likely dissolution of their district council following a judge's ruling on Tuesday, one of the deputies said, according to Reuters.
Nikita Yuferev said the judge decided that a series of past council meetings had been invalid, paving the way for it to be broken up by the regional governor. Another council member, Dmitry Palyuga, said the same court then fined him 47,000 rubles ($780) for "discrediting" the authorities by calling for Putin's removal. Court officials could not be reached by telephone for comment.
Four more members of the Smolninskoye local council are due to appear in court in the next two days.
Last week, a group of deputies from the council appealed to the State Duma to bring charges of state treason against Putin and strip him of power, citing a series of reasons including Russia's military losses in Ukraine and the damage to its economy from Western sanctions.
Another local deputy said 65 municipal representatives from St. Petersburg, Moscow and several other regions had signed a petition she published on Monday calling for Putin's resignation.
While posing no current threat to Putin's grip on power, the moves mark rare expressions of dissent by elected representatives at a time when Russians risk heavy prison sentences for "discrediting" the armed forces or spreading "deliberately false information" about them.
1:55 p.m.: A local councilor from St. Petersburg who called on Vladimir Putin to resign says he's been overwhelmed by the level of support from members of the public. Dmitry Palyuga, of St. Petersburg's Smolny municipal council, co-authored a petition calling on the Russian president to step down that was sent to Russia's State Duma. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty has this report:
1:20 p.m.: International Monetary Fund chief Kristalina Georgieva said she spoke with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and they agreed to explore ways to ramp up the IMF's support for Ukraine using all available tools, Reuters reported.
"Excellent call with President @ZelenskyyUa," Georgieva wrote on Twitter. She said they discussed how the global lender could "continue to back Ukraine and agreed to explore ways to ramp up our financial and policy engagement to (Ukraine) using all tools available to us."
The call came a day after the IMF's executive board held an informal session to discuss proposed changes that would give all member countries, including Ukraine, access to additional emergency funding to deal with budget woes caused by food shocks.
In a separate posting on Twitter, Zelenskyy said he spoke with Georgieva and thanked her for "the allocation of $1.4 billion of additional support. Discussed future cooperation to increase Ukraine's financial stability."
12:50 pm.: The Kremlin on Tuesday hailed the significance of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s planned meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping this week, noting that it’s particularly important amid tensions with the West, The Associated Press reported.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said the two leaders are scheduled to meet Thursday in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, on the sidelines of a summit of a security pact dominated by Moscow and Beijing.
“The meeting has a special significance in view of the current international situation,” Ushakov told reporters, saying Putin and Xi will discuss the international situation, along with regional issues and bilateral cooperation.
China has pointedly refused to criticize Russia’s action in Ukraine and denounced Western sanctions against Moscow. Russia, in turn, has strongly backed China amid tensions with the U.S. that followed a recent visit to Taiwan by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
“China has taken a well-balanced approach to the Ukrainian crisis, clearly expressing its understanding of the reasons that prompted Russia to launch the special military operation,” Ushakov said. “The issue will be thoroughly discussed during the meeting.”
The talks between Putin and Xi follow their meeting in February, when the Russian leader attended the opening of the Beijing Olympics shortly before sending troops into Ukraine.
12:15 p.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin has yet to publicly comment on a lightning rout of his forces in north-eastern Ukraine, but is under pressure from nationalists at home to regain the initiative.
He has few quick fix options, if Western intelligence and open source analysis is accurate, and most of the potential steps he could take come with domestic and geopolitical risks.
Reuters has enumerated some of Putin’s main options in Ukraine in this report.
11:40 a.m.:
11:15 a.m.: Ukraine’s military claimed Tuesday for the first time that it encountered an Iranian-supplied suicide drone used by Russia on the battlefield, The Associated Press reported, showing the deepening ties between Moscow and Tehran as the Islamic Republic’s tattered nuclear deal with world powers hangs in the balance.
U.S. intelligence publicly warned back in July that Tehran planned to send hundreds of the bomb-carrying drones to Russia to aid its war on Ukraine. While Iran initially denied it, the head of its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard has boasted in recent days about arming the world’s top powers.
The Ukrainian military’s Strategic Communications Directorate published images of the wreckage of the drone. It resembled a triangle, or delta-shaped, drone flown by Iran known as the Shahed, or “Witness” in Farsi.
The military official and the website both said Ukrainian troops encountered the drone near Kupiansk amid Kyiv’s offensive that has punched through Russian lines around Kharkiv on the eastern front.
The image suggested the Shahed drone had been shot down by Ukrainian forces and hadn’t detonated on impact as designed, though little other information was immediately released by Kyiv. An inscription on the drone identified it as an “M214 Gran-2,” which didn’t immediately correspond to known Russian weaponry.
11:05 a.m.: Chancellor Olaf Scholz invoked the spirit of the Berlin Airlift on Tuesday to implore Germans that "the seemingly impossible can succeed," urging them to brace for a tough winter and to rise to the challenge of a shift in energy supply away from Russian gas, Reuters reported.
He spoke to business leaders at Tempelhof Airport, which was the focal point of the Airlift between 1948 and 1949, when Western forces flew hundreds of thousands of tonnes of supplies into divided Berlin after the Soviets blocked rail and street access to the city's Western-occupied sectors.
Germany and other European countries are scrambling to secure energy supplies after Russia halted flows through a key gas pipeline. Moscow blames sanctions, imposed by the West after Russia invaded Ukraine, for impeding the pipeline's maintenance.
"Of course we knew and we know that our solidarity with Ukraine will have consequences," Scholz said in a speech at the German Employers' Day.
10:45 a.m.: Pope Francis begged for an end to Russia’s “senseless and tragic war” in Ukraine as he arrived Tuesday in the former Soviet republic of Kazakhstan to join faith leaders from around the world in praying for peace, The Associated Press reported.
Francis flew to the Kazakh capital of Nur-Sultan to meet with President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev for an official state visit portion of his three-day trip. On Wednesday and Thursday, he participates in a government-sponsored triennial interfaith meeting, which is gathering more than 100 delegations of Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, Shinto and other faith groups from 50 countries.
“I have come to echo the plea of all those who cry out for peace, which is the essential path to development for our globalized world,” he said.
Directing himself at global superpowers, he said expanding efforts at diplomacy and dialogue were ever more important. “And those who hold greater power in the world have greater responsibility with regard to others, especially those countries most prone to unrest and conflict.”
“Now is the time to stop intensifying rivalries and reinforcing opposing blocs,” he said.
10:30 a.m.:
10:15 a.m.: Ukraine on Tuesday vowed to liberate all its territory after driving back Russian forces in the northeast of country and raising flags over battle-scarred towns, calling on the West to speed up deliveries of weapons to back the dramatic advance, Reuters reported.
Since Moscow abandoned its main bastion in northeastern Ukraine on Saturday, marking its worst defeat since the early days of the war, Ukrainian troops have recaptured dozens of towns in a stunning shift in battleground momentum.
Speaking in Balakliia, a crucial military supply hub taken by Ukrainian forces, Ukraine's Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar said 150,000 people had been liberated from Russian rule in the area. She spoke in the central square, where Ukrainian flags had been raised.
"The aim is to liberate the Kharkiv region and beyond - all the territories occupied by the Russian Federation," she said on the road to Balakliia, which lies 74 km (46 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city.
10:00 a.m.: Russian occupiers have begun leaving the southern Ukrainian region of Crimea with their families, the Kyiv Independent reported on Twitter Tuesday, citing a report by Ukrainian intelligence.
“An “urgent evacuation” of Russian proxies, intelligence officers, and military commanders is taking place, the Main Intelligence Directorate said,” according to the media outlet.
“The developments are a direct result of successful Ukrainian counteroffensives,” it quoted the intelligence report as saying.
The report could not immediately be independently verified.
9:45 a.m.:
9:20 a.m.: Any damage inflicted on Ukraine's power and heating systems will seriously exacerbate living conditions this winter, especially for an estimated 6.9 million internally displaced people, the United Nations' migration agency said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.
In response to a Ukrainian counter-offensive in the east and south of the country in recent days, Russia has stepped up shelling of power stations and other infrastructure, causing blackouts in the city of Kharkiv and elsewhere.
"Any attempt to damage those facilities will have a terrible impact on the capacity to heat those cities," Antonio Vitorino, director general of the International Organization of Migration (IOM) told a group of reporters in Kyiv.
"We are making all efforts to assist the population in preparing for the winter but we need electricity, and that depends on state services to (restore) a working electricity system," said Vitorino, who met Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Monday.
9:00 a.m.: Lights on monuments in the French capital will be switched off earlier than normal, to save power. In August, President Emmanuel Macron warned that high energy prices caused by the war in Ukraine could signal "the end of abundance," widely interpreted as preparing public opinion for a difficult winter ahead, Agence France-Presse reported.
8:40 a.m.: Ukrainian authorities have detained an unspecified number of Russian teachers who moved to Ukrainian towns and cities after Russia took control of them after launching its invasion in late February, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.
Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk said on September 12 that the teachers, who moved to Ukraine to teach a Russian curriculum at local Ukrainian schools "committed a crime."
"Of course, a court will decide on their punishment, but on the territory of our country there is still a big number of Russian citizens who came to temporarily occupied territories and they will surely face justice unless they leave our territory immediately," Vereshchuk said.
Vereshchuk added that the detained Russian teachers will not be included in prisoner-exchange lists as they are not combatants.
8:25 a.m.: Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba accused Germany on Tuesday of ignoring Kyiv's pleas for Leopard tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles, saying Berlin offered only "abstract fears and excuses" for not providing such military hardware, Reuters reported.
"Disappointing signals from Germany while Ukraine needs Leopards and Marders now — to liberate people and save them from genocide," Kuleba tweeted, as Ukraine presses a counter-offensive to retake land in the east and south from Russian forces.
"Not a single rational argument on why these weapons cannot be supplied, only abstract fears and excuses. What is Berlin afraid of that Kyiv is not?" he wrote, in unusually blunt language.
8:15 a.m.:
7:50 a.m.: The Kremlin said on Tuesday there was no discussion of a nationwide mobilization to bolster the country’s military campaign in Ukraine, days after a surprise Ukrainian offensive drove Russia out of almost all of Kharkiv region, Reuters reported.
Asked about a call for mobilization by a member of the Russian parliament, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “At the moment no, there is no discussion of this.”
Asked about criticism of the country’s leadership online by nationalist commentators who have demanded mobilization, Peskov said it was an example of “pluralism” and that Russians as a whole continue to support President Vladimir Putin.
“Russians support the president, and this is confirmed by the mood of the people ... The people are consolidated around the decisions of the head of state,” he said.
“As for other points of view, critical points of view, as long as they remain within the law, this is pluralism, but the line is very, very thin, one must be very careful here,” he added.
Military commentators ordinarily supportive of the campaign reacted with fury after Russia’s Defense Ministry on Saturday said it was abandoning Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region in a “regrouping” after the lightning counteroffensive last week. Many suggested that only a full-scale nationwide mobilization could rectify the situation.
7:35 a.m.: Sweden’s government said on Tuesday it would donate 500,000 COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to Ukraine, Reuters reported.
7:10 a.m.: U.S. leaders from President Joe Biden on down are being careful not to declare a premature victory after a Ukrainian offensive forced Russian troops into a messy retreat in the north, The Associated Press reported.
Instead, military officials are looking toward the fights yet to come and laying out plans to provide Ukraine more weapons and expand training, while warily awaiting Russia’s response to the sudden, stunning battlefield losses.
Although there was widespread celebration of Ukraine’s gains over the weekend, U.S. officials know Russian President Vladimir Putin still has troops and resources to tap, and his forces still control large swaths of the east and south.
“I agree there should be no spiking of the ball because Russia still has cards it can play,” said Philip Breedlove, a retired U.S. Air Force general who was NATO’s top commander from 2013 to 2016. “Ukraine is now clearly making durable changes in its east and north and I believe that if the West properly equips Ukraine, they’ll be able to hold on to their gains.”
U.S. officials acknowledged that the U.S. provided information to help the Ukrainian counteroffensive but declined to say how much or if Western officials helped strategize the idea to throw Russian forces off guard by calling attention to attack plans in the south, while actually plotting a more formidable campaign in the east.
The U.S provided information “on conditions” in the country, said one of the officials, but “in the end, this was the Ukrainian choice. The Ukrainian military and the Ukrainian political leadership made the decisions on how to conduct this counteroffensive.”
6:55 a.m.:
6:40 a.m.: The Russia-installed rector at Kherson State University in southeastern Ukraine, Tatyana Tomilina, has reportedly survived an assassination attempt and is currently in the hospital, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.
Russian news agencies reported late on September 12 that a handmade explosive device detonated, killing a man thought to be her security guard and injuring Tomilina as they were entering her apartment block.
Initial reports said that Tomilina was hospitalized with shrapnel wounds and contusions. Russia-appointed authorities in Kherson said on September 13 that Tomilina's life is not under threat and that her wounds are not serious.
It was not immediately possible to verify the reports. Since Russia launched its attack on Ukraine, there have been several assassination attempts conducted against Russian-appointed officials in territories occupied by Russian troops.
Tomilina started collaborating with Russian-imposed authorities in Kherson after Russian armed forces took control of the city in March, weeks after the Kremlin launched its invasion of Ukraine. She later was appointed to the post of rector at the university. She was previously the director of the Mishukov Academic Lyceum at Kherson State University, a position she was fired from some time ago for her pro-Russian positions.
6:25 a.m.: Fighting is still raging in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region but Ukraine's forces are making good progress because its forces are highly motivated and its operation is well planned, Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar told Reuters on Tuesday.
"The aim is to liberate the Kharkiv region and beyond - all the territories occupied by the Russian Federation. Fighting is continuing (in Kharkiv region). It is still early to say full (Ukrainian) control has been established over Kharkiv region," Malyar said in an interview.
"Our strength stems from the fact that we are very motivated and that we plan operations thoroughly," she said, adding that Ukraine had taken the decision to press on with its operation in the Kharkiv region due to the successes notched up so far.
Malyar was speaking on the road to Balakliia, a crucial military supply hub recaptured by Ukrainian forces late last week during a counter-offensive that forced Russian troops to flee further east. Balakliia is 74 km (46 miles) southeast of Kharkiv, the regional capital and Ukraine's second largest city.
6:10 a.m.:
5:55 a.m.: Ukrainian intelligence reports that Russia is preparing new shelling of Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, according a Telegram report on The Kyiv Independent.
4:45 a.m.: The Associated Press reports that, early Tuesday, Russia shelled the Ukrainian city of Lozova in the Kharkiv region, killing three people and injuring nine, according to regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
4 a.m.: The Kyiv Independent reports that the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine posted Tuesday morning a video showing Ukrainian troops removing Russian flags and signs from buildings in the city of Vovchansk, which was occupied on the first day of the full-scale invasion. The report says the city is "understood to have been vacated by Russian troops on Sept. 11."
3:24 a.m. Ukrainian troops continue to pressure retreating Russian forces, according to The Associated Press.
Yellow-and-blue Ukrainian flags flutter from buildings in the partly destroyed towns around the city of Kharkiv, while Ukrainian soldiers inspect charred Russian tanks left along the way, according to the news service.
3 a.m.: Russia has opened a treason case against an aviation factory manager on suspicion of passing secret military information to Ukraine, according to Reuters, which referenced Russian news agencies that cited Russia's principal security agency known as FSB.
According to Reuters, reports say the FSB said the manager is suspected of taking photos of equipment from Russia's fighter planes and sending them to a Ukrainian who worked at a Ukrainian aviation plant.
2:30 a.m.
1 a.m.: Sony Group Corp’s music business has exited Russia, transferring the business and musicians to local management, due to the Ukraine conflict, Reuters reported.
“As the war continues to have a devastating humanitarian impact in Ukraine, and sanctions on Russia continue to increase, we can no longer maintain a presence in Russia,” Sony Music said in a statement.
It did not disclose further details of the transaction.
The music business suspended operations in Russia earlier this year following that country's invasion of Ukraine.
12:30 a.m.: Ukraine’s grain maize (corn) harvest is expected to fall 24% below last year and 5% below the five-year average to 32.0 million tons, Reuters reported citing the European Union’s crop monitoring unit.
12:05 a.m.: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there has been “significant progress by the Ukrainians, particularly in the Northeast,” citing both support from the United States and other allies and “the extraordinary courage and resilience of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and the Ukrainian people.”
“This is early days still,” Blinken said. “So, I think it would be wrong to predict exactly where this will go, when it will get there and how it will get there."
Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.
