Latest Developments in Ukraine: Sept. 20

For full coverage of the crisis in Ukraine, visit Flashpoint Ukraine.

The latest developments in Russia’s war on Ukraine. All times EDT.

6:20 p.m.: Russians have held Vladyslav Yesypenko, a Ukrainian journalist employed by VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe, in captivity in Crimea for 18 months. He was arrested on charges of illegal possession of weapons, which he denies. In February, he was sentenced to a penal colony. Some human rights organizations believe he is a political prisoner. VOA’s Iryna Solomko has the story.

5:15 p.m.: Ukraine will push for unprecedented and bespoke International Monetary Fund and World Bank packages worth tens of billions of dollars in the coming weeks to shore up its war-ravaged finances, the country's top debt management chief told Reuters.

Ukraine's army has regained swathes of its territory from Russia in recent weeks but the financial and humanitarian costs of the nearly eight-month-old war continue to rise.

Its budget this month estimated it faces a $38 billion shortfall next year, money that will need to either come from the Western backers and multilaterals or else be printed. Those Western backers and multilaterals are already set to provide around $20 billion this year.

The International Monetary Fund looks ready to give it a boost by allowing countries struggling with global food price increases - a group that includes Ukraine - to draw more money from its main rapid financing facility.

4:23 p.m.: Kyiv residents braved the cold to queue for hours on Tuesday as McDonald's opened three branches in the Ukrainian capital that had been shut since the Russian invasion began nearly seven months ago, Reuters reported.

The branches only opened for delivery services but customers waited outside the restaurants anyway to collect their meals from the motorcycle couriers who were next to them.

For some, it offered a taste of what life was like before the invasion, and the reopening stood in marked contrast to Russia, where McDonald's has pulled out its business after a Western backlash against the war.

3:40 p.m.: VOA got exclusive access to an Island-class patrol boat provided to Ukraine by the U.S. VOA’s Myroslava Gongadze joined the Ukrainian navy on patrol in the Black Sea near the Odesa Coast.

3:25 p.m.: Referendums organized by Russia in territories it occupies in Ukraine are worth nothing and Poland will not recognize the results, the Polish president said on Tuesday, according to Reuters.

"(The referendums) are worth nothing - the truth is that the result is decided in the Kremlin and not by voting," Andrzej Duda told reporters during a visit to New York for the United Nations General Assembly.

2:30 p.m.:

2:15 p.m.: Democratic and Republican senators urged U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Tuesday to impose secondary sanctions on international banks to strengthen a price cap G-7 countries plan to impose on Russian oil over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, Reuters reported.

Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen and Republican Senator Pat Toomey introduced legislation imposing the secondary sanctions, which would target financial institutions involved in trade finance, insurance, reinsurance and brokerage of Russia oil and petroleum products sold at prices exceeding the cap.

The two senators are both members of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees sanctions policy. They said the ability to target banks would make it harder for Russia to evade the price cap by making deals with countries not formally participating in the G-7 scheme.

2:05 p.m.: Germany and Slovenia have sealed a deal that will see Slovenia send 28 tanks of Soviet-era design to Ukraine and get 40 modern military trucks from Germany, The Associated Press reported.

Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht agreed to sign a letter of intent on the deal with her Slovenian counterpart Marjan Sarec, her ministry said Tuesday. It didn’t specify when the vehicles will be delivered.

The agreement foresees Slovenian handing over 28 M-55S tanks to Ukraine and getting 40 military trucks, including five tankers.

Germany has been keen to promote such deals under which eastern NATO allies hand off Soviet-era equipment to Kyiv and get modern equipment from Germany.

1:55 p.m.: Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the U.N. General Assembly Tuesday, noting that the war between Russia and Ukraine “is escalating,” VOA’s U.N. Correspondent Margaret Besheer reported.

“We are investing tremendous efforts in order to ensure that the war will be finalized by protecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine once and for all,” Erdogan said.

“We would like to launch an appeal to all the international organizations and the countries of the world to support the peaceful initiatives of Turkey to settle this dispute once and for all,” he said. “We need a dignified way out of this crisis and that can be possible only through a diplomatic solution which is rationale, which is fair and which is applicable," he added.

1:40 p.m.:

1:20 p.m.: U.S President Joe Biden will deliver a firm rebuke to Russia's war in Ukraine during his speech at the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday, White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.

1:05 p.m.: Any referendums on joining Russia in Russian-occupied Ukrainian territories would destroy any remaining window for talks between Kyiv and Moscow, Ukrainian publication Liga.net cited the Ukrainian president's office spokesman as saying on Tuesday, Reuters reported.

"Without the referendums, there is still the smallest chance for a diplomatic solution. After the referendums - no," Liga.net quoted Serhiy Nykyforov as saying.

He made the comments in response to Russian-installed officials in four occupied Ukrainian regions announcing plans for referendums over the next week on formally joining Russia.

Presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak wrote on Twitter later that any referendums should be met by an increase in economic sanctions on Russia and arms supplies to Ukraine, including ATACMS missiles that have a longer range than any known Ukrainian weapon system at present.

12:50 p.m.: Both the U.S. Defense Department and NATO have rejected what they call “sham referendums” in Russian-occupied Ukraine, VOA’s National Security Correspondent Jeff Seldin reported Tuesday.

12:15 p.m.: German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says plans by authorities in the Moscow-occupied territories of Ukraine to hold "sham" referendums must be rejected by the international community, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.

Scholz's comments came after Russian news agencies reported on September 20 that the so-called public council in Ukraine's Kherson region -- large parts of which have been under Moscow's military control since March -- urged the Russia-imposed authorities to "immediately" hold a referendum on the region joining the Russian Federation.

Moscow has been moving ahead with plans to hold referendums on joining Russia in the occupied regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya.

A day earlier, groups calling themselves public councils also urged Russia-backed separatists who have controlled parts of Ukraine's eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk since 2014 to hold referendums on joining Russia.

"It is very, very clear that these sham referendums cannot be accepted and are not covered by international law," Scholz told reporters as he attended the UN General Assembly.

11:50 a.m.: Moscow's planned referendums seeking to annex additional territory in Ukraine will have no impact, Ukraine's Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Tuesday after Russian-backed officials in some Ukrainian territories unfurled the requests, Reuters reported.

“The Russians can do whatever they want. It will not change anything," Kuleba said in response to reporters' questions at the start of a meeting with U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield.

Earlier Tuesday Kuleba said on Twitter that Ukraine had “every right to liberate its territories."

11:35 a.m.: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday blasted what he described as U.S. efforts to preserve its global domination and ordered officials to boost weapons production amid the fighting in Ukraine, The Associated Press reported.

Speaking while receiving credentials from foreign ambassadors to Moscow, Putin said “the objective development toward a multipolar world faces resistance of those who try to preserve their hegemony in global affairs and control everything — Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa.”

He added that “the hegemon has succeeded in doing so for quite a long time, but it can’t go on forever ... regardless of the developments in Ukraine.”

Putin has repeatedly cast his decision to send troops into Ukraine as a response to alleged Western encroachment on Russia’s vital security interests.

The Russian leader described Western sanctions against Russia over its action in Ukraine as part of efforts by the U.S. and its allies to strengthen their positions, but charged that that they have backfired against their organizers and also hurt poor countries.

“As for Russia, we won’t deviate from our sovereign course,” Putin said.

11:20 a.m.: U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Tuesday addressed world leaders gathered at the annual U.N. General Assembly, painting a grave picture of threats to the global community – including war, food security, and economic inequality – but saying solutions lie in “multilateral diplomacy.”

11:05 a.m.: After battling supply chain issues, potato shortages and a hefty rebranding job, the successor to McDonald's Corp's business in Russia says it expects to have all 850 restaurants open by the end of the year, Reuters reported.

Oleg Paroev, CEO of Vkusno & tochka, or "Tasty and that's it," painted a positive picture of the company's first 100 days, but withheld specific details on sales, revenue, new products and import markets.

McDonald's quit Russia after a Western backlash against Moscow's military campaign in Ukraine, which included a barrage of economic sanctions, and sold all the restaurants it owned to a local licensee, Alexander Govor, in May.

Vkusno & tochka's results have exceeded company expectations since the reopening, but the challenges were also "much more complicated" than initially envisaged, Paroev said.

10:40 a.m.: The Ukrainian town of Izium was captured by Russian forces in March and retaken by the Ukrainian Army in early September. Izyium's residents told reporters with Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty about their desperate lives under Russian occupation A Ukrainian man said 62 people hid in a basement used as a bomb shelter during World War II. A local woman said that for much of the occupation, people stayed hidden underground as Russian troops went door-to-door with lists of people they were hunting.

10:25 a.m.: Germany’s natural gas storage facilities are now more than 90% full in preparation for the winter heating season and rising steadily despite Russia cutting off deliveries through a major pipeline, The Associated Press reported.

The head of the national network regulator, Klaus Mueller, tweeted late Monday that gas storage had “achieved another milestone” and that the stored gas will help in managing any potential gas emergencies and will flow back into the market.

He cautioned that “nevertheless, we must continue to save gas.” The fuel heats homes, powers factories and generates electricity.

The government tightened storage requirements in July after Russia’s state-owned Gazprom started reducing supplies through the Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which has contributed to soaring gas prices.

Germany introduced a requirement for storage to be 75% full by Sept. 1 and raised the targets for October and November to 85% and 95%, respectively, from 80% and 90%. The November target is roughly equal to the amount of gas that Germany used in January and February this year, when temperatures were relatively mild.

Russia hasn’t delivered any gas through Nord Stream 1 since the end of August as tensions mount over the war in Ukraine.

10:15 a.m.: Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto has urged EU officials to avoid talk of further sanctions on Russia over its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, repeating Budapest's warnings that such moves hurt the bloc's 27 members, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.

Szijjarto said in a statement that "The EU should...stop mentioning an eighth package of sanctions, should stop flagging measures that would only further deepen the energy supply crisis."

Hungary is a member of the European Union and NATO, but is especially reliant on Russian gas and to a lesser extent oil.

Hungarian leaders including Prime Minister Viktor Orban have criticized Moscow's decision to attack Ukraine but resisted punitive measures including gas, oil, and other sanctions while also meeting repeatedly with Russian leaders.

10:05 a.m.:

9:55 a.m.: Russian proxies in the eastern Donetsk region are trying to mobilize 500 factory workers, the Kyiv Independent reported Tuesday, citing Ukrainian military officials.

“The General Staff of Ukraine's Armed Forces said Russian proxies in Donetsk (region) canceled the mobilization deferment for around 500 Yenakiyeve Metallurgical Factory workers,” it reported.

“The General Staff also reported that men are no longer allowed to leave Russian-occupied Crimea without the permission of military commissariats,” the Kyiv Independent added.

9:40 a.m.: Russia on Tuesday gave support to plans by separatists which it backs in Ukraine to hold referendums paving the way for the annexation of swathes of additional territory, a direct challenge to the West that could sharply escalate the conflict, Reuters reported.

In what appeared to be choreographed requests, Russian-backed officials across 15% of Ukrainian territory lined up to request referendums on joining Russia. Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson officials said the referendums would take place in just days - on Friday September 23 through to Monday Septeber 27. Russia does not fully control any of the four regions, with only around 60% of Donetsk region in Russian hands.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, the Duma, said he would support the folding in of parts of Ukraine that voted to join Russia.

Dmitry Medvedev, who served as Russian president from 2008 to 2012 and is now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, backed the referendums, which he said would change the path of Russian history and allow the Kremlin more options for defense of what he said would become Russian territory.

"Encroachment onto Russian territory is a crime which allows you to use all the forces of self–defense," Medvedev said in a post on Telegram. "This is why these referendums are so feared in Kyiv and the West."

"It is equally important that after the amendments to the constitution of our state, no future leader of Russia, no official will be able to reverse these decisions."

Asked about the referendums, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said: "From the very start of the operation... we said that the peoples of the respective territories should decide their fate, and the whole current situation confirms that they want to be masters of their fate."

Ukraine said the threat of referendums was "naive blackmail" and a sign Russia was running scared. "This is what the fear of defeat looks like. The enemy is afraid, and obfuscates primitively," said Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. "Ukraine will solve the Russian issue. The threat can only be eliminated by force."

9:10 a.m.: The Institute for the Study of War noted in its most recent report that Russian forces do not control all of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions, where separatists say they will stage a referendum this week on joining Russia. “This approach is incoherent,” ISW said.

8:55 a.m.: The Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Kherson region will stage a referendum on joining Russia between September23-27, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday, citing local Russian-installed officials.

Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk and Luhansk People's Republics also said on Tuesday they will hold votes to join Russia on the same dates, September 23-27, Reuters reported. Russia recognized Luhansk and Donetsk as independent countries at the start of its invasion in February, and now says securing their territory is the main purpose of its "special military operation".

8:35 a.m.: Russia's President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday said Russian weapons were showing great effectiveness in Ukraine and that the country needs to enhance the capacity of its arms industry, Reuters reported.

8:15 a.m.:

8:05 a.m.: Russia's parliament on Tuesday approved a bill to toughen punishments for a host of crimes such as desertion, damage to military property and insubordination if they are committed during military mobilization or combat situations, Reuters reported.

The bill, passed in its second and third readings on Tuesday by the lower house of parliament, the Duma, comes amid debate inside Russia about a possible mobilization, a step which could significantly escalate the conflict in Ukraine.

"Until today, the Russian criminal code did not have the concepts of 'mobilization' or 'combat operations'," Pavel Chikov, head of the Agora law firm, which has represented a series of high-profile legal cases in Russia, told Reuters.

According to a copy of the bill, seen by Reuters, voluntary surrender would become a crime for Russian military personnel, punishable by 10 years in prison.

The Kremlin said last week that there was no discussion of a nationwide mobilization to bolster the military campaign in Ukraine, days after a surprise Ukrainian offensive forced Russia from almost all of Kharkiv region. But some Russian politicians and some nationalists have called for a full mobilization.

7:50 a.m.:

7:30 a.m.: One of Russian President Vladimir Putin's top allies said on Tuesday he favored holding referendums in two eastern Ukrainian regions in order to formally make them part of Russia, a move that would seriously escalate Moscow's confrontation with the West, Reuters reported.

The statement by Dmitry Medvedev, a former president who is currently deputy chairman of the Security Council, marks a hardening of Russian rhetoric on Ukraine and is the strongest sign yet that the Kremlin is considering going ahead with a plan that Ukraine and the West have said would be illegal.

He made his comments as Putin ponders his next steps in a nearly seven-month-old conflict that has triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and after a battlefield defeat in northeast Ukraine.

The leaders of the Russian-backed self-proclaimed Luhansk People's Republic (LPR) and Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) a day earlier discussed combining their efforts to hold referendums on joining Russia.

Officials in the Russian-controlled southern Kherson region on Tuesday also requested a referendum on joining Russia.

7:20 a.m.: The U.N. migration agency IOM says it is providing emergency assistance to displaced Ukrainians returning to the northeast of the country following the ouster of Russian forces.

7:00 a.m.: Ukrainian officials have announced efforts to urgently stabilize recently retaken eastern territory and stressed the need for rapid gains in order to deny Russia "any foothold on Ukrainian soil" with Russia's invasion nearing the seven-month mark, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address on September 19 that Kyiv's forces in the Kharkiv region were "stabilizing the situation [and] holding our positions...so firmly that the occupiers are clearly panicking."

"The pace is very important now," Zelenskiy said amid rapidly falling temperatures in the region and concerns about the basic needs of residents who have remained. "The pace of stabilization in the liberated areas. The pace of movement of our troops. The pace of restoration of normal life in the liberated territory."

Zelenskiy said last week that around 150,000 Ukrainians had lived under Russian occupation in the Kharkiv region for the past five months.

Late on September 19, the deputy prime minister in charge of reintegrating recaptured areas, Iryna Vereshchuk, said that the authorities had launched a pilot program of small cash payments to help residents around Kharkiv. She said each person would receive the equivalent of $33 and thanked the International Red Cross for its financial support of the project.

6:35 a.m.:

6:15 a.m.: Brittney Griner's detention in Russia and the country's invasion of Ukraine has the top WNBA players opting to take their talents elsewhere this offseason, according to The Associated Press.

In recent years, Russia was the preferred offseason destination for WNBA players in the offseason because of salaries that can exceed $1 million. But that has come to an abrupt end.

"Honestly my time in Russia has been wonderful, but especially with BG still wrongfully detained there, nobody’s going to go there until she’s home," said Breanna Stewart, a Griner teammate on a Russian team that paid the duo millions.

Griner was arrested in February and later convicted on drug possession charges amid Russia's invasion of Ukraine. She was sentenced last month to nine years in prison. The U.S. State Department has reportedly tried to negotiate Griner's release, as part of a prisoner swap that would also include another American detained in Russia, but so far no deal has been reached.

5:57 a.m.: Izium, in far eastern Ukraine, was among the first cities taken by Russian forces after the war started on Feb. 24 and became a command center for the occupying forces. By early March, the city was almost completely isolated — no cell phones, no heat, no power. Residents didn’t know what was going on in the war, whether their relatives were alive, whether there was still a Ukraine. They were liberated Sept. 10 in a Ukrainian counteroffensive that swept through the Kharkiv region. But more than a week later, The Associated Press reports, residents are still emerging from the confusion and trauma of six months of occupation.

5:28 a.m.: Millions of windows in Ukraine are estimated to have been broken by artillery blasts and other explosions since Russia invaded at the end of February, according to The New York Times. As fall and winter approach, the shattered glass is creating yet another problem for Ukrainians: How to patch up their homes and other buildings to keep out the cold.

4:52 a.m.: British Prime Minister Liz Truss will pledge at a U.N. summit to meet or exceed the $2.6 billion of military aid spent on Ukraine in 2022 in the next year, doubling down on her support for Kyiv after Russia's invasion, according to Reuters.

Truss, on her first international visit as prime minister, will call on other leaders at the U.N. General Assembly in New York to help end Russia's energy stranglehold on Europe.

"My message to the people of Ukraine is this: the UK will continue to be right behind you every step of the way. Your security is our security," she said in a statement before her speech to the summit.

Truss will also meet U.S. President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

3:40 a.m.:

2:30 a.m.: Officials in two self-declared separatist regions in eastern Ukraine are calling on Russia to annex the territories, as Ukrainian forces continue to extend their recent gains, The Washington Post reported.

The actions by authorities in the Luhansk and Donetsk people’s republics are a sign of panic that Moscow's war in Ukraine is failing, the Post said, as Russia may be at risk of losing territory it had previously controlled in the eastern Donbas region.

1:15 a.m.:

12:30 a.m.: Russia has highly likely lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to about 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the British military said, Reuters reported.

There is a realistic possibility that the uptick in losses was partially a result of the Russian Air Force accepting greater risk in a move to provide close air support to Russian ground forces under pressure from Ukrainian advances, the Defence Ministry said in its daily intelligence on Twitter.

Russian pilots’ situational awareness is often poor, it said. "There is a realistic possibility that some aircraft have strayed over enemy territory and into denser air defense zones as the front lines have moved rapidly."

12 a.m.: Ukrainian forensic experts have so far exhumed 146 bodies, mostly civilians, at a mass burial site near the town of Izium in eastern Ukraine and some bear signs of a violent death, the regional governor said, according to Reuters.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said some 450 bodies are believed to have been buried at the site in a forest on the outskirts of Izium, which was recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces during a counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region.

Oleh Synehubov, governor of Kharkiv region, said the exhumed bodies included two children.

"Some of the dead have signs of a violent death. There are bodies with tied hands and traces of torture. The deceased were also found to have explosive, shrapnel and stab wounds," Synehubov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The forensic experts, dressed in white protective suits and wearing rubber gloves, have been working methodically for days to exhume and identify the bodies, whose makeshift graves were marked by flimsy wooden crosses.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Monday rejected Ukraine's allegations as a "lie."

Residents have previously said some of the graves in the forest were of people who died in a Russian airstrike.

Some information in this report came from The Associated Press and Reuters.