Ukraine war: 16 hurt in Russian glide bomb attack as Zelensky presents ‘victory plan’

Russian aircraft were flying over the Baltic Sea without transponders or a flight plan, the Latvian Air Force reported on Saturday night.

Transponders are a device which helps air traffic in international airspace remain safe – and it is not uncommon for Russian jets to enter Baltic airspace with them turned off.

The jets were escorted by NATO Eurofighter jets as part of NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission, the Latvian Air Force said according to the Kyiv Independent.

In August, German pilots reported that Russian planes detected heading towards Latvian airspace were behaving “uncooperatively but not aggressively” when the Baltic Air Policing mission intercepted them.

In August, the German Air Force reported that Russian pilots who were detected heading toward Latvian airspace “behaved uncooperatively but not aggressively” when intercepted by NATO’s Baltic Air Policing mission.

Russian strikes hit high-rise apartment blocks in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, leaving dozens wounded in a second consecutive nighttime attack this week.

The bombs fell Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, in Ukraine’s northeast, local Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. Residential 16 and 9-storied buildings were destroyed, and seven more buildings were damaged, he added.

Twenty-one people were wounded, including an eight-year-old, two 17-year-olds and several older adults, according to Syniehubov and Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov.

Samya Kullab reports:

Ihor Volobuyev, a former chief spokesperson for Russian energy giant Gazprom has warned that Russians will repent for siding with Vladimir Putin.

The 53-year-old, who defected to Ukraine and is now fighting against Russia in the ongoing war, told Sky News: “The time will come, I really hope, when Russia will officially recognise him [Putin] as a criminal. And the Russians will repent for being with him, choosing him, listening to him, and for the time they spent in this war under his leadership. I hope they will be ashamed.”

He told the outlet: “I believe that until we kick Putin’s backside, we can’t think about anything else” adding that “I will serve in the armed forces of Ukraine for as long as I have the strength, opportunity and health – and I’m fine with that”.

Despite spending much of his life in Moscow, Mr Volobuyev, who was born in Ukraine, opposed Russia’s actions since the 2014 Crimea invasion and defected after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He has now relinquished his Russian citizenship and gained Ukrainian citizenship. “I haven’t shared Russia’s policy since 2014… I had been looking for the inner strength to leave Russia.”

Moscow has issued a warrant for his arrest, but he said he remained committed to Ukraine.

On 22 September, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant in Pennsylvania to thank workers for producing 155 mm artillery shells, vital for Ukraine’s defence against Russia.

Mr Zelensky expressed gratitude, emphasising the need for continued support from the US. “It is in places like this where you can truly feel that the democratic world can prevail,” he wrote on X.

“Thanks to people like these — in Ukraine, in America, and in all partner countries — who work tirelessly to ensure that life is protected.”

The factory recently increased production from 24,000 to 36,000 shells per month, and the US has supplied Ukraine with over three million of these munitions, according to the Kyiv Independent.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting the US to present his “victory plan” to US president Joe Biden, aiming to secure further military support and diplomatic efforts against Russia.

Mr Zelensky will also address Congress and meet with vice president Kamala Harris and former president Donald Trump.

“This fall will determine the future of this war,” Mr Zelensky said in a post on X.

Following his Washington meetings, he will attend the UN General Assembly in New York as well aimed at rallying support for Kyiv.

The new “cyber track” will have different selection and basic training requirements to other branches of the armed services.

The Sun on Sunday revealed that suspected Russian actors have been caught trying to hack into Britain’s core defence structure 90,000 times over the past two years.

“We will remove unnecessary barriers and fast-track bright candidates into cyber defence to help face down Putin’s online aggression,” Mr Healey said.

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At least 16 civilians, including a 15-year-old boy, were injured in Russian airstrikes on Zaporizhzhia late Sunday, according to the Ukrainian interior ministry.

The strikes reportedly involved KAB guided aerial bombs, causing damage to several apartment buildings, Reuters reported.

Zaporizhzhia governor Ivan Fedorov wrote on Telegram that Russia conducted a total of 363 air and ground strikes across 12 settlements in the region within a day.

Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians, though the war has resulted in thousands of civilian casualties, predominantly among Ukrainians.

Vladimir Kara-Murza, a Russian opposition leader, who was reunited with his family in London following his release from a Siberian prison as part of a prisoner exchange between Russia and the West, said that Putin’s regime will collapse without warning.

Mr Kara-Murza, a vocal critic of the Kremlin, had been jailed on political charges and was allegedly poisoned twice. He told The Guardian: “That’s how things happen in Russia. Both the Romanov empire in the early 20th century, and the Soviet regime at the end of the 20th century collapsed in three days. That’s not a metaphor, it was literally three days in both cases.”

He believes that Western leaders, besides the Russians, need to take collective responsibility who “for all these years were buying gas from Putin, inviting him to international summits, rolling out red carpets”.

“These guys keep meticulous records. When the end comes – and it will – the archives will open, we will find out about Trump and Marine Le Pen and your British guys too.”

Earlier, he told The Independent: “Even if Vladimir Putin kills all of us, the current leaders of the opposition, others will come in our place.”

He said: “Others from the younger generation. The people who turned out in the tens of thousands for the funeral procession of Alexei Navalny in Moscow earlier this year. People who have been leaving these flowers at makeshift memorials all over the country. They will come and take our place to find a democratic Russia, even when none of us are there.”