Zelenskyy: Tens of thousands of lives will be lost if Ukraine is denied permission to use western weapons deep inside Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire western missiles including long-range US Atacms and British Storm Shadows into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks. He is expected to reiterate these pleas during his diplomatic visit to the US this week, when he will meet Joe Biden.
The Ukrainian president is asked by Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts what would happen if he is denied permission to use the western weapons to strike deep inside Russia.
Zelenskyy replied:
Putin will continue to destroy us, to kill people, to kill children, absolutely. He will act in this way. We will lose thousands of schools and tens of thousands of lives. That is what will be happening.
He thanked the American people for all their help and support so far and said “we are closer to the peace than we think”.
EXCLUSIVE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska sit down with @RobinRoberts to discuss the “Victory Plan” he will present to Biden: “It’s not about negotiation with Russia. It’s a bridge to a diplomatic way out, to stop the war.” pic.twitter.com/urY0rPlRTJ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 24, 2024
Key events
More on the Russian attack reported in Kharkiv. “Russia is terrorising the Kharkiv region with impunity … A direct strike on a residential building,” Ukraine’s ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets wrote on Telegram.
Kharkiv mayor Ihor Terekhov said the building had already been attacked by Russia at the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
“It was almost repaired, windows were installed, it was insulated, and prepared for heating season. The enemy hit it second time,” Terekhov said.
Russia attacked at least four districts in the afternoon, Terekhov added, including the most densely populated area of the city. Several apartment blocks were also reportedly damaged.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city located about 30 km (18 miles) from the Russian border, and the surrounding region regularly come under Russian attacks. Moscow’s troops extensively use highly destructive guided bombs that Ukrainian air defences struggle to intercept.
At least three killed in Russian strike on Kharkiv
At least three people were killed and 15 were injured in a Russian strike on Kharkiv, local authorities said, Reuters reported.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, met with his colleagues from the Nordics and Baltics on the sidelines of the UN general assembly.
“We spoke about strengthening Ukraine’s energy resilience ahead of winter and ensuring Russia’s accountability,” he said.
I took part in NB8 ministerial on the sidelines of UNGA with my colleagues from Nordic and Baltic countries. We spoke about strengthening Ukraine’s energy resilience ahead of winter and ensuring Russia’s accountability. I thank our friends for their commitment and leadership. pic.twitter.com/d9z9bwdw3o
— Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 (@andrii_sybiha) September 24, 2024
Summary of the day so far…
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Excerpts from a Good Morning America interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska have been released. In them, Zelenskyy discussed recent reports that Russia has been using Chinese satellites and taking photos of the details of the objects on nuclear facilities. “In our experience, if Russia takes photos of a certain object then there is a threat of strikes against the nuclear objects. That is a nuclear terror,” he said.
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Zelenskyy said his “victory plan” – which he is due to present to Joe Biden during his visit to the US this week – is not about negotiating with Russia, but finding a way of ending the conflict diplomatically. The head of the presidential office Andriy Yermak confirmed that an invitation to join Nato is part of Ukraine’s so-called “victory plan”, details of which have not been revealed yet by Zelenskyy.
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Zelenskyy said tens of thousands of lives will be lost and thousands of schools destroyed if he is denied permission by the US to use long-range western weapons to strike deep inside Russia.
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Zelenskyy will speak at the UN general assembly on Wednesday and is also due to meet US presidential candidates Donald Trump and Kamala Harris.
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Russia plans to maintain defence spending at an historic high in 2025, Bloomberg News reported, suggesting that the Kremlin intend to continue its invasion of Ukraine for the foreseeable future.
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Ukraine’s presidential adviser Vladyslav Vlasiuk said that 60% of the foreign parts found in Russian weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine come via China.
In the opening summary, we reported that Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the war. These reports came mainly from Russian war bloggers and state media.
Unverified video on Russian state media showed Vuhledar, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.
Andriy Kovalenko, head of the Ukrainian security council’s centre for countering disinformation, said Russia’s use of guided aerial bombs had helped it to advance in the area.
He said:
(Vuhledar) used to be easy to defend, it is on high ground. But with the active arrival of guided aerial bombs at the front, the enemy managed to destroy it and move to the flank.
Guided aerial bombs and aviation are the only things that allow the enemy infantry to move.
Separately, Ukraine’s Deep State open-source intelligence analysts said on Telegram that Russian troops were trying to encircle Vuhledar and had been pounding it with artillery and guided bombs.
It will take 30 years to bring back all the Ukrainian children abducted by Russia at the current rate of return, Ukraine’s first lady says
Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska has expressed her desire to help ensure the return of thousands of Ukrainian children forcibly taken by Russia
An estimated 19,500 Ukrainian children are being held in Russia, having been forcibly transferred or deported to Russia or the territories it has occupied. “They are being told that nobody is looking for them in Ukraine. Nobody needs them in Ukraine,” Zelenska told Good Morning America (GMA).
She said it is “dangerous” to keep waiting, but adds that returning the children has been a very slow process (388 children have been returned from Russia, she says).
“If we are going to bring our children back at this rate, we will need more than 30 years to bring them back,” Zelenska told GMA.
Zelenskyy: Tens of thousands of lives will be lost if Ukraine is denied permission to use western weapons deep inside Russia
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been pleading with allies for months to let Ukraine fire western missiles including long-range US Atacms and British Storm Shadows into Russia to limit Moscow’s ability to launch attacks. He is expected to reiterate these pleas during his diplomatic visit to the US this week, when he will meet Joe Biden.
The Ukrainian president is asked by Good Morning America anchor Robin Roberts what would happen if he is denied permission to use the western weapons to strike deep inside Russia.
Zelenskyy replied:
Putin will continue to destroy us, to kill people, to kill children, absolutely. He will act in this way. We will lose thousands of schools and tens of thousands of lives. That is what will be happening.
He thanked the American people for all their help and support so far and said “we are closer to the peace than we think”.
EXCLUSIVE: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska sit down with @RobinRoberts to discuss the “Victory Plan” he will present to Biden: “It’s not about negotiation with Russia. It’s a bridge to a diplomatic way out, to stop the war.” pic.twitter.com/urY0rPlRTJ
— Good Morning America (@GMA) September 24, 2024
Zelenskyy warns of ‘nuclear terror’ amid threat of Russian strikes against nuclear facilities
In the interview with Good Morning America, Volodymyr Zelenskyy also discusses recent reports that Russia has been using Chinese satellites and taking photos of the details of the objects on nuclear facilities.
He said:
In our experience, if Russia takes photos of a certain object then there is a threat of strikes against the nuclear objects. That is a nuclear terror. Such things we share with many leaders who can influence Russia and influence Putin.
Zelenskyy did not say whether the Chinese satellites that Russia has used were commercial satellites or controlled by the Chinese government.
In a post on X on Saturday, Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha wrote: “According to Ukrainian intelligence, [the] Kremlin is preparing strikes on Ukrainian nuclear energy critical objects ahead of winter.” The attacks would focus on the transmission substations and other “open distribution devices” at the nuclear stations, he wrote.
Beijing has said that China’s position on Ukraine was to “promote peace talks and political settlement” and that it does not provide direct military aid to Russia.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and first lady Olena Zelenska have sat down with Good Morning America to discuss the “victory plan” the Ukrainian leader is to present to the US President Joe Biden during his diplomatic visit to the US this week. Zelenskyy said the plan is not about negotiating with Russia, but finding a way of ending the conflict diplomatically. “Only with a strong position we can speak,” he said, stressing that asking western allies to bolster Ukrainian defences will help force Russia into stopping the war.
Zelenskyy said he wants to discuss the plan with both presidential candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, along with Biden. “I would want that no matter who is elected that Ukraine does not suffer,” he told Good Morning America.
His comments come after Trump claimed in a speech on Monday that Zelenskyy wants the Democrats to in the US presidential election in November.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian will hold talks with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, during a visit to Russia next month to attend the Brics summit, a government spokesperson shas aid.
The visit to the Brics summit in the Volga valley city of Kazan from 22 October to 24 will be Pezeshkian’s first to Russia since he took office in late July.
“The president will visit the Russian Federation and participate in the BRICS summit,” Iranian government spokesperson Fatemeh Mohajerani told reporters.
He “will also hold bilateral meetings with the president of Russia,” she added.
The spokesperson said that a “strategic partnership agreement” between Iran and Russia “is almost finalised”, without elaborating on the details.
The two governments, which both face sweeping western sanctions, have forged strong ties in various sectors, including military cooperation.
The latest sanctions, targeting Iran’s air transport links, were imposed over its alleged supply of ballistic missiles to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine, something Tehran denies.
In 2006, Brazil, Russia, India and China created the Bric group to challenge a world order dominated by the west. South Africa joined in 2010, making it Brics.
Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates became members at the beginning of this year.
Invitation to Nato is part of Ukraine’s ‘victory plan’ – senior official says
An invitation to join Nato is part of Ukraine’s so-called “victory plan”, the head of the Presidential Office Andriy Yermak confirmed.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is set to present a “plan for victory” in the war to the US president, Joe Biden, during this week’s visit to the US. The plan, details of which Zelenskyy has so far publicly held back, appears to be a big push from the Ukrainian leader to try to persuade Washington and other allies to provide further and deeper aid to his country in an effort to force Moscow to end the conflict on terms acceptable to Kyiv. Ukrainian officials have suggested that Russia could eventually be invited to a summit to discuss a resolution to the conflict under the new plan.
“Ukraine’s invitation to Nato is part of the victory plan,” Yermak wrote on Telegram on Tuesday.
The Kyiv Independent reports that Ukraine would ask for Nato membership within the months, not years, though this has not officially been confirmed by Kyiv.
Yermak said Zelenskyy’s plan “contains a clear vision of the steps that must be taken to ensure a just and lasting peace”, adding that it contains both diplomatic and military terms.
He said Ukraine must have the tactical advantage on the battlefield for Moscow to stop its war. Despite stopping Russian advances in “most directions”, Yermak said Ukrainian forces still lacked sufficient resources and technology to produce “everything we need”. Ukraine is urging its allies to increase and speed up the delivery of military aid packages, including drones, long-range systems and artillery shells.
After Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Volodymyr Zelenskyy asked for his country to be admitted to Nato, the 32-member defensive alliance, as soon as possible.
Jens Stoltenberg, the outgoing Nato secretary general, said Ukraine’s membership to Nato is not a “question of if, but when”, though he said Ukraine would not become a member during the war with Russia.
In an earlier post, we mentioned that the Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, was asked what Russia’s response to a possible decision by the west to allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russia with western missiles would be.
Here is some more of what Peskov told journalists at the briefing:
Please re-listen and re-read the statements that the president has made on this issue – I mean on the topic of possible permission for the use of western weapons deep into the territory of Russia.
The statement that the president made in St. Petersburg. The position of the Russian Federation is very clearly stated there.
Russia would be forced to take what Russian President Vladimir Putin called “appropriate decisions” based on the new threats. Peskov did not specify what these “decisions” would be, but he has previously spoken of the option of arming the west’s enemies with Russian weapons to strike western targets abroad.
Speaking in St. Petersburg on 12 September, Putin had said: “If this decision (on missiles) is taken, it will mean nothing less than the direct involvement of Nato countries, the United States and European countries in the war in Ukraine. This will be their direct participation, and this, of course, will significantly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict.”
Ukraine’s President Voldymyr Zelenskyy called on the US president, Joe Biden again on Saturday to allow Ukraine to carry out long-range strikes inside Russia. He wants to be able to use British, French and Italian Storm Shadow missiles, as well as US-made Atacms to hit airbases and other military targets inside Russia.