Ukraine war briefing: Russia should attend second peace summit, Zelenskiy says

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that Russia should be represented at a second peace summit in November, after a first summit convened by the Ukrainian president last month in Switzerland to which Moscow was not invited. Both sides have shunned direct peace talks since negotiations between Russian and Ukraine delegations fell through in the early weeks of Russia’s invasion in February 2022. But during a press conference in Kyiv after his visit to the US for a Nato defence alliance summit, Zelenskiy opened the door to direct talks with officials from Moscow. “I believe that Russian representatives should be at the second summit,” Zelensky said, describing preparations for a follow-up gathering of Ukraine’s allies.

In the same news conference, Zelenskiy said Ukraine needs 25 Patriot air defence systems to fully defend its airspace, adding that he also wants western partners to send more F-16 warplanes than those already pledged. A six-month delay in military assistance from the US, the biggest single contributor to Ukraine, meant that Kyiv’s forces had “lost the initiative” on the frontline, Zelenskiy said.

Top EU officials will boycott informal meetings hosted by Hungary while the country has the EU’s rotating presidency, after Hungary’s pro-Russian prime minister Viktor Orbán held a series of rogue meetings with foreign leaders about Ukraine that angered European partners. The highly unusual decision to have the European Commission president and other top officials of the body boycott the meetings was made “in light of recent developments marking the start of the Hungarian [EU] presidency”, commission spokesperson Eric Mamer posted on Monday on X.

US journalist and author Masha Gessen was convicted in absentia on Monday by a Moscow court on charges of spreading false information about the military and was sentenced to eight years in prison. The Moscow-born Gessen, a staff writer for The New Yorker and a columnist for The New York Times who lives in the US, is a prominent critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin and an award-winning writer.

A Ukraine drone attack sparked a fire at a factory producing electrical devices and components in Russia’s Kursk region, the interim governor of the region bordering Ukraine said early Tuesday. “None of the workers were injured,” Alexei Smirnov, the governor, said on the Telegram messaging app.

A Russian military court on Monday granted house arrest to a general and former commander in Moscow’s Ukraine offensive who has been charged with fraud. Major-General Ivan Popov was released from behind bars Monday after being arrested in May on suspicion of large-scale fraud, punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

Ukraine said Monday that a military serviceman allegedly attempting to flee the country illegally had been shot dead by a border guard after being caught and detained. The State Bureau of Investigation (SBI) said four servicemen were apprehended while approaching the Moldovan border by foot in the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa on Sunday. “While trying to cross the border, border guards noticed them and detained them,” the SBI said. “One of the fugitives attacked the border guard while trying to escape. In response, he used his service weapon and shot the attacker.”