Peskov also pushed back against the idea of European peacekeeping troops<\/a> being deployed to Ukraine, saying: \u201cWe view such discussions negatively.\u201d He said it was \u201cexactly this movement of NATO military infrastructure \u2026 into Ukraine\u201d that Russia sees as one of the \u201croot causes\u201d of the war.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nPolitics and diplomacy<\/p>\n
\n- Ukraine has criticised Russia for setting out plans to withdraw from the Council of Europe\u2019s treaty for the prevention of torture, saying the proposal was a tacit admission of guilt by Moscow. Ukrainian officials have long accused Russia of war crimes and torturing Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war.<\/li>\n
- Zelenskyy signed a decree appointing Olha Stefanishyna, a former top cabinet minister, as Ukraine\u2019s next ambassador to the United States. Zelenskyy said \u201cUkraine\u2019s long-term security depends on relations with America\u201d and singled out the US provision of weapons for Ukraine and the supplying of Ukrainian drones to the US as diplomatic priorities.<\/li>\n
- Zelenskyy\u2019s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said he was in the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh along with security council chief Rustem Umerov in advance of talks later in the week with US administration<\/a> officials in New York.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Regional security<\/p>\n
\n- Germany has launched a drive to attract more people into voluntary military service as the country scrambles to strengthen its armed forces in the face of growing fears about Russian aggression.<\/li>\n
- German weapons-maker Rheinmetall opened Europe\u2019s largest munitions plant on Wednesday, a move hailed as boosting Western defences by NATO chief Mark Rutte. \u201cThis is absolutely crucial for our own security and also to keep supporting Ukraine in its fight today and to deter any aggression in the future,\u201d Rutte said at an opening ceremony.<\/li>\n
- Romania has signed a framework agreement with Rheinmetall to build a munitions ignition powder factory for 535 million euros ($626.3 million), the country\u2019s industry ministry said.<\/li>\n
- Germany approved a record 12.8 billion euros ($14.9bn) of weapons exports last year, largely driven by Berlin\u2019s support for Ukraine, according to a report approved by the cabinet. A total of 8.15 billion ($9.49bn) euros worth of defence products were approved for Ukraine, or 64 percent of the total, according to the report.<\/li>\n
- German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visited Moldova in a show of support for the country\u2019s pro-European government and slammed what they described as Russian \u201clies\u201d and \u201chybrid attacks\u201d.<\/li>\n
- All NATO members will hit a longstanding target of spending 2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) on defence this year, but only three currently reach a new, higher 3.5 percent goal set by alliance leaders in June, NATO data released on Thursday showed.<\/li>\n
- Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan formally inaugurated Turkiye\u2019s integrated air defence system known as the \u201cSteel Dome\u201d, which he described as a watershed moment for the country and its defence industry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
Economy<\/p>\n
\n- Russia sees economic growth in 2025 slowing to 1.5 percent, far below the earlier 2.5 percent forecast, as high interest rates imposed to reduce inflation have stifled borrowing, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told President Vladimir Putin. Russia\u2019s war economy grew robustly at 4.1 percent in 2023 and 4.3 percent in 2024, far faster than G7 countries, despite multiple rounds of Western sanctions imposed after its invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but it is slowing sharply this year.<\/li>\n
- Russian authorities said that a ban on petrol exports would be extended to October 31 in a bid to lower fuel prices that have soared after Ukrainian attacks on refineries.<\/li>\n
- Petrol stations have run dry in some regions of Russia after Ukrainian drones struck refineries and other oil infrastructure in recent weeks, with motorists waiting in long lines and officials resorting to rationing or cutting off sales altogether, the AP news agency reports. Russian media outlets report fuel shortages are hitting consumers in several regions in the Far East and on the Crimean Peninsula, which was illegally annexed from Ukraine by Moscow in 2014.<\/li>\n
- Crude oil shipments via the Druzhba pipeline from Russia to Hungary could resume on Thursday in test mode at lower volumes, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said in a post on X on Wednesday. Hungary and Slovakia said on Friday that oil supplies via the Druzhba pipeline could be suspended for at least five days after Ukraine\u2019s latest attack on Russian energy infrastructure.<\/li>\n
- US tariffs of 50 percent took effect on Wednesday on many Indian products, doubling an existing duty as US President Donald Trump sought to punish New Delhi for buying Russian oil amid the war on Ukraine.<\/li>\n
- Ukraine has launched a tender for the right to mine a lithium deposit site in its central Kirovohrad region, the country\u2019s Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko said. The tender for the \u201cDobra\u201d site is expected to be the first project in a joint investment fund with the US that was signed in April as part of Kyiv\u2019s efforts to keep Washington\u2019s support in its war against Russia.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Here are the key events on day 1,281 of Russia\u2019s war on Ukraine. Published On 28 Aug 202528…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":379302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[6178,32,2000,299,2597,12,332,7661,657,333],"class_list":{"0":"post-379301","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-conflict","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-military","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-russia","15":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","16":"tag-ukraine","17":"tag-vladimir-putin"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115104279806244798","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379301","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=379301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/379301\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/379302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=379301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=379301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=379301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}