New bomb threat at all schools in Kew
Authorities received a new bomb alert in all of Kew’s schools this morning, three days after the first, indicating a military takeover of the Ukrainian capital.
“Kiev police received a message again about the mining of all schools,” the administration from Kiev said in a telegram. An earlier warning, dated September 1, the start of the school year in Ukraine, ultimately turned out to be false.
Ukraine says it shot down 17 drones over Odesa
Ukrainian forces shot down 17 Russian drones in southern Ukraine’s Odesa, the local governor said, and buildings were damaged in the port city of Ismail district.
“Seventeen drones were shot down by our air defense forces (…) in many places in Ismail district, warehouses and production buildings, agricultural machinery and equipment of industrial enterprises were damaged,” Oleg Kibar said in Telegram.
Moscow has announced the destruction of four Ukrainian speedboats in the Black Sea
During the night from Sunday to Monday, “in the northwestern part of the Black Sea, (…) Black Sea Fleet naval aircraft destroyed four US-made ‘Willard Sea Force’ military speedboat (carrying) landing parties. Ukraine’s armed forces were traveling in the direction of Cape Tarkankut, west of the annexed Crimean Peninsula. forces, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a telegram.
In Russia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan is trying to find a deal on grain
Turkish President Sochi is expected to meet with Vladimir Putin in southwestern Russia today to discuss the EU’s autumn resumption of a Ukrainian grain export deal via the Black Sea. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who will meet his Russian counterpart for the first time since last October, hopes to use the talks on Ukrainian grain transit as a catalyst for broader peace talks between Kiev and Moscow. He is one of the few NATO leaders who maintains good relations with Vladimir Putin.
Russia withdrew in July from an agreement that allowed sea transport of Ukrainian grain, vital to the world’s food supply, criticizing the fact that Western sanctions hampered the shipment of its own agricultural products and fertilizers to the international market. Russia has threatened to attack ships leaving Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea. It has also intensified its bombing of Ukrainian port infrastructure.
Ukrainian drones shot down by Russia
Moscow said it shot down a Ukrainian drone from Crimea and shot down a second device in Kursk, a Russian region bordering Ukraine. At 1 a.m. local time on Monday (midnight in Switzerland), it was reported that “Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed in the air by air defense systems in service over the Black Sea near the Crimean peninsula and over the border of the Kursk region.” The Russian Defense Ministry counted two machines in total on Telegram. Drone attacks on Russian territory annexed by Moscow in 2014 and the Crimean peninsula have increased in recent weeks.
Who is future Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustom Omerov?
At 41, she was born in the Soviet republic of Uzbekistan, where her family was exiled under Stalin, and was a child when her family was resettled in Crimea in the 80s and 90s when Tatars were allowed to return there. He started in the telecommunication industry in 2004 and has been an MP since 2019.
In parliament, he co-chaired the Crimea Platform, which coordinated international diplomatic efforts to reverse Russia’s 2014 annexation of the peninsula. For many years he was an adviser to the historical leader of the Crimean Tatars, Mustafa Dzhemilev. After the annexation of Crimea and the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Rustam Omerov has, on several occasions, participated in discreet negotiations with Moscow, notably the exchange of prisoners and the evacuation of citizens. He was part of the Ukrainian delegation to negotiations with Moscow under Turkey and the UN, which allowed the establishment of a maritime corridor that would allow Ukrainian grain to be transported across the Black Sea.
In September 2022, Rustam Omerov was appointed head of the State Property Fund, a key post in a country whose privatization process has been plagued by corruption.
Volodymyr Zelensky announced the replacement of Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has announced that his Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov will be replaced by Rustam Omerov, head of Ukraine’s State Property Fund. “Rustem Omerov should become the head of the (defense) ministry,” the Ukrainian president said. “I expect Parliament to support this candidate.” “I have decided to change the defense minister of Ukraine,” he said. In his daily video address. “Olexi Reznikov was at war for more than 550 days. I believe that the ministry needs new approaches and new ways of communicating with the military and civil society.
The change in the leadership of the Ministry of Defense comes at the height of the Ukrainian counteroffensive and when Volodymyr Zelensky promised to strengthen the fight against corruption in Ukraine, especially in response to the conditions imposed by Ukraine. Kyiv should retain its status as a candidate for EU membership. Recently various corruptions have come to light in the country. One of them involves the Ministry of Defense, which, according to Ukrainian media, signed a contract with a Turkish company for the supply of winter uniforms in the fall of 2022, the price of which tripled after the signing. At the end of August, Oleksiï Reznikov promised that the invoice prices were similar to those provided by manufacturers in Turkey.
Appointed defense minister three months before the Russian invasion, Oleksiï Reznikov became the face of the Ukrainian war effort, specifically helping western allies equip Kiev’s army with heavy tanks, howitzers or Patriot air defense systems.
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