Ukraine war latest: Biden warns UN not to allow Putin’s ‘illegal war of conquest’

U.S. president Joe Biden appealed to world leaders at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday to stand with Ukraine against Russian invaders, hoping Republicans in Congress will also take notice.

“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalize Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said in his speech to UNGA. “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?”

Biden’s address at the annual gathering was the centrepiece event of his three-day visit to New York, which will include meetings with the heads of five Central Asian nations, and the leaders of Israel and Brazil.

Biden, a Democrat, has made rallying U.S. allies to support Ukraine a leading component of U.S. foreign policy, arguing the world must send a clear signal to Russian President Vladimir Putin that he will not be able to outlast the West.

Biden has faced criticism from some Republicans who want the United States to spend less money on the war effort.

Former President Donald Trump, the front-runner for the Republican nomination in the 2024 presidential election, has vowed to seek a quick end to the war if returned to power.

Trump has voiced scepticism about Washington’s engagement with traditional allies, including NATO, and has been complimentary of Putin.

House of Representatives Speaker Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in Washington, has questioned whether the United States should keep sending billions of dollars in weaponry to Ukraine.

In his speech, Biden argued that Russia’s February 2022 invasion of Ukraine and occupation of territory violated the founding U.N. Charter, a main principle of which is respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity.

Biden echoed remarks of U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres who in his opening speech to UNGA on Tuesday said Russia’s invasion “has unleashed a nexus of horror.”

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich filed an appeal Tuesday to be released from jail on espionage charges, but the Moscow City Court did not immediately rule on it, causing confusion from Russian media that reported contradictory results from the closed session.

The court said in a statement it sent Gershkovich’s case back to a lower court due to procedural violations. The state news agency Tass reported the court had rejected Gershkovich’s appeal, meaning he will remain jailed until Nov. 30.

Before the session was closed, Gershkovich appeared in the glass defendants’ cage, smiling at journalists and wearing a yellow sweater and blue jeans. He was detained in March while on a reporting trip to the city of Yekaterinburg, about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 miles) east of Moscow.

Azerbaijan’s launch of reportedly intense artillery firing in the Nagorno-Karabakh region on Tuesday raised fears that another full-scale conflict with Armenia could be underway, less than three years after a war that killed more than 6,000 people.

Nagorno-Karabakh, with a population of about 120,000, is an ethnic Armenian region of Azerbaijan that has been a flashpoint since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The region and sizable surrounding territories came under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the Armenian military at the 1994 end of a separatist war. Azerbaijan regained the territories and parts of Nagorno-Karabakh itself in fighting in 2020.

The latter war ended with an agreement to deploy Russian peacekeepers in the region, but tensions have soared since December when Azerbaijan began blocking the road that connects Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia proper. The artillery firing that Azerbaijan calls an “anti-terrorist operation” started hours after it said four soldiers and two civilians were killed by landmines that it claimed were planted by Armenian saboteurs.

President Joe Biden on Tuesday called on world leaders to uphold the UN Charter’s “core tenet” of sovereignty and territorial integrity by supporting Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s invading forces during remarks at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

Mr Biden reminded the world leaders who had gathered to hear him at UN headquarters that the annual gathering, which he described as one that is “dedicated to peaceful resolution of conflicts,” was once again “darkened by the shadow of war, an illegal war of conquest brought without provocation by Russia against its’ neighbour, Ukraine”.

Mr Biden said the US, which has been Ukraine’s chief supporter during the nearly two-year war, wants the conflict to end, and stressed that “no nation wants this war to end more than Ukraine”.

Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday.

“Today we’ve demonstrated the UK’s unwavering commitment to Ukraine and set out more military support, including pledging tens of thousands more artillery shells to enable Ukraine to defend itself,” defence minister Grant Shapps after a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) in Germany said.

“We have also set out how the UK will go further in the coming months in our priority support areas, including air defence and long-range strike capabilities, and training.”

Britain, a key defence supplier for Ukraine, is trying to increase its production of weaponry, particularly artillery shells, to try to help Kyiv push back Russian forces and replenish its own stockpiles.

At the U.N. General Assembly, Joe Biden has warned that Russia the “aggressor” stands “in the way of peace.”

“Russia believes that the world will grow weary and allow it to brutalise Ukraine without consequence,” Biden said in his speech to UNGA. “If we allow Ukraine to be carved up, is the independence of any nation secure?”

Elsewhere, he described the situation in Ukraine as an “illegal war of conquest.”

Ukraine has just four weeks to hold a “knife at Crimea‘s throat” and force Vladimir Putin into peace talks before Russia‘s army recoups over winter, experts have warned.

Professor Mark Galeotti, academic and author of more than 20 books on Russia, said Volodymyr Zelensky’s troops need to move another 10 miles southwards to be in range of striking key Russian supply routes in Crimea.

He claimed this is the only “serious” chance Ukraine has to force Mr Putin into negotiations before the Russian army has the opportunity to regroup over winter.

Alexander Butler reports:

Latvia’s government decided on Tuesday to close one of its two border crossing points with Belarus as the prime minister accused Minsk of again using illegal migrants as a “hybrid threat” to undermine the Baltic state’s security.

In 2021, Latvia, Poland and Lithuania faced an immigration crisis when thousands of people, mostly from the Middle East and Africa, began crossing from Belarus.

The three countries, all members of NATO and the European Union, eventually resorted to pushing the migrants back, a policy that remains in place.

Fifty officers now working at the Silene border station will be redeployed to guard the actual border, in what Latvia’s border guard chief has described as “the most tense situation since 2021” due to an influx of migrants from Belarus.

Guards have turned back 894 people attempting to cross the border in the last six days, taking September’s total to 1,773, Latvian news wire LETA reported.

“Border tensions are increasing, and Belarus is engaging more and more in such a hybrid threat, that we have an increasing number of illegal travellers”, Latvian Prime Minister Evika Silina told reporters.

The border crossing point has been closed to “send signals internationally”, she added.

However, Belarus Border Guard said on its website on Tuesday that the Silene crossing point remained open and that Latvia had not informed it of any changes.

Poland and Lithuania have fenced their borders with Belarus and the new Latvian government has pledged to finish its own fence by the end of the year.

Belarus is a close ally of Russia. It allowed Russian armed forces to use its territory as a staging post to invade Ukraine, Belarus’ southern neighbour, in early 2022. In May this year, Russia deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

A Russian drone attack over the city of Lviv, Ukraine, early on Tuesday 19 September heavily damaged a warehouse facility and injured a 26-year-old man, according to the regional governor.

Maksym Kozytsky reported that 15 out of 18 drones were intercepted.

Footage from the ground shows flames raging from a warehouse, as firefighters battle to control the blaze.

The state emergency service said the fire, caused by the drone attack, has reached 9,450 square meters.

A total of 27 out of 30 Shahed drones were intercepted Monday night across Ukraine, according to the Air Force report.

Ukraine is filing a complaint at the World Trade Organization against Hungary, Poland and Slovakia after they banned grain and other food products coming from the war-torn country, Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Tuesday.

It lays bare a widening rift with the three members of the European Union, which has been a pivotal backer of Kyiv as it works to fight off Russia’s invasion.

In a break with the wider EU, Poland, Hungary and Slovakia have announced bans on grain and other food from Ukraine, a major agricultural supplier to parts of the world where people are going hungry. The 27-nation bloc last week lifted restrictions on Ukraine’s exports to five member states, also including Romania and Bulgaria.