The war in Ukraine, which broke out in February 2022 with Russia's invasion of its neighbor, shows no sign of ending as both sides intensify attacks to gain control of contested regions.
Read our latest updates here. For all our coverage, visit our Ukraine war page .
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Note: Nikkei Asia decided in March 2022 to suspend its reporting from Russia until further information becomes available regarding the scope of the revised criminal code. Entries include material from wire services and other sources.
Here are the latest developments:
Wednesday, Sept. 6 (Tokyo time)
9:55 p.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemns a Russian attack on Wednesday that he says killed at least 16 people, including a child, and wounded many more in the eastern city of Kostiantynivka.
Zelenskyy says on the Telegram messaging app that a market, shops and a pharmacy were hit. The attack coincided with a visit to Kyiv by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
9:15 p.m. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken visits Kyiv to show support for Ukraine and its grinding counteroffensive against Russian forces. He is likely to announce a new package of wartime assistance worth more than $1 billion, a senior State Department official tells reporters.
"We want to make sure that Ukraine has what it needs, not only to succeed in the counteroffensive, but has what it needs for the long term, to make sure that it has a strong deterrent," Blinken says alongside Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba. "We're also determined to continue to work with our partners as they build and rebuild a strong economy, strong democracy."
Romanian fishermen on the Danube across from the Ukrainian port of Izmail. © Reuters 9:01 p.m. Ukraine's parliament approves the appointment of former lawmaker Rustem Umerov as defense minister.
Umerov, 41, replaces Oleksii Reznikov, who helped secure billions of dollars of Western military aid but was dogged by media allegations of corruption at the ministry. His removal is not expected to affect Ukraine's military strategy.
2:00 p.m. A Russian drone attack on the Danube port of Izmail in the Odesa region killed one person and damaged infrastructure on Wednesday, the region's governor, Oleh Kiper, says on the Telegram messaging app. During the nearly three-hour attack, several agricultural and port facilities were damaged and several fires occurred, Kiper said. "An employee of an agricultural enterprise, who was seriously injured, died in the hospital," Kiper said.
7:00 a.m. The Russian Defense Ministry says its air defense systems destroyed a Ukraine-launched drone just before midnight on Tuesday over the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. The ministry did not say in its statement, posted on the Telegram messaging app, if there were any casualties or damage.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un observes a shelling drill for long-range artillery in this undated photo released in April 2014. (KCNA via Reuters) 2:48 a.m. Arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are advancing, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan says, and he warns Pyongyang over supplying weapons to Moscow for use in Ukraine.
Providing weapons to Russia "is not going to reflect well on North Korea, and they will pay a price for this in the international community," he tells reporters at the White House.
"We have continued to squeeze Russia's defense industrial base," Sullivan says, and Moscow is now "looking to whatever source they can find" for goods like ammunition.
Tuesday, Sept. 5
4:00 a.m. North Korean leader Kim Jong Un plans to visit Russia this month to meet President Vladimir Putin and discuss the possibility of supplying weapons for Moscow's war in Ukraine, The New York Times reports, citing U.S. and allied sources. Kim likely would travel by armored train to Vladivostok on the Pacific Coast.
Such a trip would come as Russia discusses holding joint military exercises with North Korea and after Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu had tried while visiting North Korea to persuade Pyongyang to sell artillery ammunition to Russia.
The White House did not immediately respond to a New York Times request for comment, but national security spokesman John Kirby said on Aug. 30 that the U.S. was concerned that arms negotiations between the two countries were advancing.
Monday, Sept. 4
10:27 p.m. Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov submits his resignation after months of corruption allegations against his ministry. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has proposed Rustem Umerov, a Crimean Tatar and ex-lawmaker who runs the State Property Fund, to replace him.
Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov shows a military uniform during a news conference Aug. 28. © Reuters Reznikov, who took office in 2021, has helped Kyiv secure billions of dollars worth of Western military aid since Russia's invasion in February 2022. "Reznikov did an amazing job building up a relationship with other ministers and other ministries," Andriy Zagorodnyuk, defense minister from 2019 to 2020, tells Reuters. "It saved the country because he was the owner of the process of arranging the shipments of weapons and so on."
Reznikov was not implicated personally by corruption allegations leveled by Ukrainian media at the Defense Ministry, and he portrayed himself as the victim of a smear campaign.
10:21 p.m. Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan conclude three hours of talks in Sochi, Tass reports. Putin restates after the meeting that Moscow would be ready to return to the Black Sea grain deal once all agreements relevant to the accord are fulfilled.
Russia quit the grain deal in July -- a year after it was brokered by the United Nations and Turkey -- complaining that its own food and fertilizer exports faced obstacles. Erdogan, who previously helped persuade Putin to stick with the deal, and the U.N. are trying to get Putin to return to the deal .
A firefighter works at a site that was hit amid Russian drone attacks, in the Odesa region in this handout image released Sept. 4. (Ukraine's Operational Command 'South'/Handout via Reuters) 3:00 p.m. Turkey and Japan will cooperate over the reconstruction of Ukraine, once the fighting ends, according to Turkish and Japanese officials.
Turkey, Ukraine's southern neighbor across the Black Sea, will leverage its unique geography and business ties to help Japanese companies secure contracts in sectors such as energy, transportation, health care and infrastructure. Read more .
2:30 p.m. A Russian drone attack on a major Ukraine grain exporting port damaged warehouses and set buildings on fire, Ukraine says, hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were due to hold talks. A 3 1/2-hour drone assault on the Danube River port of Izmail, in Ukraine's Odesa region, hit warehouses and production buildings, and drone debris set several civilian infrastructure buildings on fire, the governor of the Odesa region said.
5:20 a.m. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has struck a "very important agreement on training our pilots in France" in conversation with French counterpart Emmanuel Macron.
"Our coalition of modern fighters is getting more powerful," Zelenskyy says in his nightly video address. He does not elaborate on what the training will entail.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy © Reuters Sunday, Sept. 3
4:00 p.m. Some 280,000 people have signed up so far this year for professional service with Russia's military, the deputy chair of the Russian Security Council, former President Dmitry Medvedev, says. Visiting Russia's Far East, Medvedev said he was meeting local officials to work on efforts to beef up the armed forces. "According to the Ministry of Defense, since Jan. 1, about 280,000 people have been accepted into the ranks of the Armed Forces on a contract basis," including reservists, state news agency TASS quoted Medvedev as saying.
Saturday, Sept. 2
3:00 p.m. Russian authorities have declared newspaper editor Dmitry Muratov, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize , to be a foreign agent, continuing the country's moves to suppress critics and independent reporting. Russian law allows for individuals and organizations receiving funding from abroad to be declared foreign agents, a pejorative term that potentially undermines their credibility with the Russian public. The status also requires designees to mark any publications with a disclaimer stating they are foreign agents.
8:00 a.m. The head of Russia's Roscosmos space agency says the country has deployed an advanced intercontinental ballistic missile that President Vladimir Putin once said will make Russia's enemies "think twice." Agency head Yuri Borisov said Sarmat missiles have been placed on combat duty, according to Russian news agencies. The Sarmat is one of several advanced weapons whose development Putin announced in 2018. The silo-based missile, capable of carrying multiple nuclear warheads, is intended to replace the R-36 ICBMs that are known by the NATO reporting name of Satan.
1:30 a.m. Vladimir Putin says he expects to meet Chinese President Xi Jinping soon, following earlier reports that he planned to visit China in October. Russia has turned increasingly to China as its most powerful ally since alienating the West last year with its decision to launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
For earlier updates, click here .