New missile strikes hit Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia; Russia warns U.S. commercial satellites could become targets if involved in war

Fresh Russian missile strikes hit Ukraine’s Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia regions overnight, local media and officials reported.

“The Russians terrorize the Kyiv region at night. We have several arrivals in one of the communities of the region,” Kyiv regional governor Oleksiy Kuleba wrote on his official Telegram channel.

“Rescuers and all emergency services are on the scene. The elimination of the fire and the consequences of the impact is ongoing.”

Air raid sirens rang out in Kyiv from midnight, and authorities urged residents to seek shelter.

Zaporizhzhia Mayor Anatoly Kurtev also reported that Russian forces attacked the southern city and surrounding land, causing a fire in the area that houses Europe’s largest nuclear power plant.

— Natasha Turak

Estonia’s foreign minister called on new British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to commit to increasing defense spending, as the war in Ukraine enters its ninth month.

Sunak’s predecessor Liz Truss, who spent only 44 days in office, pledged to raise defense spending to 3% of the U.K.’s gross domestic product by 2030. Sunak has not agreed to uphold that pledge, and in the past described the spending targets as “arbitrary.”

“Autocrats are investing in weapons. They believe in (the) power of arms. To defend our values – the rules-based order – we need also to invest in the weapons,” Estonian Foreign Minister Urmas Reinsalu said in an interview with the BBC.

Asked if NATO should increase its requirement of 2% of a member country’s GDP spent on its defense to 3%, Reinsalu said “absolutely.” Sunak has not yet responded to the comments.

— Natasha Turak

U.S. commercial satellites and those of U.S. allies could become targets of Russian retaliation if they become involved in the Ukraine war, a senior Russian official warned.

“Quasi-civilian infrastructure may be a legitimate target for a retaliatory strike,” Konstantin Vorontsov, the deputy director of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s non-proliferation and arms control department, was quoted by state news agency Tass as saying.

“We are talking about the involvement of components of civilian space infrastructure, including commercial, by the United States and its allies in armed conflicts.”

— Natasha Turak

The organization overseeing the export of grain from Ukraine said that no vessels were approved to leave the besieged country due to a “suspicious mine-like object.”

The Joint Coordination Center said that it halted departures from Ukraine until an inspection of the suspicious object was completed. The group said that eight vessels will leave Ukrainian ports Thursday.

Since the inception of the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a deal announced in July among Ukraine, Russia, the United Nations and Turkey, more than 390 vessels have left Ukraine carrying a total of 8.8 million metric tons of grain and other crops.

Read more about the Black Sea Grain Initiative here.

— Amanda Macias

Russian state media claimed that Ukraine has made a dummy rocket to deploy a “dirty bomb” near the Chornobyl nuclear power plant.

The U.S. and its allies have previously denied Russian allegations that Ukraine is planning to use a “dirty bomb” in order to escalate the conflict.

The report in Russia’s RIA Novosti alleges that Ukrainian forces are planning to fill the rocket with radioactive material and blame an explosion on Russian forces.

— Amanda Macias