Ukraine war briefing: Zelenskyy arrives in US on crucial visit to rally support for Kyiv

Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in the US on Sunday for a crucial visit to present Kyiv’s plan to end two-and-a-half years of war with Russia. The Ukrainian president will present his proposals – which he calls a “victory plan” – to President Joe Biden, as well as presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump and will also attend sessions at the UN general assembly. The visit comes after a summer of intense fighting, with Moscow advancing fast in eastern Ukraine and Kyiv holding on to swathes of Russia’s Kursk region. It also comes as Kyiv has for weeks pressed the west to allow it to use delivered long-range weapons to strike targets deep inside Russia – so far to no avail.

The Ukrainian president urged his partners to help achieve “a shared victory for a truly just peace”, in a post on X with his nightly video address. “This fall will determine the future of this war,” Zelenskyy said in the address, delivered from a plane. Ukrainian media later reported he landed in New York. He is also due to visit Washington later in the week.

Zelenskyy kicked off his trip with a visit to a Pennsylvania ammunition factory that is producing one of the most critically needed munitions for Ukraine. Representative Matt Cartwright, a Democrat who was among those who met with Zelenskyy at the Scranton army ammunition plant, said the president had a simple message: “Thank you. And we need more.” The Scranton plant is one of the few facilities in the country to manufacture 155mm artillery shells and has increased production over the past year. Ukraine has already received more than 3m of them from the US.

The UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, indicated that delicate negotiations with the White House to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia are ongoing, arguing it was a time for “nerve and guts”. The apparent encouragement to Biden comes just over a week after Lammy and the prime minister, Keir Starmer, visited the US president in the White House but failed to resolve the sticking point between two countries. Speaking at a fringe event at the Labour party conference in Liverpool on Sunday, Lammy said it was “a critical time for nerve and guts and patience and for fortitude on behalf of allies who stand with Ukraine”.

Fake news websites registered in the UK and made to resemble trusted British outlets are allegedly spreading disinformation about western companies operating in Ukraine. The suspected Russian propaganda operation has prompted calls by parliamentarians for a change in the law to force UK-registered news websites to reveal their ownership, as happens in the EU. While the sites – londoninsider.co.uk and talk-finance.co.uk – are in English and have been registered in the UK, their output has been picked up and disseminated in Ukraine, where the UK’s media has a reputation for reliability and trustworthiness. The use of the sites has been highlighted by a US firm, Sarn, which is working in Ukraine in the energy and military hardware sectors. It said articles on the two sites had falsely accused it of arms trafficking, judicial fraud and embezzlement.

Russia launched new strikes in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv which hit high-rise apartment buildings, leaving at least 21 wounded in a second consecutive night-time attack, authorities said. The bombs fell on Saturday night on the district of Shevchenkivsky, north of the centre of Kharkiv, which is the second-largest Ukrainian city, local governor Oleh Syniehubov said.

A firefighter was killed by a Ukrainian drone in Russia-controlled Luhansk region in eastern Ukraine, the Russian emergencies ministry said on Sunday. The drone’s explosives detonated when Vyacheslav Glazunov, 33, was extinguishing a fire in the Novoaidar district triggered by fallen drones, the ministry said on Telegram. Another two firefighters were injured, it added.