Air defence continues to be Ukraine"s "greatest need", US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin says The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: First, the Kremlin abandoned the Black Sea green initiative. Then Russia’s took its assault on global food security to a new low, targeting grain supplies with airstrikes that has unleashed dangerous ripple effects in other countries and continents uninvolved in [Vladimir] Putin’s campaign of Imperial aggression. So, air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield. Austin noted, however, that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war. He called on leaders to donate air defence munitions as the country goes into the winter. So at today’s meeting, I urged allies and partners to dig deep and donate whatever air defence munitions they can, as Ukraine heads into another winter of war. Austin and Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, reiterated the US’s ongoing support for Ukraine. Closing summary... Here is a summary of the main events from today. You can still follow our live coverage of the UN general assembly here. Leaders from Poland, Turkey, Brazil and the US have spoken at the UN general assembly conference. Ukraine’s Zelenskiy is due to address the conference. At the UN conference, Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone after its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.” The US president, Joe Biden, says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine. No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”. Turkey’s leader Recep Tayyip Erdoğan pledged to step up efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine “through diplomacy and dialogue.” Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda used his address to say the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end and that it cannot be “converted into a frozen war.” He called for “restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.” Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva called for more action to resist climate change and said there was progress on protecting the Amazon rainforest. He called for work “to create space for negotiations” on the war in Ukraine. The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: Air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield.” He noted that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war. Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday. The defence minister, Grant Shapps, said: “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.” A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported. A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack. Russia said Ukraine was responsible for the explosion at a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka. The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, said Ukraine had fired a 9M38 missile from a Buk surface-to-air missile system that struck the city on 6 September, Reuters reports. She said: “Even if it was done unintentionally, it is obvious to everyone: the complete demilitarisation of the Kyiv regime is not just a requirement, but a vital necessity.” Two people have been killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person. Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid. Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said. Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down. A high-rise building was on fire due to a hit in the city of Kryvyi Rih, and the facades of three buildings were damaged. Slovyansk was also struck, with no casualties reported. Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Russian-imposed administration of the occupied Zaporizhzhia region, has claimed this morning Russian forces destroyed a column of armored vehicles and Ukrainian troops that was moving towards the village of Robotyne. At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said. “Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app. Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges. He called on the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to decide that it has jurisdiction to hear the case fully and eventually rule that Russia must pay reparations for invading under a false pretext. Russia has ramped up the production of some military hardware by more than tenfold to supply its army in Ukraine, significantly increasing the output of missiles, drones, combat vehicles and artillery, Russia’s biggest weapons producer claimed on Tuesday. Britain’s foreign secretary, James Cleverly, urged his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on Tuesday to push Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine and stress to Moscow the importance of respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity In an interview with Reuters, Cleverly called on Wang Yi to “impress upon Russia the complete inappropriateness of their action.” He said: We know that President Xi has significant influence on the world stage, including with Vladimir Putin. I know that foreign minister Wang Yi will be traveling to Moscow and I hope that he will impress upon Russia the complete inappropriateness of their action. And I hope that China will call for Russia to withdraw. China has made, I think, important messages about the respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, about the non-use of nuclear weapons. We support those messages and we hope that those messages will be repeated when foreign minister Wang Yi visits Moscow. China and Russia announced a “no limits” partnership shortly before Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Léonie Chao-Fong Erdoğan says the UN’s security council has ceased to be a guarantor of world security, instead becoming “a battleground for the political strategies” of its five permanent members. “The world is bigger than five,” he says. The Turkish leader says that Ankara has endeavored to keep Russia and Ukraine around the table since the beginning of the war, adding that “the war will have no winners”. We will step up our efforts to end the war through diplomacy and dialogue on the basis of Ukraine’s independence and territorial integrity. Erdoğan warns that the failure to implement the Black Sea Grain initiative has “left the world facing new crisis”, but that Turkey has a new plan whereby another 1m tonnes of grain will be released to countries in dire need. Léonie Chao-Fong Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, used his speech to call on “courageous and visionary” leaders to stand against the “imperial policy” of Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Russia’s full-scale aggression on Ukraine has led to “immense global problems” in its aftermath and tested the international world order, he said. World peace has never been as threatened as it is today. He cited Poland’s history of being invaded by Nazi Germany in September 1939 as why Warsaw “understands the tragedy of Ukraine better than any other country in the world”. For the first time in a long time, Russians have shown the face we have known or hundreds of years. They believed that the nations around them should be subjected to them. We say no. Russia believes that the old days of the empire that collapsed less than 20 years ago, that domination will again be a feature of our region. Well, it will not. Those days are over once and for all. Duda said the “brutal” war in Ukraine must end that cannot be “converted into a frozen war”. “This can only be done by restoring the full territorial integrity of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders,” he said. He said Poland is engaged in initiatives to hold Russia accountable for violations of fundamental norms of international law, and that is “strongly” supports the work of the international criminal court and the international court of justice. Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday. According to Reuters, after a meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group (UDCG) in Germany, the defence minister, Grant Shapps, said: 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. 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. The US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday charged Concord Management and its owner with operating as unregistered investment adviser to their only client, a billionaire former Russian official, Reuters reports. Léonie Chao-Fong The US president, Joe Biden, says the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he describes as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine. No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine, he says, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”. He says Russia along bears the responsibility of the war in Ukraine, and that it alone has the power to end the war immediately. Russia alone stands in the way of peace because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory. Russia will grow weary, allowed to brutalise Ukraine without consequence. But ask you this: if we abandon the core principles of United States to appease an aggressor, can any member state in this body feel confident that there are protected if you allow Ukraine to be carved up? Is the independence of any nation security? Biden says the US will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and freedom. Léonie Chao-Fong The Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, says the war in Ukraine “exposes our collective inability” to enforce the purposes and principles of the UN Charter. Lula said: We do not underestimate the difficulties in achieving peace, but no solution will be lasting if it is not based on dialogue. I have reiterated that work needs to be done to create space for negotiations. Here are some images of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, at UN’s general assembly general debate today. He is due to talk at the session later this afternoon. Air defence continues to be Ukraine"s "greatest need", US secretary of defence Lloyd Austin says The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: First, the Kremlin abandoned the Black Sea green initiative. Then Russia’s took its assault on global food security to a new low, targeting grain supplies with airstrikes that has unleashed dangerous ripple effects in other countries and continents uninvolved in [Vladimir] Putin’s campaign of Imperial aggression. So, air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield. Austin noted, however, that ground based air defence has also been one of Ukraine’s successes throughout the war. He called on leaders to donate air defence munitions as the country goes into the winter. So at today’s meeting, I urged allies and partners to dig deep and donate whatever air defence munitions they can, as Ukraine heads into another winter of war. Austin and Mark Milley, the chair of the joint chiefs of staff, reiterated the US’s ongoing support for Ukraine. Léonie Chao-Fong More from the UN general assembly live blog: Guterres says countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone following its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.” The war in Ukraine has “serious implications” for the world beyond Kyiv, he says, pointing to the collapse of the Black Sea grain initiative. The world badly needs Ukrainian food and Russian food and fertilisers to stabilise markets and guarantee food security. Around the world, new risks emerge as countries develop new weapons and nuclear disarmament is “at a standstill”, Guterres says. Sudan is descending into full scale civil war. Millions have fled and the country risks splitting apart. In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, millions are displaced and gender based violence is a horrific daily reality in a country that suffered centuries of colonial exploitation, is today overwhelmed by gang violence and still awaits international support. In Afghanistan, the staggering 70% of the population needs humanitarian assistance with the rights of women and girls systematically denied in Myanmar, brutal violence, worsening poverty and repression and crushing hopes for a return to democracy. The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, arrived in Iran on Tuesday for meetings to deepen Moscow’s defence ties with Tehran, Russian news agencies reported. In a statement, the ministry said: During the visit, the Russian defence ministry delegation will hold a number of talks with the republic’s military leadership. This visit will contribute to strengthening Russian-Iranian military ties and will be an important stage in the development of cooperation between the two countries. Léonie Chao-Fong The UN’s secretary general, António Guterres, will deliver his state-of-world address to open Tuesday opening of the general debate Volodymyr Zelenskiy will address world leaders at the 78th session of the United Nations general assembly, where world leaders convene in New York amid a backdrop of the war in Ukraine, high food prices, a series of climate-related catastrophes, new political crises in west Africa and Latin America and economic instability. The US president, Joe Biden, Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, will also speak at the event. A Russian court on Tuesday declined to hear US reporter Evan Gershkovich’s latest appeal against his pre-trial detention in Moscow on spying charges, sending it back to a lower court because of procedural violations, the state news agency RIA reported. Gershkovich, 31, was the Wall Street Journal’s Moscow correspondent when he was arrested on espionage charges and detained in late March during a reporting trip to the Urals city of Ekaterinburg. US authorities and the Wall Street Journal have denied the charges, saying Gershkovich was simply doing his job, AFP reports.