Senior Russian banker fired after warning over wartime economy
Andrei Klepach of VEB said Russia’s economy was falling behind China, US and ‘in some respects Ukraine’Europe live – latest updatesThe chief economist at Russia’s second largest bank has been fired after a series of critical comments about the state of the economy, including warnings that Moscow would not win a prolonged economic war with Ukraine.Andrei Klepach, who had served in the role at the state-controlled development bank VEB since 2014, was fired days after Russian media reported on a scathing speech he had delivered to fellow economists in May. Continue reading...
Ukraine war briefing: Kyiv could hit Russia with domestic ballistic missiles in months, former defence minister says
Mykhailo Fedorov says Ukraine is innovating its arsenal of weapons quickly; Moscow hit with ‘one of the most massive drone attacks’. What we know on day 1,637Ukraine could be capable of striking Russia with domestically made ballistic missiles in three to six months, the former Ukrainian defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov has estimated. Kyiv has so far relied mostly on long-range drones and cruise missiles for deep strikes against Russia, but attacks with ballistic missiles will be far harder for Russian forces to thwart. In an interview with CBS News, Fedorov said: “We need to defeat Russia in every technological cycle.” Though Ukraine is innovating quickly, Fedorov warned that Russia is also advancing rapidly. Fire Point, a Ukrainian defence manufacturer, is developing ballistic missiles and conducted a launch test in June. Fedorov was one of the key drivers of Ukraine’s highly effective drone programme but was controversially fired in July.Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a Wildberries distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people, according to Russian authorities. The defence ministry in Moscow said it had shot down 1,478 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours – the highest ever total claimed, Dan Sabbagh reports. Moscow’s regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the overnight assault as “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory”.In the attack, Ukraine hit a missile fuel production facility in Russia’s Rostov region, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday. It said the company “manufactures solid rocket propellant for multiple launch rocket systems, as well as for a range of missile systems and airborne weapons”.A Spanish fighter jet on Sunday shot down a drone that had breached Romanian airspace near the border with Ukraine and Moldova, Nato said. The interception of the drone – which entered from Moldova – was carried out by an F-18, deployed on Nato duties, the Romanian defence ministry said. Debris fell in an unpopulated area of the Galati region, near the Ukrainian border. A growing number of drones have crossed into Nato states in eastern Europe as Russia pursues its invasion of Ukraine.The EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, has said she wants to increase by one-third the number of Russian entities sanctioned over the Ukraine war, German newspaper Die Welt reported on Monday. The bloc has adopted 21 rounds of sanctions against Russia since 2022. “For autumn I am putting forward the most far-reaching sanctions listings since the start of the war,” Kallas told the paper. “Once adopted, they would immediately raise the total number of sanctioned Russian entities by a third.” In July, the EU adopted a watered down sanctions package only approved after protracted negotiations among member states, after some objected to tougher measures.In Ukraine, a barrage of Russian drones and missiles on Sunday killed two people and wounded 14 at ArcelorMittal’s steel plant in Kryvyi Rih, the home town of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The plant, one of Ukraine’s biggest steel producers, said it had partially halted operations because of the strike. Another attack hit Kryvyi Rih on Sunday evening, killing one person. Strikes also killed two people in the Zaporizhzhia region. In Kyiv, a popular outdoor book market at Pochaina, long the place to find rare and antiquarian volumes, was hit by the Russian attack. Bookseller Dmytro Semenukha saw all four of his stalls burn to the ground. “There used to be a store. And books, and flags of all the countries, all the countries. Tons of everything. And that’s it,” the 45-year-old told Agence France-Presse.In a social media post on the overnight raid, Zelenskyy said that “wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure”. Over the past week, Zelenskyy said, Ukrainian cities had been pummelled by “more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles”, as he renewed his appeal to allies for more air defence.Russian officials said on Monday that an overnight Ukrainian missile strike had killed six people and wounded another four, including a 14-year-old child, in the Belgorod region. Continue reading...
