Russia-Ukraine conflict rages on its 564th day.
A member of an electoral commission carries a ballot box before counting ballots at a polling station during local elections held by the Russian-backed authorities in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine, September 10, 2023. / Photo: ReutersRussia's Elections Commission has said that the pro-Kremlin United Russia part had won local elections in four regions of Ukraine occupied by Russian forces, in a vote dismissed by Kiev.
Russia's Central Elections Commission claimed that the United Russia party, which staunchly backs President Vladimir Putin, was leading local ballots in four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russian forces. Polls have now closed after local elections were held over the weekend in 79 regions of Russia, with ballots for governors, regional legislatures, city and municipal councils, as well as in the four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed illegally last year — the Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia provinces — and on the Crimean Peninsula, which the Kremlin annexed in 2014.
"Drones entered the capital in groups and from different directions," Sergiy Popko, head of the Kiev City Military Administration, wrote on Telegram.Two aid workers, one Canadian and one Spanish, have been killed in east Ukraine, said Kiev blaming Russian forces and calling their deaths near war-ravaged Bakhmut"a painful, irreparable loss".
Any initiative to revive the Black Sea grain deal that isolates Russia is not likely to be sustainable, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a press briefing after the conclusion of the G20 summit in New Delhi.Russia is willing to send free grain to poorer countries, which Türkiye favours, he told reporters, adding that Qatar had also agreed.
"We were able to prevent the West's attempts to 'Ukrainise' the summit agenda," Lavrov said as the two-day meeting of leaders closed."The Indian presidency has really managed to coalesce G20 members from the global south," he added, suggesting that Russian allies like Brazil, South Africa, India and China had made their voices heard.