🔴 Live: Russia slams US decision to arm Ukraine with depleted uranium munitions

11:25am: Kremlin says US transfer of frozen Russian assets to Ukraine will be contested

A US plan to use seized funds of Russian businessmen targeted by sanctions to help Ukraine is illegal and such actions will be contested, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Thursday.

Peskov said some Russian businessmen had already challenged similar actions in certain countries where courts found them illegal.

10:06am: Ukrainian forces ‘gradually gaining ground’ in counteroffensive, says NATO chief Stoltenberg

Ukrainian forces have been able to break through Russian defences and are making progress in their counteroffensive against Moscow’s troops, NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said Thursday.

“The Ukrainians are gradually gaining ground and it proves the importance of our support and also our ability and willingness to continue the support,” Stoltenberg told EU lawmakers.

“This is heavy fighting, difficult fighting, but they have been able to breach the defensive lines of the Russian forces, and they are moving forward.”

In recent days, Ukraine has claimed to have broken through Russia’s heavily fortified first line of defence in its gruelling southern offensive.

Ukraine received shipments of Western armour from NATO members, including battle tanks and armoured vehicles, to aid its push.

But Kyiv admits the months-long drive southwards has been slower than hoped and has inflicted a heavy toll on its forces.

9:45am: Five Ukrainian drones shot down in Russia, say authorities

Moscow said Thursday it had shot down five Ukrainian drones in the south of Russia and near the capital on Thursday, leaving one injured.

The defence ministry said one drone was downed in Ramenskoye, 60 kilometres southeast of Moscow, at around 3am local time (2400 GMT), without causing any casualties.

The drone exploded on the fifth floor of a block of flats, breaking the windows of five flats and damaging four vehicles, according to the head of the local administration, Nikolai Khanin.

Air defence systems downed two more drones around the same time in the southern city of Rostov-on-Don, with one falling in the city, injuring one person, the region’s governor said.

The city is a key military operational hub for Russia’s military fighting in Ukraine. It was briefly captured by Wagner mercenaries led by Yevgeny Prigozhin last June before he died in a plane crash.

Two other Ukrainian drones were downed several hours later in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine without causing any casualties, the defence ministry said.

8:53am: Romania will ‘enhance’ land routes for Ukrainian exports, says President Iohannis

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Danube river ports will slow down the export of grains, and other routes will be enhanced, Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said late on Wednesday.

“Of course the attacks on Ukrainian ports on the Danube are a huge problem. Of course it will in a way slow down exports,” said Iohannis, speaking at a summit of Three Seas Initiative countries in Bucharest.

“We will enhance the other routes, we accepted Ukrainian maritime transports through our Romanian territorial waters off the Black Sea, we will continue to enhance exports on the rail and on the road.”

Since July, when Moscow abandoned a deal that lifted a de facto Russian blockade of Ukraine’s Black Sea ports, it has repeatedly struck Ukrainian river ports that lie across the Danube from Romania.

Romania’s Black Sea port of Constanta is Ukraine’s largest alternative export route, with grains arriving by road, rail or barge on the Danube.

8:39am: Russia says US supply of depleted uranium ammunition to Ukraine ‘a criminal act’

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said on Thursday that the US supply of depleted uranium weapons to Ukraine was “a criminal act”, the state TASS news agency reported.

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a new security assistance package worth up to $175 million for Ukraine, including depleted uranium ammunition for US Abrams tanks.

A by-product of uranium enrichment, depleted uranium is used for ammunition because its extreme density gives rounds the ability to easily penetrate armour plating. Critics say there are dangerous health risks from ingesting or inhaling depleted uranium dust, including cancers and birth defects.

“This is not just an escalatory step, but it is a reflection of Washington’s outrageous disregard for the environmental consequences of using this kind of ammunition in a combat zone. This is, in fact, a criminal act, I cannot give any other assessment,” TASS quoted Ryabkov as saying.

7:45am: ‘Important for Ukrainians to hear’ Blinken say Kyiv’s forces making progress

It was “important for Ukrainians to hear” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken say that Kyiv’s forces are making progress in their counteroffensive during his visit to Ukraine’s capital on Wednesday, FRANCE 24’s correspondent in Kyiv Gulliver Cragg says. This is because “they were worried that the United States was feeling quite critical of their performance in the course of this counteroffensive which started in June; they have not advanced as rapidly as they hoped.” Cragg reports that progress seems to have accelerated in recent days, and that there is “photographic evidence” Ukrainian forces have “passed what they hope is the strongest line of Russian defences” – the notorious “dragon’s teeth” anti-tank defences along the front line in the Zaporizhzhia region. 

6:34am: Russian drone strikes hit Odesa region port district for fourth time in five days

Russian drone strikes have damaged port infrastructure, a grain silo and administrative buildings in the Izmail district of Ukraine’s Odesa region, its governor, Oleh Kiper, said on Thursday.

One person was injured in the attack, the fourth on the district in the last five days, he said. Izmail is home to a Ukrainian Danube river port.

4:12am: Ukrainian drones downed near Moscow, Rostov, reports RIA 

A Ukrainian drone was downed near Moscow and two over the southern Rostov region in the early hours of Thursday, the RIA news agency cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying.

According to another news agency, TASS, three buildings were damaged in the city of Rostov-on-Don and one person was injured when one of the drones crashed in the downtown area. The other drone in the Rostov region fell outside the city.

3:45am: Russia says depleted uranium rounds for Ukraine sign of US ‘inhumanity’

The United States providing depleted uranium tank ammunition to Ukraine “is a clear sign of inhumanity”, Russia’s embassy in Washington said Wednesday on Telegram.

“The US is deliberately transferring weapons with indiscriminate effects. It is fully aware of the consequences: explosions of such munitions result in the formation of a moving radioactive cloud,” the embassy said, following Washington’s announcement of more than $1 billion in military and humanitarian aid for Ukraine.

2:15am: US to send controversial depleted-uranium munitions to Ukraine

The Pentagon on Wednesday announced a new security assistance package worth up to $175 million for Ukraine that includes depleted uranium ammunition for Abrams tanks, the first time the US is sending the controversial armor-piercing munitions to Kyiv.

On Wednesday, the Pentagon said the military aid would also include anti-armour systems, tactical air navigation systems and additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS).

Key developments of Wednesday, September 6:

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced over $1 billion of new assistance to Ukraine,  which he said would help Ukraine’s counteroffensive “build momentum”, during a surprise visit to Kyiv. 

Ukraine’s parliament on Wednesday approved President Volodymyr Zelensky’s nomination of Rustem Umerov as Kyiv’s new defence minister after the resignation of Oleksiy Reznikov. Umerov vowed to recapture all territory under Russian military control in his first comments in the new role.

The Russian mercenary Wagner Group is set to be proscribed as a terrorist organisation by the UK government, the interior ministry said.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)