Liveblog: ++ Zelenskyj: Deserve NATO membership ++

After NATO Secretary General Stoltenberg’s visit, Ukrainian President Zelensky once again insisted on his country’s membership. Russian shelling has killed five people in southern and eastern Ukraine. All developments in the live blog.

According to British intelligence experts, the fighters from the Wagner mercenary force who have returned to Ukraine will be deployed around the eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut. This was suggested by several reports, according to the Defense Ministry’s daily intelligence report in London. In Bakhmut, Wagner had achieved success for the Russian invasion troops in battles with heavy losses in May. “Their experience is likely to be particularly sought after in this sector. Many will be familiar with the current front line, having fought there last winter,” the statement said.

According to one expert, Ukraine’s partial successes in its counteroffensive against the Russian military are being overestimated. The Austrian Army’s Ukraine expert, Markus Reisner, told the dpa news agency: “Individual Russian defense lines are being overcome with losses, but so far there has never been a real breach of the dam.”

All alarm bells should be ringing that after 117 days of counter-offensive there has been no operational breakthrough, he said. Overall, Ukraine receives too little military equipment, including to defend itself against Russian air strikes in the hinterland. “Only with increased air defense could hits on critical infrastructure be minimized.” If the country’s electricity supply were to suffer serious damage again, the backbone of arms production would also be broken.

According to Russian sources, a Ukrainian drone dropped explosive devices on a substation in southern Russia, cutting off power to a hospital. According to the governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoyt, the incident occurred in the town of Belaya, less than 25 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.

“One of the transformers caught fire,” Starovoyt explained on the Telegram online service. Five settlements and a hospital were cut off from power supply. The fire brigade is on the way and the power supply will be restored as soon as it is safe, explained Starovoyt. There were “massive” attacks on the border region.

According to the Defense Ministry in Moscow, Russian air defense destroyed eleven Ukrainian drones during the night. Ten were intercepted over Kursk Oblast, the ministry told the Russian state news agency Tass. Another drone was shot down by our own forces over Kaluga Oblast. Kursk borders Ukraine, while Kaluga is further inside Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has commissioned a former confidant of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash, to set up volunteer units to fight in Ukraine. At a meeting, Putin asked Andrei Troshev to “oversee the formation of volunteer units that can take on various tasks, primarily, of course, in the zone of special military operations” in Ukraine, the Kremlin said. The head of the Wagner mercenary group, Prigozhin, died on August 23 when his private plane crashed.

The meeting with Troshev, which was also attended by Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, underscores Moscow’s efforts to integrate the Wagner mercenaries into Russia’s regular army. v

Russian shelling has killed three women in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and two people in the eastern Donetsk region, according to Ukrainian officials. Ukrainian prosecutors say the three women died on a street in Kherson. The town was abandoned by Russian troops late last year along with other settlements on the western bank of the Dnipro River. Russian forces routinely shell Kherson and surrounding areas from positions on the east bank of the river.

The other two people reportedly died when Russian forces shelled Krasnohorivka, west of the Russian-held city of Donetsk and near the long-contested town of Marinka. In Kostiantynivka, west of the city of Bakhmut, which has been in Russian hands since May, three people were injured when Russian forces carried out two air strikes within an hour.

After NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s visit to Kiev, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once again insisted on his country’s membership in the Western military alliance. “Ukraine deserves to become a NATO member – and it will be,” Zelensky said in his evening video address. “We are working to make practical progress on NATO membership.”

Stoltenberg had visited the country attacked by Russia for the second time since the beginning of the war.

In a resolution, the IAEA member states called on Russia to withdraw from the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The EU has agreed to extend the special rules for Ukrainian refugees. The developments in the live blog.