Russia-Ukraine updates: Six Ukrainian servicemen killed near Bakhmut

Wagner Group leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is presumed dead after a plane crash in Russia.

Could this be Putin taking revenge for the mutiny Prigozhin led in June? And what will happen to the Wagner Group now?

Watch here:

Russian anti-aircraft units have destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Bryansk region in southern Russia, the country’s defence ministry has said.

Bryansk has been the target of several of Ukraine’s recent attempts to launch drone strikes on Russian territory.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres does not expect peace in Ukraine anytime soon, he said.

When asked whether he thought talks on the subject were possible during the UN General Assembly in mid-September, the head of the United Nations said, “But I would of course, be lying if I would say that I believe that we are seeing in the immediate horizon the possibility of peace in Ukraine.”

“I think that we are not yet there,” he said. “And that is why it is so important to take measures to reduce the dramatically negative impacts of these war in relation to the world.”

Click here for a roundup of the key events from day 554 of the war.

Keep reading:

• Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive at the crossroads
• Prigozhin plane crash: What we know over a week after Wagner chief’s death

The Ukrainian capital plans to build up more fortifications because the risk of Russian attack remains, Kyiv authorities have said.

Russian forces tried to take the capital in the first phase of their full-scale invasion, but retreated after facing fierce Ukrainian resistance.

Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Kyiv would allocate 800m hryvnias ($21.7m) to build fortifications and for other urgent military needs.

“Kyiv is and will be the number one priority target for the enemy,” Serhiy Popko, head of the military administration, said on the Telegram messaging app.

Klitschko also said he would make a separate amendment for consideration in the city’s budget to allocate 300 million hryvnias ($8.1m) for the needs of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Turkey’s foreign minister said reviving the Black Sea grain deal was “critical” for food security.

“We underlined its critical role for global food security and stability in the Black Sea,” Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said during a joint news conference with his Russian counterpart.

Fidan said he “reiterated” Turkey’s “belief that revitalising the initiative will restore stability”.

The Turkish minister was in Moscow to prepare an informal summit between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Putin in Russia’s Black Sea resort city of Sochi, expected for next week.

While Russia pulled out of the grain deal in July, Ankara wants the warring sides to return to the agreement and use it as a basis for broader peace talks.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow sees no sign it will receive the guarantees it requires before resuming a grain deal.

He added that a plan was currently being discussed to supply one million tonnes of grain to Turkey at a discounted price on top of the free grain supplies promised to some African countries.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan also said that the grain deal was essential, but that Russia has demands regarding exporting its products and wants those demands met before reviving it.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says Moscow will return to the Black Sea grain deal as soon as concrete measures are taken to resolve all its issues.

Rusia quit the year-old deal in July, complaining that obstacles to its grain exports were not considered.

Lavrov added that President Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan will hold a meeting soon at the Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi.

Sam Newey, 22, a British volunteer who was fighting on the front line in Ukraine, has been killed according to his brother.

“I cannot put into words how broken I feel. I also cannot emphasise how proud I am of my little brother. He’d just turned 21 when he decided to answer the call and travel to Ukraine to push back against Russian Imperialism,” Dan said in a post on Facebook.

“Sam you gave your life for people you never knew and acted with courage, morality and honour. Not only are you my little brother, but you’re an exceptional man, a good soldier and one of the bravest people I ever had the privilege of knowing. Thank you so much for being part of my life for these 22 years. I love you always brother,” he added.

In late June, Prigozhin took control of the southern Russian city of Rostov-on-Don, the opening salvo of a mutiny against the Kremlin that ended in a fragile truce orchestrated by Belarus’s leader.

The uprising was a public humiliation for Putin, a leader believed to have a long history of taking out those he perceives as traitors.

Many believed Prigozhin’s days were numbered.

Two months later on August 23, a private Embraer jet travelling from Moscow to St Petersburg crashed north of the capital, killing Prigozhin and nine other people on board.

Different theories as to why the jet crashed abound with Moscow and Washington both suggesting foul play.

Here’s what we know so far.

A new Ukrainian-made long-range weapon has successfully reached a target 700km (435 miles) away, the country’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

It is not yet clear when the attack was carried out or what exactly the target was.

Lithuania’s Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis told reporters that the EU should stop saying they would “support Ukraine for as long as it takes”.

“Supporting Ukraine for as long as it takes” should be replaced by “supporting Ukraine to its victory,” he said at an EU foreign ministers meeting in Toledo, Spain.

“If we are unable to say this, it is because there are other options in our mind, and the only other option is Putin’s victory,” he added.

A critical juncture has been reached in Ukraine’s months-long counteroffensive. After weeks of difficult battles, Ukrainian forces have slowly edged south in the Zaporizhia region, taking hamlet after hamlet as Russian forces try to keep them at bay.

Al Jazeera’s Defence Editor Alex Gatopoulos explains how Ukraine’s troops appear to be nearing a breakthrough.

Read more.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, says the logistical support to Russia’s military personnel continues to deteriorate and food supplies to individual military units in occupied areas of Ukraine have been restricted.

She added that “the use of food restrictions to punish personnel has became one of the characteristic features of the so-called special military operation of the Soviet Union in Ukraine”.

Dimitry Utkin, co-founder and commander of the Russian mercenary group Wagner, has been buried near Moscow, days after he died in a plane crash that also killed his boss Yevgeny Prigozhin.

Utkin, 53, whose call-sign “Wagner” gave the private army its name, was buried in Mytishchi, on the outskirts of the capital, in a ceremony cordoned off by Russian military police, according to the popular online news channel Shot.

Ukraine’s deputy defence minister Hanna Maliar has said that Russia continues maintaining a military presence in the areas bordering Ukraine in the north.

“Three groups of troops covering the state border in the Bryansk, Kursk, and Belgorod regions have been kept with the aim of restraining our troops,” she said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

She added that while active hostilities and heavy fighting continues, Ukraine’s troops are achieving milestones not only in the north but also in the east and south.

The British government says financial services company Wise Payments has breached Russian sanctions regulations by making funds available to a company owned or controlled by a person on the sanctions list.

The government’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation (OFSI) said Wise had reported a suspected breach, a withdrawal of 250 pounds ($317) in cash, which took place in June 2022 the day after the person had been designated.

“OFSI does not assess the breach as sufficiently serious to impose a monetary penalty on Wise,” it said in a statement.

“However, the nature and circumstances of this breach were assessed as moderately severe and in OFSI’s judgement a disclosure is the appropriate and proportionate enforcement response.”