Russia-Ukraine war live: Olena Zelenska calls for return of 19,000 ‘abducted’ children; Moscow reports drone attacks | Ukraine

Ukraine’s first lady urged world leaders on Tuesday to help return Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia, where she said they are being indoctrinated and deprived of their national identity, AFP reports.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Olena Zelenska said that more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been transferred by force or deported to Russia or occupied territories.

So far, only 386 have been brought back.

In Russia, “they were told that their parents don’t need them, that their country doesn’t need them, that nobody is waiting for them,” Zelenska said.

“The abducted children were told that they are no longer Ukrainian children, that they are Russian children.”

Welcome back to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Helen Sullivan with the latest.

Our top story this morning: Ukraine’s first lady urged world leaders on Tuesday to help return Ukrainian children forcibly taken to Russia, where she said they are being indoctrinated and deprived of their national identity.

Speaking on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, Olena Zelenska said that more than 19,000 Ukrainian children have been transferred by force or deported to Russia or occupied territories.

And Russia’s air defence systems destroyed Ukraine-launched drones over the Belgorod and Oryol regions late on Monday, the Russian defence ministry said, with local officials saying that there was no destruction or casualties.

More on these stories shortly. Elsewhere:

• Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy implored world leaders gathered at the UN general assembly on Tuesday to stand united against Russia’s invasion and said Moscow had to be pushed back so the world could turn to solving pressing global challenges. Zelenskiy drew applause as he took his place at the United Nations General Assembly lectern in New York for his first in-person appearance at the annual gathering since Russia invaded his country in 2022.

• UN secretary general António Guterres said countries such as Russia are creating a “world of insecurity” for everyone after its invasion of Ukraine, which he says has “unleashed the next phase of our lives: historic human rights abuse, families torn apart, children traumatised, hopes and dreams shattered.”

• The US president, Joe Biden, said the UN gathering this week is “darkened by the shadow of war”, which he described as an “illegal war of conquest without provocation by Russia” against Ukraine. “No nation wants the war to end more than Ukraine”, he said, reiterating US support for Kyiv and its efforts to bring about “a diplomatic resolution to a just and lasting peace”.

• Ukrainian children who had been illegally deported to Russia have arrived in Belarus. The 48 children come from the occupied Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia, which Moscow claims it has annexed. Officials in Belarus have previously denied allegations that the country was involved in the illegal removal of children from Ukraine, but on Tuesday, Belta reported that the removal of the children from Ukraine was organised by a Belarusian charity – supported by the president, Alexander Lukashenko.

• Ukraine appealed to three neighbouring countries in the European Union on Tuesday to embark on “constructive dialogue” to end a dispute over agricultural trade, and approved what it called a “compromise scenario.” Poland, Slovakia and Hungary announced restrictions on imports from Ukraine on Friday in a move they said was to protect farmers from a surge of grain and food imports from Ukraine since its invasion by Russia last year.

• The US secretary of defence, Lloyd Austin, said air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s “greatest need” in the war against Russia. In closing remarks after a meeting the Ukraine defence contact group, secretary Austin said: “Air defence will continue to be Ukraine’s greatest need to protect the skies, its civilians, and its cities as well as innocent people far away from the battlefield.”

• Britain will supply “tens of thousands” more artillery shells to Ukraine this year, the government’s defence department announced on Tuesday.

• A missile strike that hit a crowded market in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka killing at least 17 civilians earlier this month, could have been caused by an errant missile fired by Ukraine, the New York Times has reported. A further 32 people were wounded on 6 September by the impact of the missile 12 miles (20km) from the frontlines in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, a few hours later accused Russia of responsibility for the attack.

• Two people were killed by Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities overnight, according to local authorities in Lviv and Kherson. Russia struck three industrial warehouses in a drone strike on the western Ukrainian city of Lviv early on Tuesday, causing a huge fire and killing at least one person.

• Lviv’s mayor, Andriy Sadovyi, said the body of a man who worked at one of the warehouses had been found under the rubble. Reuters reports Sadovyi said the warehouses stored windows, household chemicals, and humanitarian aid.

• Russian forces also shelled the southern city of Kherson, killing a policeman and wounding two civilians on a trolleybus, the head of the city’s military administration said.

• Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched a total of 30 drones and one Iskander ballistic missile in attacks on Ukraine overnight, and that 27 of the drones had been shot down.

• At least three people were killed in a Russian attack on the north-eastern Ukrainian town of Kupiansk on Tuesday, a regional official said. “Today, the enemy attacked the town of Kupiansk with a guided air bomb,” Reuters reports the Kharkiv region governor, Oleh Synehubov, said on the Telegram messaging app.

• Ukraine told the UN’s highest court in The Hague on Tuesday that Russia justified waging war against Ukraine by invoking “a terrible lie”, namely that Moscow’s invasion was to stop an alleged genocide. “The international community adopted the Genocide Convention to protect; Russia invokes the Genocide convention to destroy,” Ukraine’s representative Anton Korynevych told judges.