Ukraine: US to let Kyiv strike deep inside Russia — reports

Germany's Economy Minister Robert Habeck, who is currently the Green Party's chancellor candidate in the upcoming elections, said that if elected, he would send Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly asked his allies for long-range weapons so that the Ukrainian military can attack Russian logistics centers and military bases far behind the front line and within Russian territory. 

But until now, Chancellor Olaf Scholz has chosen not to supply Taurus cruise missiles, saying they could enable Ukraine to also hit targets in the Russian capital Moscow.

French President Emmanuel Macron reacted to the Russian air barrage on Ukraine, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin "does not want peace and is not ready to negotiate."

"It's clear that President Putin intends to intensify the fighting," Macron said. 

He made the remarks as he prepared to leave Argentina to attend the G20 Summit in Brazil.

Macron declined to comment on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz's call with Putin on Friday, which has been criticized by other European leaders.

The French president, however, said Ukraine's allies "must remain united .... on an agenda for genuine peace, that is to say, a peace that does not mean Ukraine's surrender."

Macron highlighted that his country's priority was to "equip, support and help Ukraine to resist."

A New York Times article citing anonymous sources claims the White House has lifted restrictions on using US weapons against targets deep in Russian territory.

Ukraine's allies have previously barred Kyiv from deploying their weapons too far from the front line.

Now, sources say Ukrainian forces are set to use US-made ATACMS rockets, which have a range of up to 190 miles (306 km), against Russian targets in the coming days.

The White House did not immediately comment.

The report comes just months before Donald Trump is due to replace Joe Biden as the US president. Trump has claimed he would end the Ukraine war even before taking office in early January.

Russia has warned that the loosening of limits on Ukraine's use of US weapons represents a major escalation.

More than a thousand protesters from Russia's exiled opposition marched in Berlin, calling for an end to the war in Ukraine and the ouster of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The march began on Potsdamer Platz, moving on via Friedrichstraße — the site of the Checkpoint Charlie crossing between East and West Berlin during the Cold War and still home to the "Russian House," which Moscow describes as its "cultural embassy" in Berlin — then onto the Russian Embassy.

The anti-war procession held a large red banner in front of them reading, in English: "No Putin. No war."

Protesters carried placards calling for things like "victory in Ukraine," "Putin's downfall" and "freedom for Russia."

Three prominent opposition figures now in exile led the march — Alexei Navalny's widow Yulia Navalnaya and Vladimir Kara-Murza and Ilya Yashin, both of whom were released in the August 1 prisoner exchange brokered between Russia and the US and its allies. 

You can read more on the Berlin march here.

Russian forces have increased offensive pressure on Ukraine's northeastern town of Kupiansk, Britain's Ministry of Defense said in its latest update on the war.

Over the past week, Russian forces had "likely attempted to infiltrate Kupiansk from the [northeast]," the report said, adding that the Ukrainian side had reported four successive Russian attacks.

Russian troops had, meanwhile, reached the Oskil River to the south of Kupiansk, cutting Ukrainian lines on the eastern side of the river, the UK defense update said.

"A Russian salient [an area of the battlefield extending into enemy territory] south of Kupiansk has gradually expanded as Russia attempts to increase pressure on Ukrainian forces in the area,"  the report added.

Kupiansk is a strategically significant transportation and logistics hub for Ukrainian forces, located just 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) from the front line. 

The town was captured by Moscow's forces following the February 2022 invasion but was retaken by Ukrainian forces months later.

The capture of Kupiansk would provide a significant boost to Russia's operations in the region. The town's railway and main roads connect Kharkiv to Luhansk and Donetsk.

Kupiansk had a pre-war population of 27,000, according to the UK report. Some 4,000 civilians are believed to have remained in the town.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk appeared to criticize German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who held his first direct phone conversation with Vladimir Putin in two years earlier this week.

In an online post, Tusk pointed to the latest wave of attacks on Ukraine overnight. 

"No-one will stop Putin with phone calls," Tusk wrote in English. "The attack last night, one of the biggest in this war, has proved that telephone diplomacy cannot replace real support from the whole West for Ukraine." 

Tusk warned that "the next weeks will be decisive, not only for the war itself, but also for our future." 

Ukraine's Zelenskyy had earlier said that the call risked opening "a Pandora's box." 

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has defended his controversial phone call with Vladimir Putin on Friday but said the Russian president's position on his ongoing invasion of Ukraine had not changed.

"The conversation was very detailed but contributed to a recognition that little has changed in the Russian President's views of the war – and that's not good news," Scholz told reporters at Berlin airport on Sunday before heading to Brazil for the G20 summit.

"[The war] can only end when the Russian president is prepared to step back from his imperialist ambitions," he said.

In response to criticism for speaking to Putin, Scholz insisted that it had been important to dispel any illusions the Russian President may still have that western support for Ukraine could wane.

In light of Donald Trump's imminent return to the White House, Scholz also said it was important that European leaders also speak to Putin, not only the US President.

Between January 1 and October 15, 2024, Germany issued 4,163 export licenses for military equipment and weapons with a total value of €10.9 billion ($11.5bn), setting Berlin on course for a record year.

This is according to an official response from the German ministry for economic affairs to a question submitted by a member of parliament for the left-wing populist Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW) and reported by the German dpa news agency.

The previous record for German arms exports was 2023, when Berlin exported €12.2bn worth of armaments.

A previous ministry response revealed that the German government had authorized €4.9m worth of weapons for Ukraine alone in the first half of 2024, suggesting that Kyiv is the biggest beneficiary of German arms exports.

A Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's Belgorod border region killed one civilian on Sunday, according to local governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

The attack came two days after a much larger Ukrainian drone attack which targeted several Russian regions, including the border regions of Bryansk (one drone) and Kursk (15 drones), as well as Lipetsk (one) and Oryol (one), deeper inside Russian territory.

On that occasion, Belgorod governor Gladkov had reported smashed windows in an apartment building but no casualties.

Ukraine implemented emergency power cuts as a precautionary measure in several regions on Sunday morning in order to prevent the country's already ailing energy grid from overloading in the event of direct hits from Russian missiles.

The country's largest private energy provider DTEK said in a statement that Russian strikes had "seriously damaged" equipment at thermal power stations, where it said repairs were underway.

Such was the severity of the Russian assault on Sunday morning that neighboring Poland scrambled fighter jets, radar detection systems and air defense units to protect its southeastern border with Ukraine.

The Polish military said that "all necessary forces" had been mobilized for the protection of the state's territory.

Poland is a major European Union and NATO member state, and a close ally of Ukraine with which it shares a common Soviet history.

Sunday's Russian attack came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, everything should be done "to ensure that this war ends next year."

Zelenskyy said the conflict had to be resolved "by diplomatic means."

Diplomacy between Kyiv and Moscow has at any rate been at a standstill, with Russian President Vladimir Putin saying he will accept talks with Ukraine only if Kyiv surrenders Ukrainian territory that Moscow currently occupies, something Zelenskyy has rejected outright.

The Kremlin said Putin repeated that demand in a phone conversation with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday.

Widespread Russian air strikes killed at least eight people across Ukraine on Sunday morning in what Ukrainian officials described as "one of the largest air attacks" of the war so far.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the strikes targeted facilities that support Ukraine's defense industry and military enterprises.

But local authorities reported civilian deaths in the southern cities of Mykolaiv and Odesa as well as in the usually quieter western city of Lviv.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said 140 of around 210 missiles and drones launched by what he called "Russian terrorists" had been shot down.

Read DW's full report here.

mf/lo (AP, AFP, dpa, Reuters)