Ukraine-Russia war latest: Nato ‘waiting for Trump’ over key decision as Putin’s planes ‘stole children’

Norway’s government should allow the country’s sovereign wealth fund to divest parts of its Russian portfolio when possible, the Norwegian central bank has said.

The Norwegian finance ministry ordered a halt to all transactions in the fund’s Russian assets shortly after Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February of 2022 but said at the time that the ultimate goal was to divest its holdings.

While it is not possible to draw up a general divestment plan, the fund should now be allowed to sell Russian assets if and when opportunities arise, the central bank said in an Aug. 24 letter to the finance ministry released on Wednesday.

“Such an approach to seizing divestment opportunities would mean an end to the general freeze on the fund’s investments in Russia,” it said.

Nato members agreed at a meeting that providing air defence systems to protect the country's infrastructure against Russian attacks has to be a priority, alliance Secretary General Mark Rutte said.

"There was a clear agreement around the table last night that to help Ukraine, particularly with its infrastructure, has to be a priority," Mr Rutte told reporters on Wednesday.

"I'm confident that allies will follow up in the coming days and weeks in making sure that whatever they can supply to Ukraine will be supplied."

Ukraine's air force has said that Russia launched 50 drones to attack the country overnight.

The air force said it shot down 29 of them, lost track of 18, likely due to electronic warfare, and one drone headed towards territories occupied by Russia.

Moscow strongly backs the actions of the Syrian leadership to counter attacks by “terrorist groups”, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

Ms Zakharova said advances by Syrian rebels in recent days would not have been possible without outside support and incitement. She said, without providing evidence, that the rebels had received drones and training from foreign actors.

The Foreign Secretary has called on Nato allies to “get serious” about the need to increase defence spending.

David Lammy was in Brussels for a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers when he said “the time to act is now” – although the Government is yet to set out its own plans for increasing spending on defence to 2.5% of gross domestic product.

Mr Lammy said: “We’re living in very dangerous times, and as we look across the world, with war here on our continent in Europe, with the tremendous aggression that we’re seeing across the Middle East, with the hand of Iran so present in the Middle East and with this rising conflict in Sudan and now in Syria, there is one country whose hand is in so much of it, and that is Russia.

“And that is why, as we meet here discussing these important issues, it’s hugely important that we step up defence spending, across Nato allies particularly.

“In the United Kingdom, we are at 2.3%, heading to 2.5% as soon as we can get there, and we urge all allies across the Nato family to get serious about defence spending.

“All of our populations require us to understand the tremendous security challenges that we are facing at this time, the time to act is now.”

Up to 100 “suspicious incidents” in Europe this year can be attributed to Russia, Czech Foreign Minister Jan Lipavsky has said as he arrived at a meeting with NATO counterparts in Brussels.

“This year there were 500 suspicious incidents in Europe. Up to 100 of them can be attributed to Russian hybrid attacks, espionage, influence operations. We need to send a strong signal to Moscow that this won’t be tolerated,” Lipavsky said

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Russian Navy frigates equipped with new generation hypersonic cruise missiles have conducted drills in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, the Russian Defence Ministry has said.

The crews of the frigates fired Zircon (Tsirkon) hypersonic anti-ship missiles, while a Russian submarine launched a Kalibr cruise missile, another weapon capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, the ministry said.

On the coast nearby, a missile system carried out a live launch of an Onyx anti-ship missile, it said.

As Ukraine’s military struggles to find enough troops, particularly infantry, to hold off Russia’s much larger army, some units are giving a second chance to those who have absconded from service.

Data from the prosecutor’s office shows nearly 95,000 criminal cases have been opened since 2022 against soldiers going “absent without leave” (AWOL) and for the more serious crime of battlefield desertion.

The number of cases has risen steeply with each year of the war: almost two-thirds of the total are from 2024. With many tens of thousands of troops killed or wounded, it is a depletion that Ukraine can ill afford.

Now, some units are replenishing their ranks by accepting soldiers previously declared AWOL.

One of them is Ukraine’s elite 47th Brigade, which published a social media post last month inviting soldiers who had absconded to join. “Our aim is to give every soldier the opportunity to come back into the fold and realise his potential,” the post announced. In the first two days, the brigade said, over a hundred applications came in.

“There was a tsunami of applications; so many that we still aren’t able to process them all before new ones come in,” Viacheslav Smirnov, the 47th’s head of recruitment, said two weeks after the announcement.

Western allies must step up their military aid for Ukraine to strengthen Kyiv’s position as “Putin is not interested in peace”, NATO chief Mark Rutte has warned.

Moscow’s troops have been capturing village after village in Ukraine’s east, part of a drive to seize the industrial Donbas region, while Russian airstrikes target a hobbled Ukrainian energy grid as winter sets in.

“We will all need to do more. The stronger our military support to Ukraine is now, the stronger their hand will be at the negotiating table,” Mr Rutte said ahead of a Nato meeting in Brussels.

“Putin is not interested in peace. He is pressing on, trying to take more territory. Because he thinks he can break Ukraine‘s resolve and ours, but he is wrong.”

The new secretary-general of Nato has warned Donald Trump not to push Ukraine to sign a peace deal that would see the leaders of Russia and Iran “high-fiving”.

Mark Rutte also warned such an agreement would create a “dire security threat not only to Europe but also to the US.”

The next US President has repeatedly claimed that he would bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours of taking office.

While he has yet to reveal details of his plan to end the war, hints that Ukraine would be forced to make significant concessions to its Russian invaders have worried Nato countries.