Latest news of Russia’s war in Ukraine on September 13

Zelensky says 6,000 sq km of Ukraine liberated since early September Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky issues harsh warning to Russia. President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukrainian forces had retaken 6,000 square kilometers of land in the east and south of the country since the beginning of the month and called for more international pressure to isolate Russia. According to analysts, that would equate to nearly 10% of the territory lost to the Russian offensive since it began in February. In his video diary message, Zelensky also asked: “Why [Rusia] can wage war so cruelly and cynically? There is only one reason – insufficient pressure on Russia. The response to terror by this state is insufficient.” One response, he said, was to “increase aid to Ukraine and, above all, speed up the provision of air defense systems.” “There is still no official recognition of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. Citizens of the terrorist state can still go to Europe to rest and shop, they can still get European visas, and no one knows whether there are executioners or murderers among them who have just returned from the occupied territory of Ukraine,” Zelensky said. Some European countries have passed bans on tourist visas for Russians; most did not. Zelensky said Russia was to blame for the “energy terror. Residents of many countries of the world are suffering due to the painful increase in prices of energy resources, electricity, heat. Russia does it deliberately. It deliberately destabilizes the gas market in Europe.” He added: “Yesterday and today, the Russian military hit Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians found themselves in the dark, without electricity. Houses, hospitals, schools, community infrastructure… The Russian missiles hit precisely those objects that have absolutely nothing to do with the infrastructure of the Armed Forces of our country”. The president called the attacks on Ukrainian power supplies “a sign of the desperation of those who invented this war. This is how they react to the defeat of Russian forces in the Kharkiv region.”