VIDEO. Von Der Leyen in kyiv before winter, Zelensky wants to meet Trump… one minute to be updated on the war in Ukraine

Every morning on Midilibre.fr, discover "News from kyiv", a minute of video to keep up to date with the latest events in the war that has been raging in Ukraine, on the outskirts of Europe, since February 2022. Here are the highlights of Friday, September 20.

Ursula Von der Leyen announces she is in kyiv to discuss European "support" as winter approaches

As the harsh Ukrainian winter approaches, European Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen announced on X that she had arrived in Kyiv for a visit to discuss European support for Ukraine, winter preparations and G7 loans. This is her eighth visit to Kyiv since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022 and this one “comes as the cold season is about to begin and Russia continues to target energy infrastructure,” the head of the European executive said on the social network X.

Ursula Von der Leyen announced on Thursday that €160 million from the proceeds of frozen Russian assets would be transferred to Ukraine to help it meet its humanitarian and energy needs this winter. Since the start of the Ukrainian conflict in February 2022, Russia has taken out around 9 gigawatts of power generation capacity in Ukraine, the combined capacity of the three Baltic republics, according to the Commission president.

Zelensky plans meeting with Trump

The Ukrainian presidency has announced that Zelensky plans to meet “the 45th President of the United States, Donald Trump" and candidate for the November presidential election. This meeting could take place during the Ukrainian president's visit to the United States next week. On September 26, he will also be received by Biden and Harris at the White House.

Update on the Kursk offensive

On Thursday, September 19, in his daily video message, Volodymyr Zelensky assured that the offensive launched by kyiv in the Russian border region of Kursk had forced Russia to “send about 40,000 Russian soldiers to this area” said the army was doing its utmost “for the resistance of our fighting brigades”.

Russian drone production up tenfold

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Russia is increasing drone production tenfold to nearly 1.4 million units this year, an effort aimed at ensuring victory for its armed forces in Ukraine. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the conflict has served the development of the drone industry and illustrated the importance of these unmanned flying devices in modern warfare, whether to sow panic in infantry units, collect intelligence, sabotage infrastructure or attack arsenals. Both Russia and Ukraine have purchased drones from abroad and increased their own production since the start of the war.