EU warns of depleted weapon stocks; Macron urges French to cut energy use by 10%

French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday called for a 10% reduction in France’s energy use in the coming weeks to avoid rationing and cuts amid tensions with supplier Russia, according to the Associated Press.

Energy rationing plans are being prepared “in case” they’re needed, and that “cuts will happen as a last resort,” he said at a news conference.

“The best energy is that which we don’t consume,” Macron said, urging French businesses and households to save energy, including by turning down heating and air conditioning, the AP said.

Speaking after a videoconference Monday with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Macron announced a plan to boost gas supplies to Germany from France to make up for a drop in Russian gas supplies from the east.

Germany will continue supplying power to France to make up for shortages caused by maintenance on many French nuclear reactors.

—AP

The last working reactor at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine was switched off from the country’s grid on Monday amid Russian shelling, Reuters reported on Monday, citing the state’s nuclear company Energoatom.

“Today, as a result of a fire caused by shelling, the (last working) transmission line was disconnected,” Energoatom said in a statement on Telegram, the news agency reported.

An International Atomic Energy Agency spokesperson told NBC News that they were informed the reserve line was deliberately cut off in order to stop a fire but will be reconnected once the issue is resolved.

Zaporizhzhia, which is the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, was captured by Russian forces earlier this year but continues to host a Ukrainian workforce.

Herman Galushchenko, the country’s minister of energy said in a post on his official Facebook account that the last line was disconnected as a result of shelling and subsequent fire.

“The world is once again on the brink of a nuclear disaster,” he wrote, according to a translation from NBC News. “The de-occupation of the ZNPP and the creation of a demilitarized zone around it is the only way to ensure nuclear safety.” 

— Reuters, NBC News

Boris Johnson told President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Ukraine can and will defeat Russia in his final call as U.K. prime minister.

Johnson, who on Monday was replaced as leader of the Conservative Party by Liz Truss, pledged to maintain a close friendship with Zelenskyy even as he leaves office.

“The Prime Minister told President Zelenskyy it had been a privilege to work with him and support him, and the leaders agreed to stay in close touch as friends,” a Downing Street spokesperson said.

— Karen Gilchrist

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy thanked outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson after Conservative Party members chose its next leader on Monday.

“On behalf of all [Ukrainian] people, I thanked him for his personal bravery, principles & a major contribution to countering RF’s aggression,” Zelenskyy wrote in a tweet posted to his Twitter account. “I look forward to cooperation with a great friend of [Ukraine] in a new status.”

It comes as Britain picked Liz Truss on Monday to serve as the country’s new prime minister.

— Samantha Subin

Russia “hasn’t been held sufficiently accountable” for its war crimes in Ukraine, Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman told CNN’s “New Day” on Monday.

“We could just say this is a disastrous human toll imposed by Russia, imposed by an illegal war, a barbarous war, an unprovoked war,” the retired officer said during an interview with his brother, Lt. Col. Yevgeny Vindman. “And again, Russia hasn’t been sufficiently held accountable yet. There are efforts to undertake that through sanctions. Ukrainians are doing that on the battlefield by delivering major defeats in terms of thwarting Russians objectives. This war’s far from done, but that’s clearly happening.”

Yevgeny Vindman, who has been traveling intermittently to Ukraine, said he expects accountability. While some prosecutions have already kicked off, the world will be handling Russia’s war crimes for “quite some time into the future,” he said.

“So, the short answer is there will be accountability,” he said. “The law of war is a mechanism under internal law, frankly where one of the few available now since the Russians have a veto on the security council and they can’t be held accountable in the U.N., where they can be held accountable under international law, whether they like it or not. And I have no doubt there will be accountability.”

— Samantha Subin

The EU is burning through its weapons stocks as countries in the bloc send billions of dollars worth of arms to Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion, warned Josep Borrell, the EU’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy.

“The military stocks of most member states has been, I wouldn’t say exhausted, but depleted in a high proportion, because we have been providing a lot of capacity to the Ukrainians,” Borrell said during a discussion with other EU officials.

He stressed the need for better coordination between the bloc’s member states on spending, saying that the supply of weapons “has to be refilled. The best way of refilling is doing that together. It will be cheaper.” This would also avoid unnecessary and expensive duplications, he said.

Borrell added that the situation would be better today had the EU started training Ukrainian soldiers well before Putin’s invasion, as some member states had requested in 2021 due to signs of a growing threat from Russia.

“Unhappily we didn’t, and today we regret,” taking those preemptive measures, he admitted. “We regret that last August we were not following this request.”

— Natasha Turak

The Kremlin does not have high hopes for its relations with the U.K. after a new prime minister is chosen, Russian government spokesman Dmitry Peskov told media when asked about the selection of Britain’s new head of government.

“I don’t think we can hope for anything positive,” Peskov said regarding the impact on U.K.-Russia relations.

“I wouldn’t like to say that things can change for the worse, because it’s hard to imagine anything worse,” he said, speaking before the next prime minister was revealed.

Following the remarks, Liz Truss was named the next U.K. prime minister after a long and drawn-out contest leadership contest.

Outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson was a staunch supporter of Ukraine, pledging the provision of more than £3.8 billion ($4.6 billion) in aid and weapons to the country as of late August. He also oversaw numerous sanctions imposed on Russia in response to its invasion of Ukraine.

The U.K. is Kyiv’s second-largest backer in terms of financial and weapons aid after the U.S., and Johnson in August urged whoever succeeds him to “stick with Ukraine.”

Peskov, when asked if Russian President Vladimir Putin would congratulate the next British leader, he said, “Let’s wait and see who becomes prime minister.”

— Natasha Turak

The Kremlin vowed to take “retaliatory measures” in response to a plan by G-7 nations to put a cap on the price of the oil they import from Russia.

The Group of Seven finance ministers announced the proposal Friday as part of its efforts to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine and ease the impact of soaring oil prices on its citizens. Moscow in return pledged to stop exporting the vital commodity to the countries imposing the cap.

Already, Russia has completely halted the supply of its gas to Germany via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, which supplies much of Europe, sending European gas prices soaring. Energy bills across Europe have hit their highest level on record and are expected to rise significantly higher this winter, triggering warnings of recession for the continent.

The G-7 is comprised of the U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Canada.

— Natasha Turak

Australian artist Peter Seaton has painted over a mural he created on a wall in Melbourne after receiving backlash from the community and the Ukrainian ambassador to Australia.

The mural, entitled “Peace before Pieces,” featured a Ukrainian soldier and a Russian soldier hugging. Seaton said the idea was to promote peace, but critics said it created a sense of false moral equivalence between Ukraine and Russia, the latter of whom invaded its neighbor in late February, setting off a war that has killed thousands and forced more than 10 million Ukrainians to flee. Russian forces now occupy more than 20% of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s ambassador to Australia, Vasyl Myroshnychenko, described the mural as “utterly offensive to all Ukrainians.”

Seaton told Australian media in an interview that he stayed up until 3:00 a.m. local time to paint over the mural.

“The mural cost me $2,000 to $3,000 … I wouldn’t do that and spend 10 days doing it if I had thought it was going to hurt people,” he said.

Seaton said that despite the backlash, he still felt it had a “net benefit” and that “a lot of people did get the message.”

“There’s obviously a contingent of people that feel that this is going to be hurtful and maybe traumatizing and that’s not what I want to create my work,” he added.

— Natasha Turak

The Kremlin is rejecting blame for its halting of gas supplies to Europe via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline, pointing instead to Western-imposed sanctions that it says has made it impossible to acquire the parts needed to keep the pipeline infrastructure running.

Western sanctions were “causing chaos” to necessary maintenance work on the pipeline, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a conference call with media, disagreeing with European leaders’ accusations that it was weaponizing its gas supplies.

Russian state gas provider Gazprom, which supplies the gas for the Nord Stream 1 pipeline connection to Russia and Germany, completely halted its supplies to Europe after detecting what it said was an oil leak.

— Natasha Turak

The euro has fallen below 99 cents for the first time in 20 years after Russia said it would shut off its main gas supply pipeline to Europe indefinitely.

The euro was hovering just below the 0.99 level as European markets opened Monday, trading at 0.9893 versus the dollar shortly after 8:00 a.m. London time (3:00 a.m. ET). Earlier in the morning, it hit lows of around $0.9881.

On Friday, Russian energy supplier Gazprom said it would not resume its supply of natural gas to Germany through the key Nord Stream 1 pipeline, blaming a malfunctioning turbine.

The announcement was made hours after the Group of Seven economic powers agreed on a plan to implement a price cap on Russian oil.

Read the full story here.

— Jenni Reid

Russian forces likely missed several deadlines to capture more of Ukraine’s Donbas, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said in its latest intelligence update posted to Twitter.

Taking this full eastern region is the Kremlin’s primary goal, and it’s the area where its forces have seen the most success, though they’ve been making gains slowly, the ministry wrote.

The Russian military’s “principal axes of advance in the Donbas remain at Avdiivka near Donetsk City and, 60km to the north, around Bakhmut,” the tweet said. “Although Russia has had the most success in this sector, its forces have still only been advancing around 1km per week towards Bakhmut.”

“The political goal of the Donbas operation almost certainly remains to secure the whole of Donetsk Oblast, which would enable the Kremlin to announce the ‘liberation’ of the Donbas. Russian forces have highly likely repeatedly missed deadlines to achieve this aim,” it added.

Ukrainian officials say that Russian troops now have a deadline of Sept. 15 to achieve this, according to the ministry, which sees it as “highly unlikely.”

That will “further complicate Russia’s plans to run referendums on the occupied areas joining the Russian Federation,” the ministry said.

— Natasha Turak

European gas prices soared by around 30% on Monday after Russia said it would shut off gas flows to the continent via its Nord Stream 1 pipeline indefinitely, renewing fears of widespread gas shortages and rationing.

The front-month gas price at the Dutch TTF hub, a European benchmark for natural gas trading, was last seen at 281 euros per megawatt hour.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the country’s push to liberate Russian-occupied territories in the south of the country is making progress, a week after it began.

“I believe that the Ukrainian flag and free life will return to Crimea again. We will liberate all our land, all our people,” Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address Sunday.

“The Armed Forces of Ukraine, our intelligence, and special forces are taking the necessary steps for this. You can hear these steps. And everyone can see: the occupiers have already begun to flee from Crimea,” he added.

Zelenskyy’s comments came almost a week after Kyiv launched a counteroffensive to reclaim Kherson, one of the first cities to fall to Russian forces at the start of the invasion, and its surrounding settlements, in addition to carrying out a spate of attacks in Crimea, which was annexed by Russia back in 2014.

He praised several Ukrainian forces for liberating a town in the region of Donetsk in the Donbas in eastern Ukraine and said two settlements in the south of the country were also liberated.

— Holly Ellyatt

Germany’s government on Sunday announced a 65 billion euro ($64.5 billion) package of measures to help those most affected by soaring energy costs, as European sanctions on Russia over its invasion of Ukraine trigger a shortage of energy supplies.

European gas prices skyrocketed by about 30% Monday after Russia said it was halting its supply of gas to Germany through its Nord Stream 1 pipeline — which supplies much of Europe — indefinitely. The EU in previous years has relied on Russia for as much as 41% of its gas imports and 36% of its oil.

The measures in the 65 billion euro package include one-off government payments to retirees, students and those on benefits, as well as caps on power bills. It also offers tax breaks to some 9,000 energy-intensive businesses amounting to 1.7 billion euros. Scholz said that a windfall tax on the profits of energy companies will also help offset people’s bills.

— Natasha Turak