Berlin-Moscow Talks Stall as Fighting Rages On

Germany's foreign minister Johann Wadephul met Russia's Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, the highest-level German-Russian contact since 2022. Berlin came away empty-handed: Wadephul said Moscow showed no readiness for peace talks on Ukraine. The diplomatic stall matched events on the ground. Overnight, Russian forces struck Komyshuvacha and Novotavriiske in Zaporizhia region with drones and artillery, killing three civilians and wounding four. Ukraine's forces answered by destroying a Russian drone launch site in Donetsk and hitting ammunition depots in Luhansk. Against that backdrop, Lithuania warned that evacuating civilians would be difficult if Russia attacked, a warning sign for the Baltics. Security scares surfaced elsewhere too. British police arrested several men over explosives incidents near RAF Fairford, the air base used by US and UK forces. In northern Pakistan, a suicide bomber drove an explosives-laden tractor into a police checkpoint, killing 13 people; a follow-up attack on responding paramedics left 37 more injured. Meanwhile, domestic politics and weather took over elsewhere: France held Senate elections, renewing over half its seats, and a powerful storm swept the US Northeast from Maine to Virginia, prompting several states to declare emergencies as flooding spread across the region.