Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation”  that there can be no stability in Europe until Russian president Vladimir Putin is removed from power.

Zelenskyy said, “Yesterday, President Putin said they will win Ukraine in three days, but now it’s seven months. Today, it’s seven months since Russia occupied- tried to occupy Ukraine, but they couldn’t.”

Anchor Margaret Brennan asked, “Can there be stability in Europe if Vladimir Putin remains in power?”

Zelenskyy said, “No.”

Russia’s SPFS interbank messaging system has expanded at record pace this year, Alla Bakina, the head of the central bank’s national payment system department, said on Friday.

“The SPFS financial messaging system showed serious expansion this year, as we have more foreign participants connecting. Since the beginning of the year, more parties have joined the SPFS than in all previous years of the system’s existence,” Bakina said at a banking forum in Kazan.

War is never a solution; there are always alternatives that could have — and should have —been pursued by those entrusted with the fate of global society before the order was given to send the youth of a nation to go off to fight and die. Any national leader worth his or her salt should seek to exhaust every other possibility to resolve issues confronting their respective countries.

The referendum to join Russia currently underway in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) is a historical event enabling people to exercise their right to self-determination, an observer from Italy said at a briefing in Donetsk on Saturday.

The Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR), as well as the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, are holding referendums on accession to Russia from 23 to 27 September. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this week that Russia would accept any decision the people made during the referendums.

The third day of voting in referendums on joining Russia is taking place in the Donbass republics, and the Kherson and Zaporozhye regions.

Some 93% of people in the Zaporozhye region have voted in favor of acceding to Russia during the first day of the referendum, according to a poll, conducted by the Crimean Republican Institute of Political and Social Studies.

The poll was conducted among 500 citizens on the first day of the referendum on September 23.

On Tuesday, the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, along with the Russian-controlled parts of the regions of Zaporozhye and Kherson, said that they would hold referendums on accession to Russia from 23 to 27 September.

During Sergei Lavrov's tour of Africa in July, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni assured the Russian foreign minister that “if Russia makes mistakes then we tell them. But when they have not made a mistake we cannot be against them.”

Uganda's military would treat aggression against Russia as aggression against the African continent, Land Forces commander Muhoozi Kainerugaba has indicated.

"President Putin does not have to threaten nuclear war. We hear him. An attack on Russia is an attack on Africa!" Kainerugaba wrote in a tweet Saturday.

Russia has come out in support of India’s bid to become one of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) – the all-powerful global body which is responsible for taking key decisions about maintaining peace and security in the world.

At present, it comprises the United States, France, Russia, China, and Great Britain.

During his speech at the UNGA, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov called for wider representation of Asian, African, and Latin American countries in the Security Council, making particular mention of New Delhi and Brazil.

It is easy to find the courage necessary to support a moral position if that position benefits oneself. True moral courage, however, is proven when one chooses to support that which is morally and ethically right even when such a position is to one's one detriment.

Up to 300 foreigners fighting for Kiev against Moscow have been killed in Nikolayev Region in southern Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday.

“Up to 300 militants were eliminated by a missile attack on the point of temporary deployment of foreign mercenaries in the area of the village of Kalinovka, Nikolayev Region,” the ministry’s spokesman, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, announced during his daily briefing.