Main News of September 18

A roundup of what has happened in the past 24 hours

RUSSIA

* Russian President Vladimir Putin urged his country’s arms manufacturers to produce weapons that are superior to those of possible adversaries

* Moscow will soon submit to the United Nations findings indicating that the Syrian opposition had used chemical weapons during the deadly civil war, the Russian foreign minister said

* Syria’s President Bashar Assad thanked Moscow for supporting Damascus as it was confronted with the threat of foreign intervention and terrorism, the Syrian state-run news agency SANA reported

* US lawmakers are calling for a crackdown against leading Russian lenders VTB, Vnesheconombank (VEB) and Gazprombank for allegedly helping Syrian President Bashar Assad circumvent sanctions, accusations the state-owned banks sharply denied

* Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) is growing too slowly to pull the country out of its worst economic situation since the 2008 global financial crisis, the country’s economic development minister said Wednesday, and the stagnation is unlikely to improve in 2014

* The World Bank has approved a $60 million loan to Russia to co-finance a project modernizing the country’s meteorological data gathering systems, according to an official statement

WORLD

* Ukraine’s government approved the draft European Union Association Agreement, moving the country one step closer to its final signing, which is slated for November