Russia-Ukraine War Live: Soldiers load a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS ) from a US Special Operations MC-130J aircraft during military exercises at Spilve Airport in Riga, Latvia, on Sept 26, 2022. (AP, File)Russia Ukraine War Highlights: Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and asserted that there can be no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, while also underlining that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have catastrophic consequences. During their telephonic conversation, Modi and Zelenskyy discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the prime minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) here.
Ukraine has made significant advances in two of the four Russian-occupied regions Moscow last week annexed after what it called referendums — votes that were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive. The move comes within days of a concert on Moscow’s Red Square where Russian President Vladimir Putin proclaimed the provinces of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia to be Russian territory forever.
Ukrainian troops said they had taken the key bastion of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, a claim confirmed by Russia which said its troops had withdrawn from Lyman to avoid being surrounded by Ukraine’s army, reported news agency Reuters.
The White House said US president Joe Biden assured Zelensky that the US will never recognise 'Russian annexation of Ukraine's territory', Reuters reported. President Biden further added, "The US will provide Ukraine $625 in new security aid, including Himars system."
Russian President Vladimir Putin may finalise his plan to annex four Ukrainian regions later on Tuesday even as his forces are being pushed back by Ukraine on two separate battlefield fronts, shrinking the amount of seized territory he controls. (Reuters)
The war in Ukraine has entered a more dangerous phase after last week’s formal annexation of four districts of eastern Ukraine — Luhansk, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — by Russia. Vladimir Putin’s decision presents new challenges for Russia, Ukraine, Europe, the US and the non-Western world, including India.
For Putin, the real test begins now. C. Raja Mohan writes
Britain's foreign minister James Cleverly on Tuesday said Russian President Vladimir Putin's sequence of strategic errors must stop and the use of nuclear weapons would lead to consequences. (Reuters)
The Russian Embassy in India quoted former Russian foreign minister and diplomat Sergey Lavrov saying, "We are not responding to imaginary threats in distant countries, but are defending our borders, our Motherland, all our people from real genocide perpetrated by the descendants and followers of Nazi henchmen, who are now at the service of their overseas masters."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday and asserted that there can be no military solution to the Ukraine conflict, while also underlining that endangerment of nuclear facilities could have catastrophic consequences.
During their telephonic conversation, Modi and Zelenskyy discussed the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and the prime minister reiterated his call for an early cessation of hostilities and the need to pursue the path of dialogue and diplomacy, according to a statement issued by the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) here.
Modi expressed his firm conviction that there can be no military solution to the conflict and conveyed India's readiness to contribute to any peace efforts, the statement said. He also reiterated the importance of respecting the UN Charter, International Law, and the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states. (PTI)
European Union finance ministers agreed on Tuesday to integrate the EU's support payments to Ukraine into its 2023 budget to make disbursements more structured and predictable, European Commission Vice President Valdis Dombrovskis said.
The move is likely to further tighten links between the 27-nation bloc and EU candidate Ukraine, which has been struggling to keep its government administration running while fending off Russia's almost eight-month-old invasion.
Speaking to journalists after a meeting of the ministers, Dombrovskis admitted this year's EU payments to Ukraine were hardly regular -- a point of concern for Kyiv, which needs to regularly pay the salaries public workers and pensions.
The EU agreed to support Ukraine with 9 billion euros already in May, but made the first disbursement of 1 billion euros only in July. (Reuters)
I am an anthropologist and have spent the last two decades listening to my many friends in India in an attempt to understand their country. Today, I am asking my Indian friends to lend me their ears and listen to what I have to say about mine – about Ukraine. I know that Ukraine is a long way away, that it is difficult to make sense of the mad war raging there now and that it seems that this war is ultimately of little consequence for India, and for you. Nonetheless, I am convinced that these reactions are less to do with malice and more with miscomprehension, some of which I will try to dispel.
One, Russia is not the USSR.
Two, Ukraine is not an American puppet state and this is not an American proxy war.
Three, Russia was not cornered by NATO. NATO is a defence alliance, which has never threatened Russia.
Four, Ukraine is not a Nazi state; it is a thriving, polyvocal democracy.
Written by Anastasia Piliavsky
The bodies of Russian soldiers were lying in the streets of a key eastern Ukrainian city on Tuesday, evidence of a hasty retreat that marked a new military defeat for Moscow as it struggles to hang on to areas it illegally annexed last week.
Russia’s upper house of parliament rubber-stamped the annexation of four Ukrainian regions on Tuesday, following “referendums” that Ukraine and its Western allies dismissed as illegal and fraudulent. (AP)
Russia's grain harvest is set to grow by about 5 million tonnes a year thanks to its incorporation of four Ukrainian territories, Agriculture Minister Dmitry Patrushev said on Tuesday. "Considering the arable land that exists there, I think at least 5 million tonnes of grain will be added to the Russian savings box. I also think that we'll get other crops," he was quoted as saying by the state news agency TASS.
The Kremlin said that President Vladimir Putin was likely to sign laws on Tuesday to annex the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, representing about 18% of Ukraine's internationally recognised territory.
All are partly or mostly occupied by Russian forces after an invasion that has sharply reduced Ukraine's grain crop and disrupted shipping in the Black Sea, as well as triggering a barrage of Western economic sanctions against Russia. (Reuters)
For all his threats to fire tactical nuclear arms at Ukrainian targets, President Vladimir Putin of Russia is now discovering what the United States itself concluded years ago, U.S. officials suspect: Small nuclear weapons are hard to use, harder to control and a far better weapon of terror and intimidation than a weapon of war.
Analysts inside and outside the government who have tried to game out Putin’s threats have come to doubt how useful such arms — delivered in an artillery shell or thrown in the back of a truck — would be in advancing his objectives.
The primary utility, many U.S. officials say, would be as part of a last-ditch effort by Putin to halt the Ukrainian counteroffensive, by threatening to make parts of Ukraine uninhabitable. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe some of the most sensitive discussions inside the administration. Read More.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday that its "special military operation" in Ukraine will not end if Kyiv rules out talks, adding that it "takes two sides to negotiate".
"We will either wait for the current president to change his position or wait for the next president to change his position in the interests of the Ukrainian people," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. (Reuters)
The city council of Kyiv says it is providing evacuation centres with potassium iodine pills in preparation for a possible nuclear strike on the capital, Ukraine's largest city.
Potassium iodine pills can help block the absorption of harmful radiation by the thyroid gland if taken just before or immediately after exposure to nuclear radiation.
The pills will be distributed to residents in areas contaminated by nuclear radiation if there is a need to evacuate, the city council said in a statement. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that he would “use all the means at our disposal” to win the war while his ground forces retreat from a Ukrainian counterattack. (Reuters)
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed a decree on Tuesday formally declaring the prospect of any Ukrainian talks with Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin "impossible", but leaving the door open to talks with Russia.
The decree formalised comments made by Zelenskiy on Friday after the Russian president proclaimed four occupied regions of Ukraine to be a part of Russia, in what Kyiv and the West said was an illegitimate farce.
"He (Putin) does not know what dignity and honesty are. Therefore, we are ready for a dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia," Zelenskiy said on Friday. (Reuters)
The upper house of the Russian parliament has ratified the treaties with four Ukrainian regions to absorb them into Russia.
The Federation Council voted quickly Tuesday to endorse the treaties making the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions part of Russia. The vote came a day after the lower house endorsed the pacts following the Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” in the four regions that Ukraine and the West have rejected as a sham.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is now expected to quickly sign the ratification treaties to complete the process of absorbing the regions even as intense fighting is raging in those areas. The move by Russia is seen as an escalation of its war effort since it could interpret attacks by Ukrainian forces in those areas as aggressions on its own territory. (AP)
New sanctions by G7 countries on Russia will target its oil and products in three phases, Ben Harris, assistant secretary for economic policy at the US Treasury, told the Argus European Crude Conference in Geneva on Tuesday.
Harris said sanctions due to take effect on December 5 will target Russian crude oil, while later ones will focus on diesel and finally on lower value products such as naphtha. (Reuters)
The US will soon deliver to Ukraine four more of the advanced rocket systems credited with helping the country's military gain momentum in its war with Russia.
The High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, known as HIMARS, will be part of a new USD 624 million package of aid expected to be announced on Tuesday, according to US officials.
The decision marks the first time the US has sent more HIMARS to Ukraine since late July, and it will bring the total number delivered so far to 20. (AP)
Ukrainian forces in the south destroyed 31 Russian tanks and one multiple rocket launcher, the military's southern operational command said in a nightly update, without providing details of where the fighting occurred. (Reuters)
Billionaire Elon Musk on Monday asked Twitter users to weigh in on a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine that drew immediate condemnation from Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who responded with his own poll.
Elon Musk“Which @elonmusk do you like more?,” Zelenskyy tweeted, offering two responses: one who supports Ukraine, one who supports Russia.Musk, the world’s richest person, proposed UN-supervised elections in four occupied regions that Moscow last week moved to annex after what it called referendums. The votes were denounced by Kyiv and Western governments as illegal and coercive. (Read more)
?? Russian military bloggers described a Ukrainian tank advance through dozens of kilometers of territory along the west bank of the Dnipro. Kyiv has so far maintained almost complete silence about the situation in Kherson.
?? Ukraine on Sunday claimed full control of Russia's eastern logistics hub of Lyman, its most significant battlefield gain in weeks, setting the stage for further advances aimed at cutting Russia's supply lines to its battered troops to a single route.
?? Ukraine's capture of a city within territory of Russian President Vladimir Putin's declared annexation demonstrates that Ukrainians are making progress and are able to push back against Russian forces, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said.
?? Kyiv appears on course to achieve several of its key battlefield objectives as it strengthens its military position against Russia ahead of the winter, a senior Pentagon official added.
?? Russia said its troops had withdrawn from Lyman to avoid being surrounded by Ukraine's army.
?? Russia has sacked the commander of its Western military district, news outlet RBC reported, after a series of painful battlefield reverses in Ukraine.
?? The military commissar of Russia's Khabarovsk region in the far east was also removed from his post after half of newly mobilised personnel were sent home as they did not meet the draft criteria, the region's governor said. (Reuters)
The number of issued one-way flight tickets from Russia increased 27% the week President Vladimir Putin declared on Sept. 21 the country's first mobilisation since World War Two, according to flight ticketing data from Spain-based ForwardKeys on Tuesday.
The mobilisation of men to fight in Ukraine has prompted thousands of fighting-age men to flee Russia to avoid a draft that was billed as enlisting those with military experience and specialties but has often appeared oblivious to service records, health, student status and even age.
The data, which compared bookings from Sept. 21 to Sept. 27 to the week prior, shows the share of one-way tickets issued jumped to 73% the week of the announcement compared with 47% the previous week. (Reuters)
When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship. Moscow called the allegation “false and baseless,” and Lebanon’s prosecutor general sided with the Kremlin and declared that the 10,000 tons of barley and wheat flour wasn’t stolen and allowed the ship to unload.
But an investigation by The Associated Press and the PBS series ‘Frontline’ has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least $530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin’s war machine. (Read more)
Ukrainian fighter pilot Mykhailo Matyushenko, who used the call sign ‘Grandfather’ and led the fighter pilot division Ghosts of Kyiv, died during combat over the Black Sea. People in Bucha paid tribute to him.
The head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been released, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said after a detention that Ukraine blamed on Russia and called an act of terror.
Ukrainian forces achieved their biggest breakthrough in the south of the country since the war began, bursting through the front and advancing rapidly along the Dnipro River, threatening to encircle thousands of Russian troops.
Kyiv gave no official confirmation of the gains, but Russian sources acknowledged that a Ukrainian tank offensive had advanced dozens of kilometers (miles) along the river's west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way.
The breakthrough mirrors recent Ukrainian successes in the east that have turned the tide in the war against Russia, even as Moscow has tried to raise the stakes by annexing territory, ordering mobilisation and threatening nuclear retaliation. (Reuters)
The Kremlin said it favoured a "balanced approach" to the issue of nuclear weapons, not based on emotion, after a key ally of President Vladimir Putin called over the weekend for Russia to use a "low-yield nuclear weapon" in Ukraine.
Asked about the comments by Ramzan Kadyrov, leader of the Chechnya region, who also criticised Russia's military leadership over battlefield setbacks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had the right to voice his opinion, but that Russia's military approach should not be driven by emotions.
"This is a very emotional moment. The heads of regions have the right to express their point of view," Peskov said in a call with reporters. "But even in difficult moments, emotions should be kept out of any kind of assessment. So we prefer to stick to balanced, objective assessments."
Peskov said the basis for any use of nuclear weapons was set down in Russia's nuclear doctrine. (Reuters)
The Kremlin said that it will consult with residents living in two of the Ukrainian regions it moved to annex last week - Kherson and Zaporizhzhia - on how their borders should be defined. "We will continue to consult with people who live in these areas", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
Russia formally claimed to annex four Ukrainian territories last week, but none are fully under the control of Moscow's forces and Ukraine continues to advance in the south. (Reuters)
Ukrainian forces have made some breakthroughs in the southern Kherson region and taken control of some settlements, a Russian-installed official said. "It's tense, let's put it that way," Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of Ukraine's Kherson region, said on state television. (Reuters)
Prominent Russian journalist Ksenia Sobchak faces a criminal investigation over a story that police suspect was "fake", state news agency TASS reported on Monday, citing an unidentified source in law enforcement.
Sobchak, whose late father was the mayor of St Petersburg in the 1990s and worked closely with Vladimir Putin, hosts a YouTube channel with over 3 million subscribers. She also founded a popular Telegram account which regularly shares stories critical of Russia's mobilisation efforts.
TASS reported that Sobchak's story related to "state funding of festivals" and that she could be charged under an article of Russian law that provides for three-year jail sentences. Neither Sobchak, 40, nor representatives of her news site immediately responded to a Reuters request for comment on the TASS report. Sobchak has so far avoided prosecution, but authorities have scrutinised her in the past for sharing so-called "LGBT propaganda" and declaring that Crimea was still Ukrainian after its annexation by Russia in 2014. (Reuters)
Ukrainian forces were reported to be recapturing towns along the west bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine on Monday, with Moscow forced to yield territory along a second major front line just days after claiming to have annexed it.
The military commissar of Russia's Khabarovsk region was removed from his post after half of the newly mobilised personnel were sent home as they did not meet the draft criteria, the region's governor said early on Monday.
Russia's first mobilisation since World War Two, declared by President Vladimir Putin on Sept. 21, has led to widespread discontent among officials and citizens over the way the draft has been handled, including complaints about enlistment officers sending call-up papers to clearly ineligible men.
"In 10 days, several thousand of our countrymen received summons and arrived at the military registration and enlistment offices," Mikhail Degtyarev, the governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East, said in a video post on the Telegram messaging app.
"About half of them we returned home as they did not meet the selection criteria for entering the military service."
Degtyarev said the removal of the commissar, Yuri Laiko, would not affect the mobilisation plan set by Putin. (Reuters)
When the bulk cargo ship Laodicea docked in Lebanon last summer, Ukrainian diplomats said the vessel was carrying grain stolen by Russia and urged Lebanese officials to impound the ship.
Moscow called the allegation “false and baseless,” and Lebanon's prosecutor general sided with the Kremlin and declared that the 10,000 tons of barley and wheat flour wasn't stolen and allowed the ship to unload.
But an investigation by the Associated Press and the PBS series “Frontline” has found the Laodicea, owned by Syria, is part of a sophisticated Russian-run smuggling operation that has used falsified manifests and seaborne subterfuge to steal Ukrainian grain worth at least USD 530 million — cash that has helped feed President Vladimir Putin's war machine.
AP used satellite imagery and marine radio transponder data to track three dozen ships making more than 50 voyages carrying grain from Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine to ports in Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and other countries. (AP)
Ukraine claimed full control of Russia's eastern logistics hub Lyman, its most significant battlefield gain in weeks, setting the stage for further advances aimed at cutting Moscow's supply lines to its battered troops to a single route.
The stinging setback for Russian President Vladimir Putin was delivered after he proclaimed the annexation of four regions covering nearly a fifth of Ukraine on Friday, an area that includes Lyman. Kyiv and the West have condemned the proclamation as an illegitimate farce.
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said the capture of the town, where Ukrainian flags were raised over civic buildings on Saturday, demonstrated that Ukraine is capable of dislodging Russian forces and showed the impact Ukraine's deployment of advanced Western weapons was having on the conflict. (Reuters)
Russia attacked the Ukrainian president's hometown and other targets on Sunday with suicide drones, and Ukraine took back full control of a strategic eastern city in a counteroffensive that has reshaped the war.
Russia's loss of the eastern city of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine and heightening threats to use nuclear force.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's land grab has threatened to push the conflict to a dangerous new level. It also prompted Ukraine to formally apply for NATO membership, a bid that won backing on Sunday from nine central and eastern European NATO members fearful that Russia's aggression could eventually target them, too. (AP)
Pope Francis for the first time directly begged Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine, saying on Sunday that the crisis was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.
In an address dedicated to Ukraine and made to thousands of people in St. Peter's Square, Francis also condemned Putin's latest annexation of parts of Ukraine as being against international law. He urged Putin to think of his own people in the event of an escalation. One Vatican official said the impassioned address was so sombre it was reminiscent of a radio peace appeal by Pope John XXIII in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
It was the first time Francis, who has often condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the death and destruction it has caused, had made such a direct personal appeal to Putin. (Reuters)
German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht on Sunday announced the delivery of 16 wheeled armored howitzers produced in Slovakia to Ukraine next year.
The Zuzana systems would be produced in Slovakia and financed jointly with Denmark, Norway and Germany, the German minister told public broadcaster ARD after returning from her first trip to Ukraine since the start of the war there.The Zuzana howitzer is the flagship product of the Slovak defense industry and the only heavy weapon system produced in the country, dpa reported.
According to the manufacturer, it can fire all types of NATO 155 millimeter caliber ammunition. The German ministry put the total value of the procurement at 92 million euros ($90 million), with the three countries financing it equally. (AP)
Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said on Sunday that it was technically possible to restore ruptured offshore infrastructure of Nord Streams pipelines, TASS news agency reported.
"There have never been such incidents. Of course, there are technical possibilities to restore the infrastructure, it takes time and appropriate funds. I am sure that appropriate possibilities will be found," he said. (Reuters)
Ukraine said it was in full control of the eastern logistics hub of Lyman, Kyiv's most significant battlefield gain in weeks, which a senior official said could provide a staging post for further gains to the east.
LYMAN
* The recapture of Lyman in the Donetsk region is a key factor for "further de-occupation" in the neighbouring Luhansk region, Luhansk Governor Serhiy Gaidai said.
* U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin cheered the recapture of Lyman, saying on Saturday it was an encouraging battlefield success and that the loss of the logistics and transport hub will pose a dilemma for Russia's military.
* Russia said on Saturday its troops had withdrawn from Lyman to avoid being surrounded by Ukraine's army.
* Ramzan Kadyrov, an ally of President Vladimir Putin and head of Russia's Chechnya region, said on Saturday Moscow should consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine after the loss of Lyman.
ZAPORIZHZHIA
* The head of the U.N. nuclear watchdog called for the release of the director-general of Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying his detention posed a threat to safety and security.
DIPLOMACY
* Pope Francis made an impassioned appeal to Putin to stop "this spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine, saying the crisis there was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.
* Russia failed to win enough votes on Saturday for re-election to the U.N. aviation agency's governing council, in a boost for Western powers that wanted to hold Moscow accountable following its invasion of Ukraine.
* Germany will deliver the first of four advanced IRIS-T air defence systems to Ukraine in the coming days to help ward off drone attacks, Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht said on Saturday during a visit to Odesa.
CASUALTIES
* Ukraine's SBU security service said at least 20 civilians were killed in Russian shelling of a civilian convoy in late September in an eastern "grey zone" between Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled territory.
GAS FLOWS
* Italy's Eni said it would not receive any of the gas it had requested from Russia's Gazprom for delivery on Saturday, but the firms said they were working to fix this. (Reuters)
Russia attacked the Ukrainian president’s hometown with suicide drones on Sunday, and Ukraine pushed ahead with its counteroffensive after taking back control of a strategic eastern city.
Russia’s loss of Lyman, which it had been using as a transport and logistics hub, is a new blow to the Kremlin as it seeks to escalate the war by illegally annexing four regions of Ukraine.
“The Ukrainian flag is already in Lyman," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address. “Over the past week, there have been more Ukrainian flags in the Donbas. In a week there will be even more."
After being encircled by Ukrainian forces, Russia pulled troops out Saturday from Lyman in the east in what the British military described as a “significant political setback” for Moscow. Taking the city paves the way for Ukrainian troops to potentially push farther into territory Russia has occupied.Lyman had been an important link in the Russian front line for ground communications and logistics. Lyman is in the Donetsk region near the border with Luhansk, two regions that Russia annexed Friday after forcing the population to vote in referendums at gunpoint. (AP)
The head of the UN nuclear watchdog called for the release of the director-general of Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, saying his detention posed a threat to safety and security.
A Russian patrol detained Ihor Murashov on Friday, the state-owned company in charge of the plant said on Saturday, and the International Atomic Energy Agency said Russia had confirmed the move.
'IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi expressed the hope that Mr Murashov will return to his family safely and promptly and will be able to resume his important functions at the plant,' the agency tweeted late on Saturday.
The IAEA has been in contact with relevant authorities seeking clarifications on his temporary detention, which it said had a 'very significant impact' on him and nuclear safety and security standards. (Reuters)
Serhiy Gaidai, the governor of Ukraine's Luhansk region, said that the retaking of Lyman in the neighbouring Donetsk region is one of the key factors for reclaiming lost territory in Luhansk.
"The liberation of this city in the Donetsk region is one of the key factors for the further de-occupation of the Luhansk region," Gaidai wrote on the Telegram messaging app. Luhansk and Donetsk provinces comprise Ukraine's eastern Donbas region, where heavy fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces has been going on for months. (Reuters)
- Ukrainian troops said they had taken the key bastion of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, a stinging defeat that prompted a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for the possible use of low-grade nuclear weapons.
- A Russian patrol detained the director general of Ukraine's Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the state-owned company in charge of the plant said. The United Nations nuclear watchdog said Russia had confirmed the move.
- Ukraine's SBU security service said at least 20 civilians were killed in Russian shelling of a civilian convoy in late September in an eastern "grey zone" between Russian- and Ukrainian-controlled territory.
- Greece and Bulgaria started commercial operation of a long-delayed gas pipeline that will help decrease southeast Europe's dependence on Russian gas and boost energy security.
- Russia failed to win enough votes for re-election to the U.N. aviation agency's governing council, in a boost for Western powers that wanted to hold Moscow accountable following its invasion of Ukraine. (Reuters)
Ukrainian troops said they had taken the key bastion of Lyman in occupied eastern Ukraine, a stinging defeat that prompted a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin to call for the possible use of low-grade nuclear weapons.
The capture on Saturday came just a day after Putin proclaimed the annexation of nearly a fifth of Ukraine – including Donetsk, where Lyman is located – and placed the regions under Russia’s nuclear umbrella. Kyiv and the West condemned the ornate ceremony as an illegitimate farce. (Read More)