Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, makes calls with UK, US, French and Turkish counterparts on Sunday
Two civilians have been killed in Russian strikes on the eastern region of Donetsk, according to the local governor.
Posting on Telegram on Sunday, Pavlo Kyrylenko said the deaths had occurred in the villages of Klishchiivka and Torskyi.
Continue reading...Ukrainian president says most missiles fired overnight were shot down; over 1 million people without electricity after attacks on power stations
Iran has strongly condemned a call by France, Germany and Britain for the United Nations to probe accusations that Russia has used Iranian-origin drones to attack Ukraine, its foreign ministry said.
Reuters reports that ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Friday’s call by the so-called E-3 group of countries was “false and baseless” and that it was “strongly rejected and condemned”.
The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, in its pursuit to protect its national interest and to secure the rights of the noble Iranian people, reserves the right to respond to any irresponsible action.
It will not hesitate to defend the interests of the Iranian people,” he said, without elaborating.
Currently, restrictions on energy supply have been forcibly applied in Kyiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv, Poltava, Dnipropetrovsk, Zaporizhzhya and Kirovohrad regions.
Continue reading...La Presse agency publishes audio suggesting 20 bottles arrived for 86th birthday after pair ‘re-establish’ ties
Silvio Berlusconi has allegedly said Vladimir Putin gave him 20 bottles of vodka for his birthday after he “re-established” relations with the Russian president.
Berlusconi turned 86 on 29 September, four days after a coalition including his Forza Italia party won the general election.
Continue reading...Russian servicemen begin to arrive in Belarus; US thinktank says Putin engaging in ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Ukraine
Norway has arrested a Russian national carrying a drone and camera equipment after he was seen taking photos of an airport in the far north, the second such arrest in a week.
Agence France-Presse reports that Norway is on high alert following accounts of mysterious drone sightings close to offshore oil and gas drilling platforms run by the country’s major energy producer.
Police have confiscated a large amount of photography equipment, including a drone and a cache of memory cards.
Continue reading...UK Ministry of Defence says situation so bad reservists are having to buy their own body armour. This live blog is now closed
In case you missed it, Jon Henley reports that nearly eight months into Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine, citizens in core western alliance countries show little appetite for the kind of concessions to Russia that might form part of an eventual agreement to end the fighting, according to a major survey.
The YouGov-Cambridge globalism project, which gauged public opinion in 25 of the world’s largest countries, also found strong support for maintaining, and often toughening and expanding, military and economic measures against Moscow.
Beside an abandoned Russian military camp in eastern Ukraine, the body of a man lay decomposing in the grass – a civilian who had fallen victim to a tripwire land mine set by retreating Russian forces.
Nearby, a group of Ukrainian minesweepers with the country’s territorial defense forces worked to clear the area of dozens of other deadly mines and unexploded ordnance – a push to restore a semblance of safety to the cities, towns and countryside in a region that spent months under Russian occupation.
Continue reading...Drones and missiles hit Kyiv region and Zaporizhzhia as Ukrainian forces make gains around Kherson
Russia has continued to try to hit Ukrainian’s energy infrastructure but Vladimir Putin’s forces did not appear to have enjoyed any significant success.
One missile seriously damaged a key energy facility in the region around Ukraine’s capital and 10 missiles and four drones hit locations in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
Continue reading...As newly mobilised men return from the front in coffins, critics complain of aggressive recruiting, low morale and poor training
• Russia-Ukraine war latest – live blog
Andrei Nikiforov, a lawyer from St Petersburg, was one of the hundreds of thousands of Russians mobilised since last month to hold the frontlines in his country’s faltering war in Ukraine.
On 25 September he received his call-up papers. By 7 October, just two weeks later, he was dead.
Continue reading...Russian submarine seen off French coast and being escorted by French navy; Vladimir Putin says ‘no need’ for talks with Joe Biden
Continue reading...Wolfgang Schmidt asks for patience from allies urging his country to head efforts to support Ukraine
• Russia-Ukraine war: latest updates
Germany is still a “teenager” when it comes to foreign security policy, its chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief of staff has said, asking for patience from western allies urging Europe’s largest economy to take a more proactive leadership in its support of Ukraine.
“We are getting into a situation that Americans have known for decades: people want us to lead,” said Wolfgang Schmidt, a longstanding ally of Scholz who also serves as the political point of contact for the country’s intelligence agencies.
Continue reading...US president says vote sends clear message that ‘Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map’
The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly condemned Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions, demanding that Moscow reverse course.
US president Joe Biden said the vote sent a “clear message” to Moscow. “The stakes of this conflict are clear to all, and the world has sent a clear message in response – Russia cannot erase a sovereign state from the map,” he said in a statement.
Continue reading...Reactions in Washington to slashing oil supply have not concerned Mohammed bin Salman; nor have the optics of indirectly boosting Putin’s war
Mohammed bin Salman had seen it coming. The groundswell of anger in Washington was clear and building since he helped lead an Opec+ decision to cut the world’s oil supply last week.
But for the first time in the modern era of ties between the US and Saudi Arabia, there was no rush to placate hard feelings, or gloss over a rift. This was the birth of a new realpolitik, where nascent Saudi nationalism paid no heed to a historical ally and instead aligned itself to what Riyadh literally sees as a new world order.
Continue reading...US president tells CNN he believes Putin’s objectives in Ukraine invasion were irrational but that he would not use a nuclear weapon
Joe Biden has said he believes Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor” who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine, but does not believe he would resort to using a tactical nuclear weapon.
The US president told CNN on Tuesday that he believed his Russian counterpart had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian defiance in the face of invasion.
Continue reading...Tesla boss, who recently floated his own peace plan, rejects claim he talked to Russian president about the war in Ukraine
Elon Musk has denied a report that he spoke to Vladimir Putin, including about the potential for using nuclear weapons, before floating a peace plan that suggested that Ukraine cede territory to Russia.
The head of the Eurasia Group political risk consultancy, who made the original claim, had insisted that his source was Musk himself. “Elon Musk told me he had spoken with Putin and the Kremlin directly about Ukraine,” Ian Bremmer said in a tweet after Musk’s tweeted denial. “He also told me what the kremlin’s red lines were.
Continue reading...Moves by Opec+ to reduce production seen as siding with Putin over the US just as midterms loom
Joe Biden said there “will be consequences” for Saudi Arabia after its decision last week to side with Vladimir Putin and cut oil production.
“There’s going to be some consequences for what they’ve done, with Russia,” the US president said in an interview on CNN. “I’m not going to get into what I’d consider and what I have in mind. But there will be – there will be consequences.”
Continue reading...UK spy chief says Kremlin does not appear to be engaged in preliminary steps despite Putin’s threats
The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin.
Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.
Continue reading...In today’s newsletter: Russia responded to an attack on a military supply line with a devastating blitz on civilian targets. Peter Beaumont speaks from Kyiv about defiance, destruction and what to expect
Good morning. On Saturday, Vladimir Putin called a blast at a vital bridge linking Russia and Crimea an “act of terror” carried out by “Ukrainian secret services”; yesterday, the Kremlin took horrifying revenge. The missile and kamikaze drone attacks on Ukrainian cities and key civilian infrastructure were roundly condemned as war crimes; they hit a playground and a tourist bridge, power plants and waterworks. Today, Volodymyr Zelenskiy will tell a virtual G7 summit: “We are dealing with terrorists. They have two targets: energy infrastructure and people.”
If Putin is seeking retribution, he does not appear to be satisfied yet. There were reports of 15 more Russian rockets fired on the city of Zaporizhzhia overnight; Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emine Dzheppar, said they targeted residential buildings and “an educational institution”. There were also reports that a power plant in the southwestern city of Vinnytsia has been shelled. And this morning, air raid sirens are going off in Kyiv again.
Economy | Kwasi Kwarteng will need to find £60bn of savings by 2026 to fill the gap left by tax cuts, new analysis by the Institute of Fiscal Studies suggests. Meanwhile, Liz Truss overruled Kwarteng’s top appointment at the Treasury and handed the role to a veteran Treasury official.
UK news | A nurse poisoned two newborn babies and was the “constant malevolent” presence on a hospital neonatal unit when other infants died or unexpectedly collapsed, a court has been told. Lucy Letby, 32, is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another 10 between June 2015 and June 2016.
Scotland | Nicola Sturgeon has told the Scottish National party’s annual conference that “we are the independence generation”. Her speech came as the UK supreme court prepared to hear arguments on Tuesday on whether Holyrood can set up an independence referendum without Westminster’s approval.
Iran | The UK has announced sanctions against Iran’s morality police as well as its national chief and the head of its Tehran division, in response to the violent suppression of recent protests over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in their custody.
Labour | The former shadow minister Sam Tarry has been deselected as an MP after a bitter row in the Ilford South constituency. Tarry, who helped organise Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign, was defeated by local council leader Jas Athwal, a close ally of neighbouring MP and shadow cabinet minister Wes Streeting.
Continue reading...British spy agency director to say in rare public address that Ukraine is ‘turning the tide’ against Russia
Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.
Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.
Continue reading...Russian president claims Ukrainian special forces behind explosion on Kerch bridge
Vladimir Putin has blamed Ukraine directly for the blast at a vital bridge linking Russia and Crimea, describing the weekend attack as “act of terror” carried out by “Ukrainian secret services” amid growing expectation that the Kremlin plans an imminent and harsh escalation of its war.
“There is no doubt. This is an act of terrorism aimed at destroying critically important civilian infrastructure,” the Russian president said in a video released on Sunday night on the Kremlin’s Telegram channel about the explosion on the Kerch bridge, which occurred on Saturday.
Continue reading...John Kirby says Biden’s warning about threat of a nuclear attack from Russia were not based on specific new information
The US military’s top spokesperson tamped down concerns of an imminent nuclear threat from Russia, days after Joe Biden warned of a potential nuclear “Armageddon”.
Speaking at a Democratic fundraiser this week, Biden talked bluntly about the threat of a nuclear attack from Russia. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” the president said. He added that Russian leader Vladimir Putin was “not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming” after invading Ukraine earlier this year.
Continue reading...Russian president blames Ukrainian special services for ‘destroying critically important civilian infrastructure’
Ukraine’s ministry of defence has posted pictures of the missile strike on the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.
The tweet adds that if Ukrainian military forces “had modern anti-missile systems, we could have prevented such tragedies”.
Zaporozhye again. Again merciless strikes on civilians. In residential buildings, just in the middle of the night. There are already 12 dead. 49 injured in hospital, 6 of them children.
The absolute meanness of all. Absolute evil.
Continue reading...