Iran provides ‘technical support’ for Russian drones killing civilians, says US

Iranians brought trainers and technical support to Crimea to help Russians use drones ‘with better lethality’, White House says

Iran has significantly deepened its involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by providing technical support for Russian pilots flying Iranian-made drones to bomb civilian targets, the White House has confirmed.

The national security council lead spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that it was the US’s understanding that the Iranian advisers were in Crimea to provide training and maintenance – but not to actually pilot the drones – after Russian forces experienced difficulties in operating the unmanned flying bombs.

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Ukraine plans power cuts after Russian strikes on plants

Local ‘stabilisation blackouts’ will take place around country at times between 7am and 10pm

Ukraine has introduced an emergency schedule of power cuts to help stabilise the country’s energy supply, which has been badly damaged by more than 300 Russian drone and missile attacks over the past 10 days as the weather turns cooler.

The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said people needed to be “especially conscious of electricity consumption” from 7am and avoid using unnecessary appliances as he warned of local “stabilisation blackouts”.

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Russia threatens to ‘reassess collaboration’ with UN chief over drone inspection

Ambassador denies drones fired on Ukraine are supplied by Iran and calls UN investigation ‘illegitimate’

Russia has threatened that it will reassess cooperation with the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, if he sends United Nations experts to Ukraine to inspect drones that western powers say were made in Iran and used by Moscow in violation of a UN resolution.

Speaking after a closed-door UN security council meeting on Moscow’s use of drones, Russia’s deputy UN ambassador, Dmitry Polyanskiy, called on Guterres and his staff to “abstain from engaging in any illegitimate investigation”. He also threatened Russia would withdraw from the grain deal that has allowed Ukrainian grain to be transported out of Black Sea ports.

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Russia-Ukraine war: UK sanctions Iran over drones used in Russian attacks in Ukraine; Kyiv restricts power use – as it happened

UK implements new sanctions on Iran for supplying Russia with drones; Ukrainians prepare for hours-long power outages. This live blog is now closed

Oleh Synyehubov, governor of Kharkiv, has posted a status update for Thursday which says that yesterday two people died and four more were injured when “a car with employees of the state emergency service was blown up by a mine” in the Izium district.

He also said “a 78-year-old resident of Izium district was hospitalised with injuries during the day”.

It is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com

It likely indicates that the Russian authorities are seriously considering a major withdrawal of their forces from the area west of the Dnipro river.

A key challenge of any Russian withdrawal operation would be extracting troops and their equipment across the 1000m wide river in good order.

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Brittney Griner sends message from Russian prison on birthday: ‘Thanks for fighting to get me home’

Basketball player, who was arrested at Moscow airport after authorities found vape canisters, thanks supporters

Brittney Griner thanked her supporters from a Russian prison where the detained basketball athlete spent her 32nd birthday on Tuesday.

In a statement released by her lawyers and reported by CNN, Griner said: “Thank you everyone for fighting so hard to get me home. All the support and love are definitely helping me.”

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Russia-Ukraine war live: hundreds of thousands without water or power; Russia warns of battle for Kherson in ‘very near future’

Russian president says four Ukrainian regions occupied by Russia will be put under martial law

If you look hard enough, you’ll spot faded yellow signs proclaiming “fallout shelter” around New York City. They are remnants of a cold war programme that signalled spaces within ordinary buildings – from schools to banks to the Brooklyn Bridge – with adequate supplies and walls thick enough for riding out a nuclear blast safely.

Many of these windowless shelters housed little more than rats and sewage before the practice was terminated in 1979. In 2017, the city’s department of education ordered the “misleading” signs removed from its buildings, but many others remain – vestiges of nuclear fears that never materialised.

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Finland’s main parties back plans to build Russia border fence

Structure would protect areas identified as posing potential risk of large-scale migration from Russia

Finland’s main political parties have backed building a fence along parts of the country’s border with Russia, with work on a short pilot section expected to start as soon as funds have been allocated, Finnish media have reported.

Neighbouring Norway, which also shares a border with Russia in the far north, on Wednesday said it had arrested a seventh Russian national suspected of illegally flying drones or taking photographs in restricted areas in recent days.

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EU plans to impose sanctions on Iran military leaders over drones

Measures will also target firm that develops drones believed to have been used in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine

The EU plans to impose sanctions on three senior Iranian military commanders and the company that develops drones believed to have been used in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine.

The draft sanctions list, seen by the Guardian, is expected to be agreed within days, indicating EU ministers do not believe Iran’s denials that it has supplied Russia with the low-flying lethal weapons.

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Russia’s new Ukraine commander signals civilian evacuation from ‘tense’ Kherson

Sergei Surovikin says Russia’s defence of occupied southern city ‘not easy’ as Ukraine introduces local news blackout

The new commander of Moscow’s army in Ukraine has announced that civilians were being “resettled” from the Russian-occupied southern city of Kherson, describing the military situation as “tense”.

“The enemy continually attempts to attack the positions of Russian troops,” Sergei Surovikin said in his first televised interview since being appointed earlier this month, adding that the situation was particularly difficult around the occupied southern city of Kherson.

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Berlusconi said he received vodka from Putin for birthday, reports say

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.

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Iran agrees to supply missiles as well as drones to Russia

Defence secretary Ben Wallace flies to Washington to discuss dangerous new phase in invasion of Ukraine

Iran has deepened its commitment to supplying arms for Russia’s assault on Ukraine by agreeing to provide a batch of medium-range missiles, as well as large numbers of cheap but effective drones, according to US and Iranian security officials.

The surface-to-surface missiles are designed to supplement the severely run-down stock of Russian missiles, as part of a bid to systematically destroy Ukraine’s electricity infrastructure ahead of a brutal winter.

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Iran protesters need same western support as Ukraine, say exiles

Iranian opposition sign open letter calling for tougher measures over regime’s actions against protesters

A prominent group of Iranians in exile, human rights activists and families of dual-national political prisoners has called on the west to do more to help Iranians’ demands for freedom.

The EU, US and UK have imposed largely symbolic travel bans and asset freezes on a dozen security officials linked to a crackdown on people protesting in Iran after the death in custody of Mahsa Amini in mid-September. The west has not broken off talks with the Iranian regime over the 2015 nuclear deal or downgraded diplomatic relations.

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Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia evacuating citizens from Kherson as commander describes ‘tense’ situation

Sergei Surovikin says Ukraine forces ‘continually’ trying to take positions of Russian troops, particularly in Kupiansk, Lyman and Mykolaiv

A Russian missile struck an apartment building in the southern Ukrainian port city Mykolaiv, in one of three explosions heard there in the early hours of Tuesday, a Reuters witness said.

The missile completely destroyed one wing of the building in the downtown area, leaving a massive crater. A fire crew pulled the dead body of a man from the rubble, the witness said.

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At least 13 reported dead in Russia after military plane hits building

Residential building in Yeysk, near the Ukraine border, hit by Su-34 fighter-bomber, says defence ministry

A Russian military jet has crashed into a residential building shortly after taking off near the border with Ukraine, sparking a major fire that has reportedly left at least 13 people dead, according to Russian news agency Interfax, citing a senior official.

Video and photographs uploaded to social media on Monday showed a residential building engulfed in flames in Yeysk, a port and resort town in Russia located just south of the Ukrainian city of Mariupol across the Sea of Azov.

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Fighter jet crashes in Russian city near Ukraine; Kyiv says 108 women freed in prisoner swap – as it happened

Fighter plane hits residential building in southern Russian city of Yeysk; Ukraine says it is first all-female exchange with Moscow. This blog is now closed

A large fire has broken out at an energy plant in Dnipro, Ukraine’s fourth largest city, following strikes early on Monday morning, Reuters reports, citing the Dnipro mayor.

The Guardian’s Dan Sabbagh is sheltering in an underpass at Kyiv station, near to where this morning’s attacks occurred:

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Putin aide says release of Brittney Griner is not a priority for Russia

  • Olympic champion serving nine-year sentence on drug charge
  • Biden administration says it wants to bring player home

The difficulties involved in freeing Brittney Griner from her imprisonment in Russia were brought into stark relief this weekend when a senior aide to Vladimir Putin said the issue is not a priority for the Russian president.

In August, the basketball star was given a nine-year prison sentence for bringing a small amount of cannabis oil into Russia. The 31-year-old said she uses the drug to treat pain and has lodged an appeal against her sentence.

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Iran breaching nuclear deal by providing Russia with armed drones, says UK

UK joins France in saying apparent drone supply for use in Ukraine leaves Iran in breach of 2015 JCPoA

Britain has joined France in viewing the Iranian supply of armed drones to Russia for devastating use in Ukraine as a breach of Iran’s obligations under the 2015 nuclear deal.

The joint view comes as EU foreign affairs ministers slapped human rights sanctions on the Iranian morality police over their handling of street protests and treatment of women.

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State TV journalist who denounced Ukraine war flees Russia

Marina Ovsyannikova ‘in Europe’ after leaving country with daughter after being placed on wanted list

A former Russian state television journalist who protested against Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine during a live broadcast has fled the country after being put on a wanted list.

“[Marina] Ovsyannikova and her daughter left Russia a few hours after departing from the address where she was under house arrest. They are in Europe now,” Ovsyannikova’s lawyer, Dmitry Zakhvatov, said.

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‘Kamikaze’ drones hit Kyiv despite Putin’s claim of no further strikes

Pregnant woman and her partner killed in latest wave of drone strikes on Ukraine’s capital

Russia attacked Kyiv with nearly 30 “kamikaze” drones on Monday morning, killing four, including a pregnant woman and her partner, days after Vladimir Putin said there would be no more “massive strikes” on Ukraine.

Victoria and Bohan, both 34, were found dead after a residential building was struck in the city’s central Shevchenkiv district, a Ukrainian official said. Victoria was six months pregnant, the capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, added.

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An explosion, a burst of flames, then screams: kamikaze drones rain down on Kyiv

Indiscriminate attacks by Russia on Ukraine’s capital sow terror among civilian population

It flew like a kite propelled by a stern wind. Harmless enough to the unschooled eye. Swooping, a small triangle in the sky. Then there was the noise. Similar to a moped at first but ever more like the full-throated roar of a motorbike as the kamikaze drone swept closer into view.

It was one of an estimated 28 launched on Monday morning at targets around Kyiv’s central railway station and elsewhere in Ukraine’s capital; some people had fled at the sight of it, scattering to find cover, as the dark grey triangle swept above the high-rise apartments in the cloudless pale blue sky.

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