Ukraine accuses Russia of executing 16 PoWs on eastern front

Prosecutor general investigating drone footage apparently showing summary executions of surrendering soldiers

Authorities in Ukraine have launched an investigation into what they said was the apparent summary execution by Russian troops of 16 Ukrainian soldiers who had surrendered on the eastern frontline.

“This is the largest reported case of the execution of Ukrainian PoWs on the frontline and yet another indication that the killing and torture of prisoners of war are not isolated incidents,” Ukraine’s prosecutor general, Andriy Kostin, said on X. “This is a deliberate policy of the Russian military and political leadership.”

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Russia’s FSB protected Evil Corp gang that carried out Nato cyber-attacks

NCA says cybercriminal gang used family links to spy agency to shield members targeted by US authorities

A prolific Russian cybercriminal gang carried out attacks against Nato countries at the behest of state intelligence services and used family links with Russia’s domestic spy agency to protect its members after being targeted by US authorities, according to the UK’s National Crime Agency.

The dramatically named Evil Corp group had an unusually close relationship with the Russian state, said the NCA.

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‘Everything is dead’: Ukraine rushes to stem ecocide after river poisoning

Russia is suspected of deliberately leaking chemical waste into a river, with deadly consequences for wildlife

Serhiy Kraskov picked up a twig and poked at a small fish floating in the Desna River. “It’s a roach. It died recently. You can tell because its eyes are clear and not blurry,” he said. Hundreds of other fish had washed up nearby on the river’s green willow-fringed banks. A large pike lay in the mud. Nearby, in a patch of yellow lilies, was a motionless carp. “Everything is dead, starting from the tiniest minnow to the biggest catfish,” Kraskov added mournfully.

Kraskov is the mayor of the village of Slabyn, in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv region. The rustic settlement – population 520 – escaped the worst of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion. But the war arrived last week in a new and horrible form. Ukrainian officials say the Russians deliberately poisoned the Seym River, which flows into the Desna. The Desna connects with a reservoir in the Kyiv region and a water supply used by millions.

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Russia to raise defence budget by 25% to highest level on record

Draft documents say defence and security will make up 40% of government spending as Putin continues war against Ukraine

Russia is to increase its spending on defence by 25% to its highest on record, as Vladimir Putin vows to continue his war efforts in Ukraine and further escalate his standoff with the west.

The latest planned increase in spending will take Russia’s defence budget to a record 13.5tn rubles (£109bn) in 2025, according to draft budget documents published on Monday on the parliament’s website. That is about 3tn rubles more than was set aside for defence this year, which was the previous record.

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American man pleads guilty in Moscow court to charge of fighting for Ukraine

Stephen James Hubbard, 72, is first US citizen to be tried as a mercenary in Russia during the war with Ukraine

A US citizen has pleaded guilty in a Moscow court to charges of fighting for Ukraine, marking the first known instance of an American being tried as a mercenary in Russia.

Russian state media reported that Stephen James Hubbard, 72, of Michigan, had admitted he had received money to fight for Ukraine against Russia.

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Top Russia diplomat warns west not to fight ‘nuclear power’ in UN speech

Sergei Lavrov accuses west of using Ukraine ‘to defeat’ Russia days after Putin shifts Moscow’s nuclear posture

Russia’s top diplomat warned on Saturday against “trying to fight to victory with a nuclear power”, delivering a UN general assembly speech packed with condemnations of what Russia sees as western machinations in Ukraine and elsewhere – including inside the United Nations itself.

Three days after Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, aired a shift in his country’s nuclear doctrine, his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, accused the west of using Ukraine – which Russia invaded in February 2022 – as a tool to try “to defeat” Moscow strategically, and “preparing Europe for it to also throw itself into this suicidal escapade”.

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Russia-Ukraine war: Zelenskyy condemns Russian attack on hospital as death toll rises – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more of our Ukraine war coverage here

Russia has filed “pre-trial claims” against Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Switzerland over the Nord Stream pipeline explosions, accusing the West of trying to “sweep the matter under the carpet”, Reuters is reporting.

The multi-billion dollar pipeline that carried natural gas from Russia to Germany under the Baltic Sea was ruptured by a series of blasts in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine.

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ABC rejects Russian claim two journalists involved in ‘illegal’ border crossing

Australian broadcaster’s Europe correspondent Kathryn Diss and camera operator Fletcher Yeung accused of ‘illegally’ crossing into Russia from Ukraine on 31 August

The ABC has rejected Russian claims two of its journalists acted illegally after they entered the Ukraine-occupied Kursk region.

Europe correspondent Kathryn Diss and camera operator Fletcher Yeung are accused of “illegally” crossing into Russia from Ukraine on 31 August.

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Trump vows to resolve Ukraine-Russia war ‘very quickly’ as he meets Zelenskyy

Ex-president hails ‘very good relationship’ as Ukrainian leader says pair share ‘common view’ that Putin cannot win

Donald Trump has met Volodymyr Zelenskyy in New York in a high-stakes meeting at which the Ukrainian leader hoped to repair ties with the former US president.

The two men met at Trump Tower on Friday amid a growing feud between Zelenskyy and Republicans that Ukraine fears could sabotage further US military aid if Trump wins in November.

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Harris decries Trump’s ‘proposals of surrender’ as Zelenskyy visits White House

Democratic nominee calls Republican plan to end war between Ukraine and Russia ‘dangerous and unacceptable’

Kamala Harris, the US vice-president, has indirectly denounced the Trump campaign’s policy on ending Russia’s war against Ukraine as “proposals of surrender” as the Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Washington to present his own “victory plan”.

Addressing Zelenskyy at the White House, Harris said that “some in my country” would pressure Ukraine to accept a peace deal in which it surrendered its sovereign territory and neutrality in order to make peace with Vladimir Putin.

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White House pledges further $8bn in aid as Zelenskyy visits – as it happened

This live blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

Ukraine’s foreign minister has discussed ways to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine with his Chinese counterpart at the UN general assembly, Kyiv said on Thursday.

According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi, who had earlier met Russia’s top diplomat, told a security council session this week that diplomacy was the only solution to the war in Ukraine.

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Vladimir Putin warns west he will consider using nuclear weapons

Comments are strongest yet against allowing Ukraine to launch long-range missiles into Russian territory

Vladimir Putin has escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.

His remarks on Wednesday came during a meeting with Russia’s powerful security council where he also announced changes to the country’s nuclear doctrine.

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Zelenskyy is pitching his ‘victory plan’ on adverse terrain

Ukraine president made forceful call for ‘just peace’ at UN, but winning more US support and fending off Russia are both uphill battles

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has come to the US with a mission: to sell his vision for a Ukrainian victory despite the growing odds against Kyiv in its war with Russia.

The Ukrainan president spoke out forcefully on Tuesday and Wednesday in the security council and then at the general assembly of the United Nations, calling on other countries to back Ukraine’s proposal for a “just peace” and refrain from holding alternative talks with Vladimir Putin.

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Zelenskyy warns of Russia threat at UN as Putin steps up nuclear rhetoric

Ukrainian president urges world leaders to back peace plan in general assembly speech ahead of Biden meeting

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has told the United Nations that Russia is planning to attack Ukrainian nuclear power plants as he repeated his calls for unity from world leaders in order to force Russia to the negotiating table to conclude a “just peace”.

His comments came as Vladimir Putin on Wednesday escalated his nuclear rhetoric, telling a group of senior officials that Russia would consider using nuclear weapons if it was attacked by any state with conventional weapons.

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As it meets against backdrop of Israel’s bombing of Lebanon, is UN too broken to be fixed?

Supporters say UN mediation has prevented even worse outcomes, but security council is stuck in vicious circle

As diplomats from nearly 200 member states gather in New York this week for the United Nations general assembly against the backdrop of a massive Israeli bombing campaign in southern Lebanon, a nagging question to be addressed is whether the UN is too broken to be fixed.

UN officials are facing three intractable conflicts, in the Middle East, Ukraine and Sudan. While it remains one of the most important humanitarian organisations on Earth, organising relief efforts for refugees, natural disaster victims and others in dire need, the UN’s principal security body appears to be powerless to intervene in some of the world’s most grinding conflicts.

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Russia’s new Sarmat ballistic missile ‘blows up during test launch’

Analysis of satellite images show 60-metre crater at silo suggesting a ‘catastrophic failure’ after ignition

Russia’s Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile – known in the west as Satan II – appears to have suffered a “catastrophic failure” during a test launch, according to analysis of satellite images.

The images captured by Maxar on 21 September show a crater about 60 metres (200 feet) wide at the launch silo at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in northern Russia. They reveal extensive damage that was not visible in pictures taken earlier in the month.

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Fake UK news sites ‘spreading false stories’ about western firms in Ukraine

Suspected Russian propaganda operation prompts calls to force UK-registered news sites to reveal ownership

Fake news websites registered in the UK and made to resemble trusted British outlets are allegedly spreading disinformation about western companies operating in Ukraine.

The suspected Russian propaganda operation has prompted calls by parliamentarians for a change in the law to force UK-registered news websites to reveal their ownership, as happens in the EU.

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Putin regime will collapse without warning, says freed gulag dissident

Vladimir Kara-Murza and his wife, Evgenia, speak of his time in a Siberian jail and why the truth about Russia will come out

The last time I met Evgenia Kara-Murza, it was a grim day in early March. The timing couldn’t have been worse. As we spoke, Alexei Navalny’s coffin was being lowered into the frozen ground in a Moscow cemetery. Meanwhile Evgenia’s husband, Vladimir Kara-Murza, was still incarcerated in a Siberian prison cell almost identical to the one in the Arctic Circle in which Navalny had been found dead, presumed murdered.

The parallels were eerie. Because Vladimir, a journalist turned political activist, was not just also loathed and feared by the Kremlin and imprisoned on spurious charges, he’d also been poisoned – twice – targeted by the same FSB (Federal Security Service) unit that had poisoned Navalny.

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Ukraine strikes two Russian munition depots, says military

Overnight attacks apparently show growing capability to strike targets deep inside Russia

Ukraine said it hit two Russian munition depots overnight, in attacks that illustrated its growing capability to strike targets deep inside Russia.

A statement by Ukraine’s military general staff said the munitions depots were at Tikhoretsk in southern Russia and Oktyabrsky in the western region of Tver.

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‘Everything is left behind’: as Russians close in on Ukrainian city, families agonise whether to flee

In Pokrovsk, eastern Ukraine, residents have clung on to hope until the bitter end. Now many are saying goodbye to their homes

Valeria Tanashchuk packed up a few last belongings from her home. Going in the evacuation van waiting outside: her daughter Nicole’s favourite bear, clothes, items of furniture and a microwave oven. Staying behind: her mother Marina’s collection of detective novels, a wall poster with the Ukrainian alphabet written on it, and a pair of furry slippers.

“We don’t want to leave. But would choice do we have?” Tanashchuk asked, as a thunderous boom echoed nearby. “The explosions get worse every day. They are louder and more frequent.” What would she do next? “I don’t have a concrete plan,” she said. “I will try and find work somewhere. We had hoped until the end that everything would be OK.”

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