Closing summary
It is coming up to 9pm in Kyiv. That’s it from me, Joe Middleton, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog for today.
Here is a round-up of everything you might have missed:
The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow that its forces would be “annihilated” by the west’s military response if president Vladimir Putin used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, AFP reports. At the opening of the Diplomacy Academy in Brussels, Borrell said: “Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian army will be annihilated.” The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, also said Russia faced “severe consequences” if it launched a nuclear assault on Ukraine.
After retreating about 20km in the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely to be attempting to consolidate a new frontline west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence. Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end, where Ukrainian advances mean Russia’s flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.
The Moscow-installed head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, has urged residents to leave the area and asked Russia to help evacuate people.
Just hours later Russia confirmed it would evacuate residents from Kherson. The Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on state television: “The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country. We will provide everyone with free accommodation and everything necessary.”
Ukraine’s state emergency service said a 12-year-old boy had been rescued after hours under rubble, after rockets hit a five-story residential building in Mykolaiv.
Ukraine’s power grid has been “stabilised” after Russian strikes on the country that in particular targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said Thursday.
A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit Thursday in shelling by Kyiv’s forces, the city governor said today. Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, denied Kyiv’s military was responsible and said Russia had tried to shell Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on the border “but something went wrong”.
Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. “Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved,” the foreign ministry said.
Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting on Thursday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.
The UN general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine as 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution “condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine“ and “the attempted illegal annexation” announced last month of four regions by Russia president Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Russian television Thursday that the vote was anti-Russian and that the west had used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries in order to force them to vote. He dismissed US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine currently had only 10% of what it needed in terms of air defences.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said that Russia would run out of supplies and armaments before the west did. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west that would ensure that the international community could continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.
The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told Russian state Tass news agency in an interview on Thursday.
Updated
Daniel Boffey reports for us from Kyiv:
Moscow has announced it will evacuate Kherson after an appeal from the Russian-installed head of the region, raising fears the occupied city at the heart of the south Ukrainian oblast will become a new frontline.
Marat Khusnullin, a Russian deputy prime minister, told state television on Thursday that residents would be helped to move away from the region in south Ukraine, which remains only partly occupied by invading troops due to a successful Ukrainian counterattack in recent months.
“The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country,” Khusnullin said.
The development followed a public request on the social media platform Telegram by Volodymyr Saldo, a former mayor of the port city, who was installed in April by the Russian forces as head of the wider Kherson region.
Read more: Russia announces Kherson evacuation, raising fears city will become frontline
Updated
Simon Smith is chair of the steering committee of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, and they write for us to argue that Putin’s latest campaign stems from desperation:
The Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine over the past two days have opened a further deplorable chapter in Russia’s aggression against the country.
Yet we need to resist seeing it as a shocking new moment in Russia’s assault.
Each additional death brings new personal tragedy and heartbreak. But, in many respects, the wrecking of civilian lives and infrastructure is not new.
It’s what millions of Ukrainians have been bravely living with for months.
These strikes – and those that may well follow – are more of the same: entirely in line with the vindictiveness and indifference to civilian suffering with which Ukrainians have become familiar over eight years under Russian attack.
Read more here: First ‘Nazis’, now ‘terrorists’: Putin’s latest campaign stems from desperation
Updated
Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, has tweeted a picture and footage of 20 newly-released prisoners of war.
As we reported earlier, Ukraine and Russia said 20 soldiers on both sides had been released as part of a prisoner exchange, 40 soldiers in all.
In a follow-up post, Yermak said that 14 of the returned soldiers were from the Ukrainian armed forces, four were from the territorial defence forces, one from the national guard and one from the navy.
Another POWS swap, another moment of joy and understanding that today will be one of the best days in life for many families. We managed to liberate 20 people from captivity. These are 20 stories of 🇺🇦 heroes. pic.twitter.com/omiIIklr7Q
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) October 13, 2022
Updated
Russia to evacuate Ukrainian region of Kherson after appeal from Russian-installed governor
Russia said today it will evacuate residents from the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson after a plea from a Kremlin-backed official, AFP reports.
The Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on state television:
The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country.
We will provide everyone with free accommodation and everything necessary.
As we reported earlier Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the Kherson administration, posted a video on Telegram urging people to leave the region due to missile attacks.
He directly addressed Russian authorities and asked them to “help organise this work.”
The plea is a possible sign that Ukraine’s counteroffensive is continuing to make inroads in the south of the country.
It comes just a day after Kyiv said it had retaken five settlements in Kherson.
Kherson is one of the four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.
Updated
Young Ukrainians from Kyiv are organising “repair together” weekends to help villages devastated by Russian occupation by cleaning up and rebuilding homes for free.
Tetiana Burianova was traveling in Peru when the war broke out and rushed back to Ukraine to help out in any way she could. With her friends, she began collecting donations and organising repair events that now attract hundreds of young people from cities each weekend.
The Guardian’s Christopher Cherry reports from a liberated village where he meets locals finding it impossible to forgive a brutal occupation, and volunteers determined to build a better Ukraine amid the ruin.
Updated
Maksym Kozytsky, the head of the regional military administration in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, said today that Russia launched six rockets in the region.
He said that Ukraine’s air defence forces shot down four of them, but two of the rockets hit a target.
Kozytsky did not specify what was struck by the bombardment or if there were any casualties.
In a post on his Twitter and Telegram accounts, he said:
Today, the enemy launched 6 rockets on the territory of Lviv region. Unfortunately, there are two hits. Four rockets were shot down by soldiers of the “Zahid” PvK. Thanks to our air defence for the highly professional work.
Оновлена інформація станом на цю годину!
— Максим Козицький (@M_Kozytskyy) October 13, 2022
Сьогодні ворог випустив 6 ракет по території Львівської області. На жаль, є два попадання. Чотири ракети воїни ПвК «Захід» збили. Дякую нашій протиповітряній обороні за високопрофесійну роботу.
Updated
Russian forces will be 'annihilated' if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, says Borrell
EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow today that its forces would be “annihilated” by the west’s military response if president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, AFP reports.
At the opening of the Diplomacy Academy in Brussels, Borrell said:
Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the member states, and the United States and Nato are not bluffing neither.
Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.
Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also said Russia faces “severe consequences” if it launches a nuclear assault on Ukraine.
However the alliance has stopped short of threatening to use its nuclear arsenal to respond as non-member Ukraine is not covered by its self-defence clause.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
After retreating around 20km in the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely attempting to consolidate a new front line west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence. Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end where Ukrainian advances mean Russia’s flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.
The Moscow-installed head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, has urged residents to leave the area and asked Russia to help evacuate people.
Ukraine’s state emergency service said a 12-year-old boy has been rescued after hours under rubble after rockets hit a five-story residential building in Mykolaiv.
Ukraine‘s power grid has been “stabilised” after Russian strikes on the country that in particular targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said Thursday.
A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit Thursday in shelling by Kyiv’s forces, the city governor said today. Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, denied Kyiv’s military was responsible and said Russia had tried to shell Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on the border “but something went wrong”.
Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. “Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved,” the foreign ministry said.
Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting on Thursday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.
The United Nations general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine as 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution “condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine“ and “the attempted illegal annexation” announced last month of four regions by Russia president Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Russian television Thursday that the vote was anti-Russian and that the west had used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries in order to force them to vote. He dismissed US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine currently only has 10% of what it needs in terms of air defences.
UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that Russia will run out of supplies and armaments before the west does. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west that will ensure that the international community will be able to continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.
The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told Russian state Tass news agency in an interview on Thursday.
Ukraine and Russia say 20 soldiers on both sides have been released as part of a prisoner exchange, 40 soldiers in all, Associated Press reports.
The Russian defence ministry said:
As a result of the negotiation process on the exchange today, 20 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Kyiv regime.
Ukraine also said its 20 soldiers have been freed from captivity in Olenivka, in the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. They are now undergoing medical checkups.
The head of the Ukrainian president’s office, Andriy Yermak, vowed on Telegram:
We will bring everyone back.
Updated
Philip Oltermann reports for us in Berlin:
Europe’s largest economy is still a “teenager” when it comes to foreign security policy, the German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s chief of staff has said, asking for patience from western allies urging Germany 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.
“We are in the teenager years in that role,” he said, responding to criticism that Berlin has been slow to live up to the Zeitenwende or “epochal turn” on military and foreign policy Scholz had declared in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Read more: Germany still a ‘teenager’ on leading foreign security policy, says Scholz’s top aide
These are some of the latest images to be sent to us over the newswires from Ukraine.
Updated
Earlier we reported that Moscow had summoned the ambassadors from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Russia and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures on the Nord Stream gas pipelines [see 10.52am].
The Reuters news agency is now carrying a statement from the Danish foreign ministry which says “the Russian wish to participate in the investigation of the Nord Stream leaks has been brought up through diplomatic channels in Moscow and Copenhagen.”
However, Sweden’s foreign ministry appears to have told the media that it has not received any summons.
At the same time, the Russian president’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said, according to reports from Russian agency Interfax, that arrests have been made after an attempt to attack the TurkStream pipeline:
Some forces, Putin gave hints about the possible origin of these forces, they encroached on the TurkStream as well. Saboteurs were taken, several people were arrested. They wanted to blow it up. On our territory, on land.
The TurkStream pipeline runs from near Anapa in Krasnodar Krai to Kıyıköy in north-western Turkey. Interfax reports that earlier in October, the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said that Ukrainian authorities were trying to undermine a section of the pipeline.
Updated
Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, has posted images of a visit to the city by Harjit Sajjan, who is Canada’s minister for international development. Lviv was one of the cities whose electrical infrastructure was attacked by Russia earlier in the week.
We discussed the situation in Lviv after russia’s rocket attacks. I also told the Minister about the UNBROKEN Rehabilitation Center, where Ukrainians affected by the war can receive help today. pic.twitter.com/KpnNKFQi0s
— Андрій Садовий (@AndriySadovyi) October 13, 2022
Updated
Moscow-installed governor of Kherson urges residents to evacuate
The Moscow-installed head of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region has urged residents to leave the area and asked Russia to help evacuate people, Agence France-Presse reports.
In a video posted to Telegram, Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the Kherson administration, said:
We suggested to all people of the Kherson region to, if they wish, leave to other regions to protect themselves from missile hits.
In addressing the leadership of the country [Russia], I ask you to help organise this work.
He added:
We, the people of the Kherson region, know that Russia does not abandon its own.
Saldo said the region was being hit by an increasing amount of rocket attacks bringing “serious damage”, in signs that Ukraine’s counteroffensive was continuing to made progress.
His warning comes just a day after Kyiv said it had retaken five settlements in the Kherson region.
Kherson is one of the four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.
Russian-installed "governor" in Kherson region asks Moscow to evacuate residents to Russia out of security risks.
— Mary Ilyushina (@maryilyushina) October 13, 2022
"We know that Russia does not abandon its own," Vladimir Saldo said. Another sign that the standing of Russian forces in the region is in jeopardy.
Updated
Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting today, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.
“The topic of a Russian-Ukrainian settlement was not discussed,” RIA cited Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
Updated
A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit today in shelling by Kyiv’s forces, the city governor said today.
Agence France-Presse reports that the Belgorod regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said in a statement on Telegram:
The Ukrainian armed forces shelled Belgorod. There is damage at a residential apartment building on Gubkin street. Information about the victims is being detailed.
Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, denied Kyiv’s military was responsible and said Russia had tried to shell Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv on the border “but something went wrong”.
Gladkov added that shelling by Ukraine’s forces had landed near school grounds in a village called Krasnoye outside the main city of Belgorod, with students learning online from home.
No one was reported injured or killed.
A missile hit a residential building in Belgorod, Russian border town in the region that Moscow uses as staging ground for launching attacks into Ukraine (images from Sota Vision and Baza). No reported casualties so far. pic.twitter.com/Ol4jkTocz4
— Mary Ilyushina (@maryilyushina) October 13, 2022
Updated
Attending a Nato meeting, the UK’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said there was no risk that western allies would run out of arms supplies to aid Ukraine against Russia.
“The UK-Danish joint-led international fund is all about placing orders in a manufacturing space to make sure that we can go on between 2023, 24, and keep going on,” Wallace said today.
He added that the UK would provide Ukraine with air defence systems that would complement US-provided systems.
Ukraine faced a barrage of missile strikes earlier this week, damaging civilian infrastructure and knocking out electricity supplies in some cities
Updated
Ukraine's power grid 'stable' after Russian air strikes
AFP reports that Ukraine‘s power grid has been “stabilised” after Russian strikes on the country that in particular targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said today.
The head of Ukrenergo, Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, said on Facebook:
The introduction of scheduled emergency blackouts is currently not being planned ... This became possible, first of all, thanks to the fact that Ukrenergo and Oblenergo experts stabilised the energy supply in all regions of Ukraine.
We withstood what was probably the largest missile attack on energy infrastructure in history.
Whether there will be [supply] restrictions in the future depends primarily on whether there will be new shelling and destruction.
Russia has blitzed Ukraine with missiles this week, in attacks that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said were retaliation for a deadly explosion at a Crimea bridge.
As we previously reported, Ukrainian officials said that 40 towns and cities in the country had been targeted by Russian forces in the past 24 hours.
Updated
As well as Putin’s idea for a gas hub, detailed in the post below this one, the Russian president and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, also discussed nuclear power.
Meeting Putin at the start of a regional summit in Kazakhstan, Erdoğan mentioned Russia’s construction of Turkey’s first nuclear power plant, which Ankara hopes to open next year, AFP reports.
Erdoğan raised the idea of Russia building a second nuclear power plant in northern Turkey.
The Turkish president also defended Ankara’s booming trade ties with Moscow.
The US and the EU are piling pressure on Turkey to comply with sanctions they imposed on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.
But Erdoğan has refused, offering the Nato member Turkey as a neutral venue for possible truce talks, and approving a range of agreements that have seen the value of exports to Russia more than double in recent months.
Updated
Putin proposes 'gas hub' in Turkey during talks with Erdoğan
Russian president Vladimir Putin floated the idea of a major gas hub in Turkey during talks with his counterpart Recep Tayip Erdoğan today.
Putin told Erdoğan at a meeting in Kazakhstan:
Turkey has turned out to be the most reliable route for deliveries today, even to Europe. We could consider the possibility of creating a gas hub in Turkey for supplies to other countries.
The Russian president added:
In the course of the work of this hub, which we could create together, of course, it would also be a platform not only for supplies, but also for determining the price, because this is a very important issue - the issue of pricing.
Today, these prices are sky-high; we could easily regulate at a normal market level, without any political overtones.
Putin suggested on Wednesday that Russia could create a major gas hub in Turkey by redirecting supplies intended for the damaged Nord Stream undersea pipelines, reports Reuters.
Swedish and Danish authorities are investigating the blasts as acts of sabotage but have not yet said who they believe was responsible.
In the televised exchange between the two leaders, Erdoğan did not comment on the gas hub idea.
Updated
This graphic shows the location of the Russian missiles that struck 40 Ukrainian towns and cities today, according to officials.
Ukraine‘s Armed Forces General Staff said that in the past 24 hours more than 40 settlements were hit by Russian shelling.
In response Ukraine‘s air force carried out 32 strikes on 25 Russian targets.
The mayor of the port city of Mykolaiv, Oleksandr Senkevich, said in a social media post that the southern city was “massively shelled”, reports Reuters.
Updated
Young Ukrainians from Kyiv are organising ‘Repair Together’ weekends to help poor villages devastated by Russian occupation by cleaning up and rebuilding homes for free.
Tetiana Burianova was traveling in Peru when war broke out, and rushed back to Ukraine to help out in any way she could. With her friends, she began collecting donations and organising repair events that now attract hundreds of young people from cities each weekend.
The Guardian’s Christopher Cherry reports from a liberated village where he meets locals finding it impossible to forgive a brutal occupation, and volunteers determined to build a better Ukraine amid the ruin.
Estonia has confirmed a new military aid package for Ukraine that will include winter gear, equipment and ammunition.
Prime minister Kaja Kallas confirmed the additional support in a tweet today.
Kallas added:
Let us all speed up our help, so Ukrainians can free their territories. This is the way to peace.
Estonia, who share a border with Russia, have already provided Kyiv with more than €220 million (£192,479,486) in military assistance and have called for richer Western nations to increase weapons supplies to the country.
Estonia just approved a new military aid package to #Ukraine.
— Kaja Kallas (@kajakallas) October 13, 2022
We are sending winter gear, equipment and ammunition to Ukraine. We will deliver them fast.
Let us all speed up our help, so Ukrainians can free their territories. This is the way to peace. #StandWithUkraine
Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan begin talks in Kazakhstan
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have started talks in Astana, Kazakhstan.
The duo are in the country for the the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia.
The meeting is taking place on the sidelines of the regional summit, and the Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov previously suggested the Erdoğan could propose ideas for peace.
Updated
Philip Oltermann reports for us from Berlin:
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has accused Vladimir Putin of waging “a crusade against our way of life”, in a shift of rhetoric days after heavy Russian missile strikes hit major Ukrainian cities.
“They consider their war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade,” Scholz said in a video address to a summit of European socialist, liberal and green politicians and thinkers in Berlin.
“A crusade against liberal democracy, a crusade against the rules-based international order, a crusade against freedom and progress, a crusade against our way of life,” he added.
Read more: Putin’s war on Ukraine part of crusade against liberal democracy, says Scholz
Summary of the day so far …
Ukraine’s state emergency service has said it is actively searching for people trapped under rubble after a Russian strike on Mykolaiv. In a statement on Thursday, it said: “Rockets hit a five-storey residential building. As a result, the two upper floors were completely destroyed, the rest – under rubble.” A 12-year-old boy has been rescued from the site but there are thought to be at least seven others trapped.
After retreating around 20km to the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely to be attempting to consolidate a new frontline west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence. Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end where Ukrainian advances mean Russia’s flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.
Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. “Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved,” the foreign ministry said.
The UN general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine, as 35 countries abstained, including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution “condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine” and “the attempted illegal annexation” announced last month of four regions by Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Russian television on Thursday that the vote was anti-Russian and the west had used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries to force them to vote. He dismissed US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine had only 10% of what it needed in terms of air defences.
The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said Russia would run out of supplies and armaments before the west. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west to ensure the international community would be able to continue arming Ukraine for years to come.
The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told Tass, the Russian state news agency, in an interview on Thursday.
Turkey’s aim is to stop the bloodshed in the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible despite hurdles, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told a regional summit in Kazakhstan.
The German chancellor, Olaf Scholz, said on Thursday the war in Ukraine was part of a broader movement against the west by Russia. He said: “Vladimir Putin and his enablers have made one thing very clear: this war is not only about Ukraine. They consider their war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy.”
The Russian state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that officials at Russia’s nuclear power station operator Rosenergoatom have begun the process of transitioning the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) to Russian processes, in particular “the storage system for spent fuel of the Russian Federation”.
That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Joe Middleton will be here shortly.
Updated
Russia summons diplomats over Nord Stream investigation snub
Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines.
“Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved,” Reuters reports the foreign ministry said.
European nations have suggested the only possible cause of the ruptures to the pipelines was sabotage, with only a limited number of state actors suspected of being capable of such an operation.
Two quotes this morning underscore the diplomatic gulf between the rhetoric of western leaders and Russia.
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has this morning said the war in Ukraine is part of a broader movement against the west by Russia. Reuters quotes him saying: “Vladimir Putin and his enablers have made one thing very clear: this war is not only about Ukraine. They consider their war against Ukraine to be part of a larger crusade, a crusade against liberal democracy.”
Meanwhile, Tass news agency is reporting the words of Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov. He has told Russian television that the west used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries so an anti-Russian resolution on “referendums” in the occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions was adopted at the session of the UN general assembly.
Tass report Lavrov also said that US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote were false.
Updated
Here is the clip of the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, explaining that procurement processes are in place among allies in the west that he says will ensure that the international community will be able to continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.
The UK’s Ministry of Defence has issued its latest situation map of how it sees developments on the ground in Ukraine.
The illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is continuing.
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 13, 2022
The map below is the latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 13 October 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/YE37FZXAEP
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/b4nbEi93BH
Updated
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Ukraine has only 10% of what it needs in terms of air defences.
The president was speaking in a question and answer session with the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, Reuters has reported.
Zelenskiy also said diplomacy was not possible with leaders who did not respect international law.
Updated
Oleksandr Starukh, Ukraine’s governor of the Zaporizhzhia region, has posted to Telegram to report that the city of Orikhiv has been targeted, killing one person. He writes:
The city of Orikhiv is once again the target of the enemy. The occupier destroyed residential buildings along the central street and in a residential neighbourhood with a massive, multi-hour shelling of a small, peaceful town. The enemy took the life of a resident of the village. In addition, we have 9 wounded from Orikhov and 1 from Preobrazhenka, 3 more in Stepnohirsk. Other objects of civil infrastructure and utility networks, homes in which people invested their whole lives were destroyed. We will rebuild everything as soon as we knock out the enemy from our land, but the main thing is to save human life.
Zaporizhzhia is one of the four occupied regions of Ukraine that the Russian Federation has claimed to annex, despite not being fully in control of the territory.
The British defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has said there “isn’t a risk” of the western supply of arms to Ukraine running out before Russia’s supplies are exhausted.
He told Deborah Haynes, the defence and security correspondent of Sky News:
There isn’t a risk because unlike Russia, who has already isolated itself and we saw that yesterday at the United Nations vote, they need a supply chain. Large parts of the supply chain were not in Russia. They came from all over the world, including in Europe, including indeed even in Ukraine, some of their supply chain was in Ukraine.
We have the ability to refurbish or indeed manufacture a new supply chain which is what we are doing right now. The UK-Danish joint-led international fund is all about placing orders in a manufacturing space to make sure we can go on in 2023, 2024 and keep going on.
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The state emergency service of Ukraine has issued this image of the target of a strike in Mykolaiv.
In the UK, the foreign secretary James Cleverly has been doing the morning media round. So far his interviews have entirely been dominated by domestic issues. However, on Sky News he did mention the vote in the UN, telling viewers that domestic problems were being “amplified by Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.”
He went on to say:
We need to help Ukrainians defend their country. We saw in the vote in the United Nations last night, we’ve got an international coalition of condemnation against Russia in support of Ukraine.
The Russian state-owned Tass news agency is reporting that officials at Russia’s nuclear power station operator Rosenergoatom have begun the process of transitioning the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) to Russian processes, in particular “the storage system for spent fuel of the Russian Federation”.
It quotes Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of Rosenergoatom, saying: “The process of switching to the Russian system has already been launched.”
He added: “This implies a number of points, starting with documents, regulations and so on. It is clear that there will be a transitional period for each component.
“While we are immersing ourselves in the process, we are simultaneously analysing all the processes and developing specific solutions, including those related to the storage of all nuclear materials.”
Yesterday, Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, described the situation at the ZNPP as “deeply worrying” after the plant again lost external power due to Russian military action cutting supplies. Energoatom, the Ukrainian operator of the plant, also accused the Russian forces occupying it of blocking attempts to refuel the site’s diesel generators.
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The governor of Lviv, Maksym Kozytskyi, has said that “the day in our region passed without worries” in his latest update. He stated that 301 people arrived in the region on evacuation trains from the east of Ukraine, and that 547 travelled from Lviv oblast to Przemyśl in Poland on evacuation trains.
Rodion Miroshnik, the self-styled ambassador to Russia of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), has criticised the vote at the UN, saying developing nations had been forced to vote “at the point of an American gun”.
He posted to Telegram:
Yesterday’s vote at the special session of the UN General Assembly is a demonstration of the US’s ability to put pressure on and twist the arms of developing countries. The “scoreboard” only demonstrates who is not yet ready to resist American blackmail, and who they have not found leverage against. It has nothing to do with the true will of states and their peoples.
But even with such a vote “at the point of an American gun,” countries with a population of half the world either voted against or abstained from voting for the American-Albanian resolution condemning Russia’s actions to recognise referendums in the LPR, Donetsk People’s Republic, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The Russian Federation has announced that the occupied Ukrainian region of Luhansk is to be annexed, after staging widely-derided “referendums” in four regions. The LPR is only recognised as a legitimate authority by three UN member states: Russia, Syria and North Korea.
Ukraine’s state emergency service has said it is actively searching for people trapped under rubble after a Russian strike on Mykolaiv. In a message on Telegram, the service said:
One of the rockets hit a five-story residential building in one of the districts of the city. As a result, the two upper floors were completely destroyed, the rest – under rubble.
As of 8am, rescuers unblocked a twelve-year-old boy from under the rubble, who was handed over to doctors.
According to preliminary information, there may be seven residents of the five-story building under the ruins of the building, with whom there is currently no communication. Rescuers are searching for them and analysing the destroyed structures.
To provide assistance to the local population, volunteers of the Red Cross Society of Ukraine are working on the spot, emergency medical teams, law enforcement officers and emergency teams of the city are involved.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can reach me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
Turkey’s aim is to stop the bloodshed in the Russia-Ukraine war as soon as possible despite hurdles, the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told a regional summit in Kazakhstan.
LIVE - Turkiye’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks at the 6th CICA summit in Kazakhstan’s Astana https://t.co/jUKu8HMR6S
— ANADOLU AGENCY (@anadoluagency) October 13, 2022
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The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told the Russian state Tass news agency in an interview on Thursday.
Tass cited Venediktov as saying:
Kyiv is well aware that such a step would mean a guaranteed escalation to a World War Three.
Apparently, that’s what they are counting on - to create informational noise and draw attention to themselves once again.”
Venediktov also repeated a Russian position that the west, by helping Ukraine, indicated that “they are a direct party to the conflict”.
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Russian forces attempting new front line after Kherson retreat, says UK MoD
After retreating around 20km in the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely attempting to consolidate a new front line west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence.
Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end where Ukrainian advances mean Russia’s flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.
“In recent days, the Russian occupation authorities have likely ordered preparation for the evacuation of some civilians from Kherson,” the report adds. “It is likely that they anticipate combat extending to the city of Kherson itself.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 13 October 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 13, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/FZVE8WGrqG
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/Z7N8K3PYkA
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Recently released satellite images show a close view of traffic and bridge repair work on the collapsed part of the Kerch bridge in Crimea.
The images made available by Maxar Technologies are dated 12 October.
An explosion on Saturday partially destroyed the strategic key bridge, built specifically on Putin’s orders and linking Crimea to Russia. Ukraine has not directly claimed responsibility for the attack.
Kyiv's allies commit to more military aid
Dozens of Ukraine’s allies have pledged to send more military aid to Ukraine after more than 50 western countries met In Brussels on Wednesday.
Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, lauded the arrival of the first of four Iris-T defence systems from Germany and an “expedited” delivery of the sophisticated national advanced surface-to-air missile systems (Nasams) from the US.
“A new era of air defence has begun in Ukraine,” Reznikov tweeted. “Iris-Ts from Germany are already here. Nasams are coming. This is only the beginning. And we need more.”
The UK has said it will donate cutting edge air defence weaponry, capable of shooting down cruise missiles
It did not say how many of the Amraam rockets would be sent to Ukraine, but said they would be used with Nasams.
Ben Wallace, the UK defence secretary, said: “Russia’s latest indiscriminate strikes on civilian areas in Ukraine warrant further support to those seeking to defend their nation. So today I have authorised the supply of Amraam anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine. These weapons will help Ukraine defend its skies from attacks and strengthen their overall missile defence alongside the US Nasams.”
France has also promised radar and air defence systems in the coming weeks while Canada said it would provide artillery rounds and winter clothing.
The Dutch defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, wrote in a letter to parliament that her government would be donating €15m (£13m) worth of air defences to Ukraine.
World leaders respond to UN vote
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.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he was “grateful to 143 states that supported the historic UNGA [United Nations general assembly] resolution”, tweeting: “The world had its say – [Russia’s] attempt at annexation is worthless and will never be recognised by free nations.”
US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the vote showed international unity against Russia and repeated that Washington would never recognise the “sham” referendums.
The vote “is a powerful reminder that the overwhelming majority of nations stand with Ukraine, in defence of the UN Charter and in resolute opposition to Russia’s ongoing war against Ukraine and its people,” he said in a statement.
Before the vote, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, said: “Today it is Russia invading Ukraine. But tomorrow it could be another nation whose territory is violated. It could be you. You could be next. What would you expect from this chamber?”
UN general assembly condemns Russia annexations in Ukraine
The United Nations general assembly has overwhelmingly condemned Russia’s “attempted illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian regions, demanding that Moscow reverse course.
Three-quarters of the 193-member general assembly – or 143 countries – voted on Wednesday in favour of a resolution that called Moscow’s move illegal, deepening Russia’s international isolation.
Only four countries joined Russia in voting against the resolution – Syria, Nicaragua, North Korea and Belarus. Thirty-five countries abstained, including Russia’s strategic partner China, together with India, South Africa and Pakistan. The rest did not vote.
In favour: 143
— United Nations (@UN) October 12, 2022
Against: 5
Abstentions: 35
UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopts resolution calling on countries to reject Russia's attempted annexation of four regions of Ukraine following disputed referendums held late last month. https://t.co/NJO3O1plD1 pic.twitter.com/rCcZ9PyfgL
The resolution adopted on Wednesday declares that Moscow’s actions violate Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, are “inconsistent” with the principles of the UN charter, and “have no validity under international law and do not form the basis for any alteration of the status of these regions of Ukraine.”
It demands that Russia “immediately, completely and unconditionally withdraw all of its military forces from the territory of Ukraine within its internationally recognised borders.”
It also supports “the de-escalation of the current situation and a peaceful resolution of the conflict through political dialogue, negotiation, mediation and other peaceful means” that respect Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and internationally recognised borders.
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Putin to meet Erdoğan to possibly discuss peace options
Russian president Vladimir Putin is set to meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of a regional summit in Kazakhstan later today.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the Turkish president may propose ideas for peace, hinting that “a very interesting and, I hope, useful discussion awaits us” while speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
Now many say that the Turks are ready to come up with other initiatives in the context of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.
There are reports in the press that the Turkish side is putting forward specific considerations in this regard, I do not exclude that Erdogan will actively touch on this topic during the Astana contact. So a very interesting and, I hope, useful discussion awaits us.”
Mykolaiv hit by overnight missile attack, mayor says
As we await more details on the reported drone strike on Kyiv region this morning, the southern city of Mykolaiv has also reported being hit by a barrage of missiles overnight.
“A five-storey residential building was hit, the two upper floors were completely destroyed, the rest – under rubble. Rescuers are working on the site,” mayor Oleksandr Senkevich said in a Telegram post just before 4am local time, adding the southern city was “massively shelled”.
After the first night, Mykolaiv was massively shelled. A five-story residential building was hit. The two upper floors were completely destroyed, the rest - under rubble. Rescuers are working on the spot.”
Kyiv region hit by kamikaze drones - reports
Russian forces have reportedly struck the Kyiv region with kamikaze drones, according to local officials and media reports.
Kyiv regional governor, Oleksiy Kuleba, issued an update via his official Telegram channel just after 6am local time, saying:
We have attacks on one of the communities of the region. Previously - an attack of kamikaze drones. Rescuers are already working.”
Kuleba urged residents to stay in shelters.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of president Zelenskiy’s office, also reported that critical infrastructure facilities were hit by drone strikes in the region.
Another attack by kamikaze drones on critical infrastructure facilities.”
⚡️ Russian forces strike Kyiv Oblast with kamikaze drones.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) October 13, 2022
Kyiv Oblast Governor Oleksiy Kuleba reported early on Oct. 13 that Russian forces targeted one of the communities in Kyiv Oblast with kamikaze drones.
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Summary and welcome
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I will be bringing you all the latest developments for the next few hours.
Russian president Vladimir Putin is set to meet his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on the sidelines of a regional summit in Kazakhstan later today.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the Turkish president may propose ideas for peace, hinting that “a very interesting and, I hope, useful discussion awaits us” while speaking to reporters on Wednesday.
We are also receiving reports that the Kyiv region has been hit by drone strikes early this morning with Zelenskiy’s office reporting critical infrastructure facilities being struck.
Here’s a rundown of all the latest major developments over the past 24 hours.
The United Nations general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russia’s annexation of parts of Ukraine as 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution “condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine“ and “the attempted illegal annexation” announced last month of four regions by Russia president Vladimir Putin.
A Russian nuclear strike would “almost certainly” trigger a “physical response” from Ukraine’s allies and potentially from Nato, a senior Nato official has said. Any use of nuclear weapons by Moscow would have “unprecedented consequences” for Russia, the official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
The US will need to deter two major nuclear weapons powers for the first time, the Biden administration has warned. Washington’s new national security strategy (NSS) depicts China as the most capable long-term competitor, but Russia as the more immediate, disruptive threat, pointing to its nuclear posturing over Ukraine. “Russia’s conventional military will have been weakened, which will likely increase Moscow’s reliance on nuclear weapons in its military planning,” the strategy blueprint reads.
Putin will meet Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in what is likely to be a “very interesting” meeting in Kazakhstan on Thursday, where the Turkish leader may propose ideas for peace in Ukraine, the Kremlin has said.
Ukraine’s army boasted of territorial gains near the strategically vital southern city of Kherson on Wednesday. Five settlements in the Beryslav district in the north-east of the Kherson region – Novovasylivka, Novogrygorivka, Nova Kamyanka, Tryfonivka, Chervone – were said to have been taken from Russian forces over the day.
Nato allies delivered new air defence systems in the wake of Russia’s recent missile attacks across the country. Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, lauded the arrival of the first of four Iris-T defence systems from Germany and an “expedited” delivery of sophisticated National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (Nasams) from the US. France has promised radar and air defence systems in the coming weeks while Canada said it would provide artillery rounds and winter clothing and Britain pledged to donate Amraam anti-aircraft missiles capable of shooting down cruise missiles.
External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Rafael Grossi had warned earlier that the loss of off-site power at the facility, Europe’s largest, was “deeply worrying”.
Ukrainians are being reduce their electricity consumption during peak hours to avoid blackouts. Prime minister Denys Shmyhal appealed to citizens and businesses to reduce power consumption from 5pm to 10pm by 25%. “This is a necessity and this is our contribution to the victory. After all, it depends on each of us how we will get through this winter,” he said.
The European Commission will next week present plans to mitigate soaring energy costs. Energy commissioner Kadri Simson told reporters on Wednesday that the commission would bring forward a proposal that includes joint gas purchases by 2023. By harnessing the bloc’s collective purchasing power, she said, the EU could “avoid member states outbidding each other on the market” and thus “driving up” prices.
Putin says Russia is ready to resume gas supplies via one link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that remains operational. The ball was in the EU’s court on whether it wanted gas supplied via the pipeline, Putin said in an address to the Russian Energy Week international forum.
The head of the Russian state-owned gas monopoly supplier, Gazprom, has warned Europe of the consequences of renouncing Russian gas. There is “no guarantee” that Europe would survive winter based on its current gas storage capacity, Alexei Miller said, adding that gas in Germany’s underground storage would be enough for between two- and two-and-a-half months.
