Closing summary
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said that Russia would be successful in Ukraine unless the US’s support for Kyiv continued. “I can guarantee that without our support Putin will be successful,” Austin said during a Senate hearing on President Joe Biden’s request for $106bn to fund plans for Ukraine, Israel and American border security.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he was certain that Sweden would join the defence alliance but declined to predict an exact time for when this would happen, Reuters reported.
Two Russian soldiers have been arrested on suspicion of killing a family of nine, including two young children, in their home in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Volnovakha.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained an accomplice in the attempted killing of former Ukrainian politician and pro-Russian politician and businessman Oleg Tsaryov, Russian state news agencies reported.
The UN human rights office has found “reasonable grounds” to conclude a missile strike that killed 59 people in a cafe in the Ukrainian village of Hroza was launched by Russia’s armed forces, the office said.
Police in France have detained the Russian tycoon Alexey Kuzmichev and raided two of his properties in connection with alleged tax evasion, money laundering and sanctions violations.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said he has spoken with Bulgaria’s prime minister, Nikolai Denkov, on ways to bolster Black Sea security “in the face of Russian militarisation and threats to freedom of navigation”.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, he said:
The Ukrainian-Bulgarian partnership is getting stronger and this is exactly the kind of Black Sea unity that allows us to counter Russian aggression, strengthen global food security, advance Ukraine’s EU integration, and support the peace formula.
I spoke with Bulgarian Prime Minister Nikolai Denkov on ways to further strengthen Black Sea security in the face of Russian militarization and threats to freedom of navigation.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 31, 2023
Ukraine strengthens global food security with the alternative Black Sea export corridor. I appreciate… pic.twitter.com/1vMWCnkoaH
My colleague Pjotr Sauer has written about the two Russian soldiers who have been arrested on suspicion of killing a family of nine, including two young children, in their home in the Russian-occupied eastern Ukrainian town of Volnovakha (see earlier post at 11.56).
You can read the full story here:
A UN humanitarian official has urged the UN security council to “not lose focus” on Ukraine.
“While much international attention is rightly concentrated on the grave events in the Middle East, it is important that we do not lose focus on other crises,” Ramesh Rajasingham, director of coordination for the UN’s humanitarian office, OCHA, said.
Speaking to the UN security council, Rajasingham said the humanitarian situation in Ukraine remained dire, especially in the face of “relentless attacks on civilians”, AFP reports.
“Significant damage and destruction of critical infrastructure continues to severely impact access of the civilian population to electricity, heating, water and telecommunications,” he added.
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US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the Biden administration wanted Ukraine to continue operations through the winter, but Kyiv could not do that if they were forced to pause because of a lack of US support (see earlier post at 15.44 more details).
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Serhiy Lysak, the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, has said that “three communities” within the Nikopol region have come under attack from Russian forces.
He posted on Telegram on Tuesday to say that during the day there were four artillery strikes and two kamikaze drone attacks. “The main thing is that people survived,” he said.
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Russia said three captured Ukrainian soldiers had been sentenced to life imprisonment on a range of crimes including murder and the “cruel treatment” of civilians, AFP reports.
The three soldiers were found guilty of the “cruel treatment of civilians”, the “use of prohibited methods in an armed conflict” and “murder and attempted murder”, according to Russia’s investigative committee.
Moscow has repeatedly handed captured Ukrainian soldiers long prison terms in court proceedings that Kyiv does not recognise on territory that Russia has seized.
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Russia will succeed in Ukraine unless American support continues, warns US defence secretary
The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, has said that Russia would be successful in Ukraine unless the US’s support for Kyiv continued, Reuters reports.
“I can guarantee that without our support Putin will be successful,” Austin said during a Senate hearing on President Joe Biden’s request for $106bn to fund plans for Ukraine, Israel and American border security.
“If we pull the rug out from under them now, Putin will only get stronger and he will be successful in doing what he wants to do,” Austin added, sitting next to US secretary of state, Antony Blinken.
Mitch McConnell has offered a strong endorsement of the White House’s $106bn aid proposal to Israel and Ukraine, saying he and the president were essentially “in the same place” on the issue.
McConnell, the powerful Republican leader in the Senate, has rebuffed some of his GOP colleagues in the Senate who have called for a package separating assistance for the two countries, saying it would be “a mistake”.
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Nato chief certain that Sweden will become member of alliance
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said he was certain that Sweden would join the defence alliance but declined to predict an exact time for when this would happen, Reuters reports.
Earlier this month, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, removed one of the final hurdles blocking Sweden from joining Nato by submitting a bill approving membership to parliament for ratification.
The move was in line with a commitment Erdoğan made to Nato at its summit in July when he said he would send the bill to parliament for ratification when parliament restarted in October.
The Turkish leader has previously demanded that Sweden tighten up on the extradition of Kurdish asylum seekers living in Sweden.
Turkish officials have also previously said the steps Sweden had taken to clamp down on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party militia were insufficient.
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The big international companies that have exited Russia or wound down their operations there since the invasion of Ukraine include Starbucks, McDonald’s, Shell, BP and Carlsberg. The Danish brewer said it had found a buyer for its Russian subsidiary, Baltika, in June but Vladimir Putin then ordered the temporary seizure of the stake.
Carlsberg’s new chief executive said on Tuesday that it would not enter any deal with Moscow that would make the seizure of the assets look legitimate.
“There is no way around the fact that they have stolen our business in Russia, and we are not going to help them make that look legitimate,” said Jacob Aarup-Andersen, who took over as Carlsberg’s CEO in September.
You can read more about how Russia is dealing with western companies from my colleague, Julia Kollewe, here:
Two of President Joe Biden’s top advisers asked US lawmakers to provide billions more dollars to Israel on Tuesday at a congressional hearing interrupted repeatedly by protesters denouncing American officials for backing “genocide” against Palestinians in Gaza.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin testified to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Biden’s request for $106 billion to fund ambitious plans for Ukraine, Israel and U.S. border security.
Arguing that supporting U.S. partners is vital to national security, Biden requested $61.4 bn for Ukraine, about half of which would be spent in the United States to replenish weapons stocks drained by previous support for Kyiv.
Blinken said U.S. support for Ukraine has made Russia’s invasion “a strategic debacle”.
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Police in France have detained the Russian tycoon Alexey Kuzmichev and raided two of his properties in connection with alleged tax evasion, money laundering and sanctions violations.
Kuzmichev, one of the founders of Russia’s Alfa Bank, was sanctioned by the EU shortly after the start of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine for his “well-established ties to the Russian president”.
Read Pjotr’s full report here:
Updated
Here are some of the latest images coming out from the newswires:
Ukraine’s state budget received about $2.8bn in October from its international partners, namely the US and EU, the ministry of finance has announced, the Kyiv Independent reports.
Here is some more information from the office of the UN high commissioner for human rights (OHCHR) report, in which the UN human rights office said it had found “reasonable grounds” to conclude a missile strike that killed 59 people in Hroza was launched by Russia (see earlier post at 11.01).
The OHCHR report said:
Russian armed forces either failed to do everything feasible to verify that the target to be attacked was a military objective, rather than civilians or civilian objects, or deliberately targeted civilians or civilian objects.
Either scenario would be in violation of international humanitarian law.
The report said the weapon likely used in the attack, the Iskander missile, is in the arsenal of the Russian armed forces but not in that of Ukraine.
“We urge the Russian Federation to conduct a full and transparent investigation to hold those responsible to account and to take measures to prevent similar attacks from happening in the future,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, said.
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Key event
The UK’s Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it is almost certain that repelling Ukrainian attacks across the Dnipro and holding territory in the occupied Kherson region remains a “high priority objective” for Russia.
The MoD also said the deputy commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, Col Gen Mikhail Teplinsky, has likely personally taken over command of Russia’s Dnipro grouping of forces, replacing Col Gen Oleg Makarevich.
Posting to X, formerly Twitter, the MoD wrote in its latest intelligence update:
The force is responsible for the occupied areas of Kherson oblast, including the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.
Fighting has intensified in this area in recent weeks as Ukrainian forces have contested Russian control of the river’s eastern bank.
Teplinsky is likely held in high regard by the Russian General Staff and has experience commanding operations in the area: he was the officer on the ground in charge of Russia’s relatively successful withdrawal from west of the Dnipro in November 2022…
Teplinsky’s appointment is likely an indication of increased pressure on Russian forces defending the area.
Reuters has more details on the reported detention of a suspected accomplice in the attempted killing of former Ukrainian politician Oleg Tsaryov (see earlier post at 11.46).
The FSB said the suspect, a 46-year-old Russian resident of Yalta in Crimea, had confessed to organising surveillance of Tsaryov, who also lives in the town, at the behest of the Security Service of Ukraine, and to leaving a cache of weapons for use in the assassination attempt last week.
Tsaryov was shot twice around midnight on the night of 26 October in Yalta, on the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The FSB said his current condition was “satisfactory” and that his family had been given additional security provisions, the Russian state news agency Tass reported. These claims have not yet been independently verified.
Updated
Russia detains two soldiers suspected of killing family of nine in eastern Ukraine
Russian investigators in part of eastern Ukraine controlled by Moscow said they have detained two soldiers on suspicion of killing a family of nine people, including two children, Reuters reports.
The statement said the soldiers were from a region in Russia’s far east and that the reason for the murders appeared to be some kind of personal conflict.
The killings took place in Volnovakha, an industrial town between Donetsk and Melitopol.
Russian media reported that machine guns with silencers were used to kill the family at night. Ukraine’s prosecutor’s office said in a statement that it had also begun investigating the crime.
Updated
Russia arrests suspected accomplice in hit on pro-Moscow former Ukrainian politician - reports
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) has detained an accomplice in the attempted killing of former Ukrainian politician and pro-Russian politician and businessman Oleg Tsaryov, Russian state news agencies have reported.
The FSB said evidence had been obtained about the involvement of Ukrainian special services in the attempted assassination, according to Reuters.
Tsaryov served as a member of Ukraine’s Verkhovna Rada parliament from 2002 to 2014, when he switched sides to support the Russian proxy forces seeking to secede from Ukraine.
In 2014 he became the speaker of the parliament of “Novorossiya,” a short-lived confederation of the Donetsk and Luhansk separatist governments that had been endorsed by the Kremlin and openly sought an annexation into Russia.
Updated
The Russian government has tightened restrictions on foreign companies trying to sell their Russian subsidiaries, placing de facto caps and deadlines on transactions, the Financial Times has reported.
Hundreds of western companies have left Russia since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, with many taking steep discounts or writing-off assets entirely.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday:
Russia remains a country that is open for foreign investment … Russia is ready to create comfortable conditions for foreign companies working here.
But taking into account the quasi-war that the collective West is waging with Russia, including an economic war, a special regime applies to those western companies that are leaving under pressure from their governments.
A special Russian government commission must approve all large-scale deals involving companies from countries it labels “unfriendly” – those that have hit Moscow with sanctions, AFP reports.
Vladimir Putin must personally approve deals in the sensitive energy and finance sectors, and departing companies must sell at a mandatory 50% discount and pay an exit tax worth 15% of the company’s market value.
Updated
Summary of the day so far...
The UN human rights office has found “reasonable grounds” to conclude a missile strike that killed 59 people in a cafe in the Ukrainian village of Hroza was launched by Russia’s armed forces, the office has said.
Vladimir Putin and top government and security officials have discussed strengthening measures to counter external interference after a weekend riot in Dagestan that targeted airline passengers from Israel, the Kremlin said.
Russia will be able to defend the rights of Russian businessman Alexey Kuzmichev, who has been detained in France, once Paris provides detailed information about his case, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.
US defence secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken will appear before a US Senate hearing on Tuesday to argue in favour of Joe Biden’s $105bn emergency aid request for Israel and Ukraine.
Updated
UN human rights group believes missile strike that killed 59 in Hroza launched by Russia
The United Nations human rights office has found “reasonable grounds” to conclude a missile strike that killed 59 people in a cafe in the Ukrainian village of Hroza was launched by Russia’s armed forces, the office said on Tuesday.
“Today, we are publishing a report into the events of Oct. 5 that concludes there are reasonable grounds to believe that the missile was launched by Russian armed forces,” Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights, told reporters in Geneva.
She added that “there was no indication of military personnel or any other legitimate military targets at or adjacent to the cafe at the time of the attack.”
Ukraine said a Russian missile hit a cafe in the village in the Kharkiv region this month as people gathered to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier. Moscow denies targeting civilians in its invasion, a position it repeated in relation to the strike on Hroza.
Updated
Kremlin strengthening security following Dagestan riot, which it blames on Ukraine
Russian president Vladimir Putin and top government and security officials on Monday discussed strengthening measures to counter external interference after a weekend riot in Dagestan that targeted airline passengers from Israel, the Kremlin said.
In a statement at the start of Monday’s meeting of members of his Security Council, the government and the heads of law enforcement agencies, Putin accused the west and Ukraine of stirring up unrest inside Russia after rioters in the predominantly Muslim Dagestan region stormed an airport to “catch” Jewish passengers on a flight from Tel Aviv.
He also accused the west and the ruling elite in the U.S. of being responsible for the crisis in the Middle East and said that Russia was fighting the same shadowy forces on the battlefields of Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Monday’s meeting had discussed “strengthening measures to counteract that same outside interference, including external information manipulations that can provoke the situation in our country, exploiting the theme of the same events in the Middle East”.
Kyiv denied any involvement in the events in Makhachkala, which Peskov said Moscow was analysing to minimise the risk of a repeat.
Updated
Russia will defend sanctioned oligarch detained in France, Kremlin says
Russia will be able to defend the rights of Russian businessman Alexey Kuzmichev, who has been detained in France, once Paris provides detailed information about his case, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday.
Kuzmichev is being questioned in France in connection with alleged tax evasion, money laundering and breaches of international sanctions, the French financial prosecutors office said. Kuzmichev used to be one of the main shareholders of Russia’s Alfa Bank.
Kuzmichev is one of the few sanctions-hit Russian oligarchs to have remained in Europe during the war in Ukraine
The Cypriot passport holder was hit by the EU with sanctions in March last year for “actively supporting materially or financially and benefiting from Russian decision makers responsible for the annexation of Crimea or the destabilisation of Ukraine”.
Updated
Russian shelling in Kherson oblast killed one person and wounded 16 more, the region’s governor claims.
Oleksandr Prokudin, posting on Telegram, said Russia launched 98 attacks over the past day, firing 447 shells from mortars, artillery, Grads, tanks, UAVs and aircraft. Russia fired 36 shells at the city of Kherson, Prokudin said.
He added: “The Russian military targeted the residential quarters of the populated areas of the region; administrative buildings in Beryslav and Kherson districts; a food industry enterprise and a library in Kherson.
“As a result of Russian aggression, one person died, 16 more were injured.”
Updated
What do we know 615 days into Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? The White House has responded to House Republican plans for Israel and Ukraine funding, while Vladimir Putin blames Ukraine for the Dagestan antisemitic riot.
Read more here:
Volodymyr Zelenskiy has used international Black Sea Action Day to accuse Russia of turning the body of water into a “battleground”.
The annual event has been celebrated by the Black Sea countries every year since 1996, when agreements were signed aimed at protecting the sea from pollution.
Posting on ‘X’, Zelenskiy said: “The Black Sea has strategic significance not just for its neighboring nations but for Europe, the Middle East, and global food security.
“Russia has turned it into a battleground, using it for aggression and threatening freedom of navigation.
“Today, we need to work together to restore the Black Sea as a zone of peace, trade, and development.”
October 31st is International Black Sea Action Day.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) October 31, 2023
The Black Sea has strategic significance not just for its neighboring nations but for Europe, the Middle East, and global food security.
Russia has turned it into a battleground, using it for aggression and threatening freedom… pic.twitter.com/ILzyNeIa3V
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The Russian tycoon Alexey Kuzmichev has been detained for questioning in France in connection with alleged tax evasion and money laundering and for violating international sanctions, the French Financial Prosecutors office has said.
Searches took place on Monday at Kuzmichev’s Paris home and in the Mediterranean Var region as part of the investigation, the office said, confirming a report in the French newspaper Le Monde.
Kuzmichev was still being detailed on Tuesday but has not yet been charged in the case.
French customs agents last year seized the oligarch’s 27-metre yacht, La Petite Ourse, sparking a legal battle between authorities and Kuzmichev, one of the main shareholders of Russia’s Alfa Bank.
Updated
Russia’s defence minister accused the United States on Monday of fuelling geopolitical tensions to uphold its “global dominance by any means” and warned of the risk of confrontation between nuclear-armed countries.
Speaking at a defence forum in Beijing, Sergei Shoigu also accused Nato of trying to expand its footprint in the Asia-Pacific under the pretence of seeking dialogue and collaboration with regional countries.
“Washington for years has deliberately undermined and destroyed the foundations of international security and strategic stability, including the system of arms control agreements,” Shoigu said at the Xiangshan forum, China’s biggest annual event centered on military diplomacy.
He added that the US and its western allies are threatening Russia through Nato’s expansion to the east.
Shoigu also reiterated Moscow’s stance that Russia was open to negotiations about the war in Ukraine under what he described as the right conditions.
“The western line of steady escalation of the conflict with Russia carries the threat of a direct military clash between nuclear powers, which is fraught with catastrophic consequences,” he said.
Updated
Russia has bulked up its forces around Bakhmut in the east, says Ukraine
Kyiv officials have told Reuters that Russia has switched its troops from defence to offence in Bakhmut, but that Ukraine was preparing to repel the attacks. Russia captured Bakhmut in May and Ukraine launched a counteroffensive in June in a bid to retake land in the country’s south and east, including Bakhmut.
Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi, Ukraine’s commander of ground forces, wrote on Telegram “In the Bakhmut area, the enemy has significantly strengthened its grouping and switched from defence to active actions.”
Volodymyr Fityo, head of communications for Ukraine’s ground forces command, said Russian forces had been preparing since early this month to retake positions around Bakhmut, lost during the Ukrainian counteroffensive. The city has seen some of the bloodiest fighting in the conflict.
Russia has also been concentrating much of its efforts in recent weeks on a bid to encircle and capture Avdiivka, a strategic town southwest of Bakhmut.
White House to make case for immediate Ukraine funding
Defence secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken will appear before a US Senate hearing on Tuesday to argue in favour of Joe Biden’s $105bn emergency aid request for Israel and Ukraine.
President Joe Biden’s Cabinet secretaries will be in front of a mostly friendly audience in the Senate, but in the Republican-led House, new Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed cutting out the Ukraine aid and focusing on Israel alone – and reducing the budget to the Internal Revenue Service to pay for it.
Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell has advocated tying the aid for Ukraine and Israel together. In recent weeks, though, a growing group of Senate Republicans have joined the majority of House Republicans who are advocating to slow down or stop US aid to Ukraine.
Ohio Senator JD Vance has been one of the most forceful opponents of the assistance, calling Ukraine’s war against Putin and Russia “an endless conflict with no plan from the Biden administration.”
The White House said on Monday that offsets sought by House Republicans for Israel and Ukraine spending would be “devastating” for US national security. “Politicising our national security interests is a nonstarter. Demanding offsets for meeting core national security needs of the United States – like supporting Israel and defending Ukraine from atrocities and Russian imperialism – would be a break with the normal, bipartisan process and could have devastating implications for our safety and alliances in the years ahead,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.
In one of the first major policy actions under new House Speaker Mike Johnson, House Republicans unveiled a standalone supplemental spending bill only for Israel, with a plan to provide $14.3bn in aid to Israel and offsetting it with cuts to the Internal Revenue Service.
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Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Charlie Moloney and I’ll be with you for the next while.
In the US, defense secretary Lloyd Austin and secretary of state Antony Blinken will make the case to Congress at a Senate hearing on Tuesday, that the United States should immediately send aid to Israel and Ukraine. The administration’s $105bn combined emergency aid request has already hit roadblocks.
The US president’s cabinet secretaries will be advocating for the foreign aid to a mostly friendly audience in the Senate, where majority Democrats and many Republicans support tying aid for the two countries together. But it faces much deeper problems in the Republican-led House, where new Speaker Mike Johnson has proposed cutting out the Ukraine aid and focusing on Israel alone – and cutting the budget to the Internal Revenue Service to pay for it.
More on this shortly. In the meantime here are the other key recent developments:
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Monday he was confident the US House of Representatives would back a request for additional funds for Ukraine’s military, adding he was aware of “considerable political resistance” to the bill’s provisions. US House speaker Mike Johnson said last week that funding to support Ukraine and Israel should be handled separately, suggesting he would not back President Joe Biden’s $106bn aid package for both countries.
Russian president Vladimir Putin said without evidence that Ukrainian agents of western spy agencies were behind a rampage in the southern region of Dagestan that targeted a flight from Israel. Clashes with police left 20 people injured. Putin cast the violence as part of US efforts to weaken Russia. US national security council spokesperson John Kirby called Putin’s allegation “classic Russian rhetoric” saying “the West had nothing to do with this”.
Moldova has blocked access to the websites of major Russian news media, including the Interfax and TASS news agencies, accusing them of taking part in an information war against the country. A decree published online by Moldova’s intelligence and security service listed 31 websites to be blocked immediately for “online content used in the war of information against the Republic of Moldova”.
The first US-made F-16 combat aircraft that the Netherlands is donating to Ukraine will arrive in Romania’s training centre within two weeks, outgoing Dutch prime minister Mark Rutte said on Monday.
Russian shelling hit the frontline region of Kherson in southern Ukraine on Monday, killing two civilians, local authorities said.
Russia has significantly bulked up its forces around the devastated Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, with its soldiers switching from a defensive posture to taking “active actions”, a Ukrainian military commander said.
In its latest intelligence update, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said a Russian state-backed private military company was specifically attempting to recruit women into combat roles in Ukraine for the first time.
Russia’s federal security service said it had detained a Russian man in Crimea on suspicion of treason, accusing him of passing military secrets to Ukraine, according to a state news agency.
