Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
A drone attack has set an oil storage tank on fire at an airfield in Kursk, the Russian region’s governor, Roman Starovoyt, has said. Video footage posted on social media showed a large explosion lighting up the night sky followed by a substantial fire at the airfield 175 miles (280km) from the Ukrainian border.
The drone attack came a day after Ukraine appeared to launch audacious attacks on two military airfields deep inside Russian territory. For Kyiv the strike represented an unprecedented operation to disrupt the Kremlin strategy of trying to cripple the Ukrainian electrical grid to provoke a humanitarian catastrophe in a country on the verge of winter.
Shelling by Ukrainian forces killed at least six civilians in the Russian-controlled city on Tuesday, according to the Russian-installed head of the separatist-controlled eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, Alexey Kulemzin. The head of the so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said Ukrainian shelling had killed a deputy in the self-proclaimed republic’s People’s Council, Maria Pirogova.
Russian and Ukrainian authorities confirmed the exchange of 120 people in a prisoner swap. According to the Russian defence ministry, 60 servicemen were returned from “Kyiv-controlled territory”. Ukraine received 60 prisoners in return, said Andrii Yermak, Ukraine’s presidential chief of staff, said.
Ukraine’s health ministry has asked regional authorities to consider suspending non-essential surgeries and hospitalisations due to power blackouts. In a statement, the ministry said hospitals were continuing to provide emergency care but that planned surgeries should be temporarily suspended to ease the load on the medical system amid potential future blackouts.
Russia has launched strikes overnight on Zaporizhzhia region, according to Oleksandr Starukh, the head of Zaporizhzhia’s regional military administration, who posted photographs on Telegram in the early hours of Tuesday. The strikes damaged critical infrastructure and residential buildings, he said. At this stage there were no injuries or fatalities.
Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said that Ukraine was continuing to shell the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, deliberately creating the threat of a possible nuclear catastrophe. Shoigu said Russian forces were taking “all measures” to ensure the safety of the power plant, Europe’s largest, in the face of what he called “nuclear terrorism” from Kyiv.
Russia’s defence ministry has said it has deployed mobile coastal defence missile systems on a northern Kuril island, part of a strategically located chain of islands that stretch between Japan and the Russian Kamchatka peninsula. Japan lays claim to the Russian-held southern Kuril islands, which Tokyo calls the Northern Territories, a territorial row that dates to the end of the second world war, when Soviet troops seized them from Japan.
The Kremlins spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he agreed with comments by the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, about the need for lasting peace in Ukraine, but that Moscow does not see the prospect of talks “at the moment”. He added that in order for talks to happen with potential partners, Russia would need to fulfil the goals of its “special military operation”.
A Ukrainian presidential adviser has said that Iran has so far not delivered ballistic missiles to Russia and may not do so, as a result of diplomatic pressure and Iran’s own internal political turmoil. Mikhailo Podolyak told the Guardian that Russian forces currently had enough of its own cruise missiles in its stockpile for “two or three” more mass strikes against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure like the salvo fired on Monday.
A US national who was arrested by pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine in the summer has been released and is residing without documents in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk. Suedi Murekezi, 35, told the Guardian he had been unable to leave Donetsk after spending more than four months in different prisons and basements in Russian-occupied Ukraine because he did not have any identity papers.
Senior EU officials have vowed to ensure Ukraine gets €18bn in financial aid, after Hungary vetoed the release of the funds. Earlier Viktor Orbán’s government was accused of “holding hostage” funds for Ukrainian hospitals and “cynical obstructionism” after Hungary confirmed on Tuesday that it would block €18bn of aid for Ukraine. The move by the Orbán government is widely seen as an attempt to gain leverage in separate disputes over Hungary’s access to €13bn EU funds.
Ukrainian embassies have received more “bloody packages”, according to its foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in what Kyiv has described as a “campaign of terror and intimidation”. Over the past week, Ukraine said its diplomatic missions in countries across Europe had been targeted with packages soaked in liquid with a distinctive smell and containing animals’ eyes.
The number of Russian-affiliated oil tankers “going dark” to avoid being tracked in the south Pacific has doubled in recent months in a sign of clandestine means being deployed to avoid sanctions. By switching off their tracker systems on the high seas, the ships can quietly transfer oil on to tankers without links to Russia so as to avoid their oil exports being flagged.
Latvia has revoked a broadcast licence for TV Rain, the independent Russian TV station broadcasting from exile, following a scandal over its coverage of the war in Ukraine. The channel had been charged with failing to provide Latvian subtitles in its coverage and for having displayed a map that showed Crimea, the peninsula occupied by Russian forces in 2014, as part of Russia.
The European Commission is reportedly considering a ban on new investments in Russia’s mining sector as part of a fresh package of sanctions against Moscow, aimed at further eroding the Kremlin’s ability to fund its war against Ukraine.
Sources have told the Financial Times that the mining investment ban is part of a ninth EU sanctions package, which officials aim to discuss with member states and have agreed by the end of next week.
If approved, the ban, which the paper writes will exempt some specific products, would mark the first time Brussels has directly targeted Russia’s metals sector.
The FT said the new sanctions package could also include export controls on civilian technologies that Brussels believes Russia is using to support its arms factories, a ban on transactions with three more Russian banks, and targeted sanctions against another 180 individuals.
