Summary
The time in Kyiv is 9pm. Here is a round-up of the day’s top stories:
Ukraine has said that persistent Russian claims that Kyiv plans to detonate a dirty bomb made it look as though Moscow itself planned to conduct a false-flag operation, and that Ukraine has never had any plans to develop a dirty bomb. Foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba told a news conference that experts from the UN nuclear watchdog would soon be arriving in Ukraine and receive full access, and he called on Moscow to demonstrate the same transparency as Ukraine, Reuters reported.
The Donetsk oblast was hit hard in the past day, with at least 15 Russian strikes killing seven civilians and injuring three more. The Ukrainian national police said the strikes also destroyed 19 residential buildings and one power line.
Further south, a car explosion near the office of Russian propaganda channel ZaTV in Russia-occupied Melitopol has injured at least five people, including company employees, authorities said. While investigators are still looking into the blast, Vladimir Rogov, a Russian-appointed occupied Zaporizhia oblast official, has purportedly told Russian state media that the car explosion near the office of Russian propaganda channel ZaTv in Russian-occupied Melitopol was a terrorist attack stemming from an “improvised explosive device”.
Police rescued an eight-year-old boy whose parents were killed in Russian shell strikes in Bakhmut, it has been reported. Iuliia Mendel, a former spokesperson for the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Bohdan’s mother was seven months pregnant when she died “in the street”, along with his father.
Ukrainian authorities are now estimating that Russian forces have lost nearly 68,420 personnel since the start of the invasion.
Refugees who fled in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine should stay abroad this winter due to blackouts created by Moscow’s bombardment of critical energy infrastructure, a Ukrainian minister has said. In an interview broadcast on Ukrainian national television on Tuesday, deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk told Ukrainians currently sheltering abroad that they should wait until spring before returning to Ukraine.
Poland’s prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, has said Russian assets and those of Russian oligarchs present a “huge pot of gold” that should be used for Ukraine’s reconstruction. “We must make sure that the offender pays for reconstruction. Russia should pay Ukraine war damages, war reparations,” Morawiecki said on Tuesday at a conference in Berlin working to build international support to finance Ukraine’s postwar rehabilitation.
Russian president Vladimir Putin has addressed a new coordination council designed to boost support for an invasion now in its ninth month, Reuters reported. Putin set up the new council last week as he imposed martial law in four partly-occupied regions of Ukraine that he has declared part of Russia, where his forces have suffered several defeats by a resurgent Ukrainian army.
The US Congressional Progressive Caucus withdrew a letter to the White House urging a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, chair Pramila Jayapal confirmed. “The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said in a statement.
Moscow was generally supportive of the idea of creating a secure zone around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Mikhail Ulyanov, Russia’s ambassador to international institutions in Vienna, told the TASS news agency on Tuesday.
The European Commission urged European Union countries and companies to donate more money and equipment to support the energy sector in Ukraine, over a third of which has been destroyed by Russian missile and drone strikes. “What is at stake is the protection and wellbeing of thousands and tens of thousands of households, vulnerable people, children and elderly before this coming winter,” EU energy commissioner Kadri Simson said.
That’s it from me, Tom Ambrose, and indeed the Ukraine live blog for today. Thanks for following along.
The US Congressional Progressive Caucus withdrew a letter to the White House urging a negotiated settlement to the war in Ukraine, chair Pramila Jayapal confirmed.
“The Congressional Progressive Caucus hereby withdraws its recent letter to the White House regarding Ukraine,” Jayapal said in a statement.
She added: “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting.”
