Summary
Here is a roundup of the day’s top headlines:
Ukraine said its position on negotiations with Russia had not changed and it was not being asked to negotiate by its allies, after reports by the Washington Post that its main ally and backer, the US, had asked Kyiv to signal that it was open to negotiations amid worry among allies in parts of Europe, Latin American, and Africa about a protracted war. The Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Radio Svoboda that Ukraine would only negotiate with Russia once Russian troops had left all of Ukraine’s territory, including those it occupied in 2014. Podolyak said the US treated Ukraine as an equal and there was no coercion. He said Ukraine was winning and that to sit down at the negotiating table now would therefore be “nonsense”.
The Ukrainian prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, said he saw no need at present to evacuate Kyiv or any other cities that were not near the frontlines in the war against Russia. He made his comments at a cabinet meeting following Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system, and after the mayor of Kyiv told residents to consider everything including a worst-case scenario where the capital lost power and water completely.
The secretary of Ukraine’s security council said on Tuesday the “main condition” for the resumption of negotiations with Russia would be the restoration of Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Oleksiy Danilov said Ukraine also needed the “guarantee” of modern air defences, aircraft, tanks and long-range missiles.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, claimed his forces were gradually pushing back Russian troops in some parts of the east and south. “We are gradually moving forward,” he said in his latest evening address on Monday. Zelenskiy added that Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region remained the centre of Ukraine’s bloodiest battles, claiming Russians “die by the hundreds every day”.
Ukraine wants the Black Sea grain export deal expanded to include more ports and goods, and hopes a decision to extend the agreement for at least a year will be taken next week, Ukraine’s deputy infrastructure minister said. The deal, which eased a global food crisis by unblocking three major Ukrainian ports during Russia’s invasion, expires on 19 November and briefly appeared to be imperilled last month when Moscow suspended its participation in the deal before rejoining again.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has distracted world governments from efforts to combat climate change, Zelenskiy said in a video message played at the Cop27 climate conference in Egypt on Tuesday. “There can be no effective climate policy without the peace,” he said.
One of the Russian-imposed leaders in the occupied Kherson region of Ukraine, Kirill Stremousov, claimed on Telegram: “The situation in the morning is unchanged along the entire frontline. We do not see any kind of mass offensive. At this stage, everything is unchanged and without difficult moments for our region.”
Russia is stepping up its efforts to build substantial obstacle barriers to slow the advance of Ukrainian forces in key locations it is defending, including around the devastated city of Mariupol, the UK’s Ministry of Defence said. Its intelligence assessment on Tuesday said the Russian military was using two plants in occupied Mariupol to produce large numbers of “dragon’s teeth” – pyramidal concrete blocks designed to slow advancing military vehicles. The production and placement of the blocks in conjunction with razor wire and mines is the latest indication of how Russia’s struggling forces are increasingly attempting to transition to more defensive warfare, not least on the key southern Kherson front on the east bank of the Dnieper River.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will join next week’s G20 summit “if the situation is possible”, his Indonesian counterpart, Joko Widodo, who is hosting the meeting, said on Tuesday, adding that Putin could attend virtually instead. On Monday, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Putin would decide by the end of the week whether he would attend the summit.
Zelenskiy will take part in the G20 summit in Bali next week, most probably attending virtually, his spokesperson told the Suspilne public broadcaster on Tuesday. Previously, the Ukrainian position was that Zelenskiy would not appear if Putin did.
The Italian government is readying a new arms package for Ukraine including air defence systems, a governing coalition official said. Western countries have been delivering more air defence hardware to Ukraine since Zelenskiy last month asked the leaders of the G7 for help to stop Russian missiles fired at Ukrainian cities.
Ukrainians continue to brace for more blackouts after the country’s grid operator told consumers to expect power outages in Kyiv and other regions on Monday and Tuesday as it seeks to reduce the strain on energy infrastructure damaged by Russian missile and drone attacks. Rolling blackouts are becoming increasingly routine after a wave of Russian attacks on power facilities damaged 40% of energy infrastructure since 10 October.
A recruitment office in St Petersburg issued a draft notice to a missing Russian sailor who was onboard the flagship Moskva missile cruiser, which sank in the Black Sea in April. According to a report by the local news website Fontanka, the parents of the sailor, named Mikhail, who was a cook on the Moskva cruiser, received his call-up notice last month. The papers ordered their son to report to the drafting station or face possible prosecution.
Mikhail Razvozhayev, the governor of Sevastopol in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014, said this morning that air defences in the city shot down a Ukrainian drone.
Russia and the US are discussing holding talks on strategic nuclear weapons for the first time since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported, citing at least three sources familiar with the discussions.
The Swedish prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, will seek Turkey’s approval for his country’s bid to join Nato during talks later on Tuesday in Ankara with the Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.
A further 30 Ukrainian service personnel who were captured on Ukraine’s Zmiinyi (Snake) Island have been released from Russian captivity, according to the Ukrainian parliament’s commissioner for human rights.
Linda Thomas-Greenfield, the US ambassador to the UN, visited Kyiv on Tuesday, where she met Ukraine’s minister of infrastructure Oleksandr Kubrakov. She also visited the Kyiv Mlyn flour mill, saying on Twitter of the trip: “Ukraine has long been a breadbasket to the world. And today, I had the chance to visit a facility that stores and processes grain in Kyiv. This site has taken on added importance because Russian forces have attacked so many of Ukraine’s other grain facilities.”
Another US volunteer has died in combat in Ukraine, a spokesperson for the country’s International Legion confirmed on Monday, bringing the number of US fighters killed in the war against Russia to at least six. Timothy Griffin, from New York state, had been fighting alongside Ukrainians as part of their counteroffensive on the eastern front when his unit came under attack. The legion’s spokesperson, identified as “Mockingjay” to NBC News, said Griffin was “killed in action”.
Updated
A recruitment office in St Petersburg has issued a draft notice to a missing Russian sailor who was onboard the flagship missile cruiser Moskva, which sank in the Black Sea in April.
According to a report by the local news website Fontanka, the parents of the sailor, named Mikhail, who was a cook on the cruiser, received his call-up notice last month. The papers ordered their son to report to the drafting station or face possible prosecution.
“You may be prosecuted if you do not appear at the indicated time and place without a legitimate reason,” the draft papers read.
Russia’s first draft since the second world war, announced by Vladimir Putin, caused chaos and anger across the country, as news emerged that local authorities were sending draft papers to Russians who had died or who had severe health conditions.
Updated
