Summary
We’re closing the blog for now, but we’ll be back soon with more. For now, some key links and updates from the day:
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, asked G7 leaders to supply more air defence systems and for an international monitoring mission on the Belarusian border.
The UN and some Nato countries warned that Moscow may be committing a war crime with its continuing deadly blitz on civilian targets.
The French president, Emmanuel Macron, described the attack, in which cruise missiles and armed drones rained down on parks, playgrounds, power stations and other civilian targets, as “a profound change in the nature of this war”.
Roughly 30% of the Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been hit by Russia since Monday, officials said.
The Kremlin has confirmed that President Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Thursday to discuss Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that he is “open to dialogue” on the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Elon Musk denied a report that he spoke with Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia.
Belarus’ defence ministry has said the joint deployment of forces with Russia on its borders is a defensive measure. The moves were to ensure “security” along the border between Belarus and Ukraine, it claimed.
A deputy head of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been kidnapped by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom said.
Russian strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites, Zelenskiy says
Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that Russia’s military strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites around Ukraine, the AP reports.
In a speech to Unesco, the Ukrainian president urged the UN cultural agency to expel Russia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Unesco World Heritage Committee. Zelenskiy said Ukraine was nominating the Black Sea city of Odesa to be inscribed on the agency’s World Heritage list, AP reported. He also said that 540 “objects of cultural heritage, cultural institutions and religious buildings” have been destroyed or damaged since the start of Russia’s invasion in February. He added:
Why are representatives of Russia still among you? What are they doing at Unesco?”
As millions in Ukraine are facing blackouts due to the Russian missile attacks on energy infrastructure, the government has urged civilians to cut their electricity use and not use domestic appliances such as ovens and washing machines, Reuters reports:
Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said Ukrainians had voluntarily cut their electricity consumption by an average of 10% on Monday after Russia’s attacks, and urged them to limit use between 5pm and 11pm local time on Tuesday.
“We are united and will stand firm,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Please don’t turn on energy-intensive appliances: electric stoves, electric kettles, power tools, heaters and air conditioners, ovens and irons, microwave ovens, coffee makers, washing machines and dishwashers.”
Ukraine says 30% of energy infrastructure hit by Russia's missiles
Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Halushchenko, has told CNN that Russian missiles have hit roughly 30% of the country’s energy infrastructure since Monday.
Halushchenko said:
We send this message to our partners: we need to protect the sky. Russians they are not playing on some games on international laws. They don’t care about any kind of international agreements or conventions.”
He also told CNN that this was the first time since the start of war that Russia had “dramatically targeted” Ukraine’s energy infrastructure and that Ukraine was working to reconnect quickly from other sources.
Russia’s defence ministry earlier confirmed that its troops were continuing long-range air strikes on Ukraine’s military and energy infrastructure. Reports suggested that six people were injured in a second Russian strike at the Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region.
Halushchenko’s comments come after some Nato countries and the UN have warned that Russia may be committing a war crime with its ongoing attack on civilian targets.
Ukrainians in Prague rallied this evening to protest Russian missile strikes, the AP reports:
The protesters held blue-and-yellow crosses with the names of the cities hit by the Russian missiles.
“Ukraine needs air defenses to be able to prevent the massacres of the civilian population and destruction of our cities,” Anastasiia Sihnaievska told the crowd.
“We are protecting our right to live,” said Sihnaievska, who fled her town of Zhytomyr because of the Russian invasion. People chanted “Russia’s terrorist!” and “More weapons for Ukraine!”They unveiled a giant Ukrainian flag and displayed banners that read “Air defense systems for Ukraine,” “We will not forget, We will not forgive,” and “Stop bombing Ukraine.”
Some photos below from the demonstration, which as the AP noted, came the same day that the presidents of Czechia, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro said the missile strikes against Ukrainian civilians “constitute war crimes under international law”.
The US will be watching which nations side with Russia at Wednesday’s General Assembly vote on the resolution condemning Russian annexations in eastern Ukraine, the US ambassador to the UN said today, CNN reports.
President Putin's attempt to annex regions of Ukraine is a brazen violation of the UN Charter.
— Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield (@USAmbUN) October 11, 2022
All Member States must make that clear this week.
We must stand together. pic.twitter.com/UBwtOOp2E7
Linda Thomas-Greenfield said there were roughly 70 co-sponsors of the resolution and that the vote was geared toward “defending the UN” and its charter, the network reported. She said she couldn’t predict how China, India or other nations would vote.
Earlier in the week, Russia unsuccessfully pushed for a secret ballot for the vote.
Bodies exhumed from mass grave in Lyman
Forensic workers in protective gear pulled several bodies wrapped in black plastic from a mass grave in Ukraine’s liberated city of Lyman today as authorities work to assess the death toll and damage from more than four months of Russian occupation, the Associated Press reports.
An AP reporter said that 10 body bags lay beside a roughly 100ft (30-metre) trench, and that authorities said 32 bodies had been exhumed so far in the city, which is in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The head of the Donetsk region’s military administration, Pavlo Kyrylenko, said the victims in the mass grave were Ukrainian soldiers, and that there were also 22 civilians buried in individual graves at the site, located by a cemetery on the outskirts of Lyman.
This was the second burial site uncovered in Lyman so far. More background from the AP:
As Ukrainian authorities entered the city, they found that many civilian residents had been killed by shelling. Others, mostly older people, had died during the Russian occupation because of a lack of food and medicine, Mark Tkachenko, communications inspector for the Kramatorsk district police of the Donetsk region, told the AP.
The destruction in Lyman, a key rail and transit hub, is so widespread that large portions of the city have been completely destroyed. Ukrainian authorities are now working to restore basic infrastructure and investigate how civilians lived and died during the Russian occupation.
Forensic investigators on Tuesday lifted a black plastic bag from the trench and unzipped it to reveal a decomposed body in a bloody uniform of the Ukrainian armed forces. The remains were briefly inspected by investigators, then placed in another body bag and set among several others beside the trench. Authorities said children have been found among the dead, and that most victims appeared to have died as the result of the heavy shelling that besieged the city for months.
Authorities said the investigation was ongoing and that it was too soon to say whether the victims showed signs of execution or torture, the AP also reported.
More from the AP reporter on the ground:
Strikes on Dnipro today killed four people and injured 19. Miraculously, no one travelling on this city bus at morning rush hour was killed. pic.twitter.com/4iqQKvtivS
— Justin Spike (@jspikebudapest) October 10, 2022
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 9pm in Kyiv and Moscow. Here’s where we stand:
Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with missile strikes on Tuesday. Amid warnings from the UN and some Nato countries that Moscow may be committing a war crime with its continuing deadly blitz on civilian targets, Russia’s defence ministry confirmed its troops continued to launch long-range air strikes on Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure.
The leaders of the G7 have condemned Russia’s most recent missile attacks in Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms”, and vowed to stand “firmly” with Kyiv “for as long as it takes”. The “indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime” by Russian forces, they said in a joint statement following their meeting with President Zelenskiy.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has warned leaders of the G7 nations that President Vladimir Putin still has “room for escalation”. Zelenskiy also called on G7 leaders for more air defence capabilities to stop Russia and to help Ukraine fund an air defence system after dozens of Russian attacks knocked out power facilities across the country.
President Zelenskiy has accused Russia of trying to directly draw Belarus into its war in Ukraine. Zelenskiy, who joined a virtual meeting with heads of the Group of Seven nations on Tuesday, called on leaders to support an international monitoring mission on the Ukraine-Belarus border. Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, said the mobilisation of troops in Belarus poses a threat to Ukraine’s supply lines in the north of the country.
Belarus’ defence ministry has said the joint deployment of forces with Russia on its borders is a defensive measure. The moves were to ensure “security” along the border between Belarus and Ukraine, it claimed. On Monday, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its western allies.
Nato is “closely monitoring” Russia’s nuclear forces, its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said. The Russian leader’s veiled nuclear threats are “dangerous and irresponsible”, Stoltenberg said. He added that any deliberate attack against allies’ critical infrastructure “would be met with a united and determined response”.
A deputy head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been kidnapped by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom has said. Valeriy Martynyuk was seized on Monday and is being detained in an unknown location, Energoatom said in a post on Telegram.
President Vladimir Putin has told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, that the situation around Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is “of concern”. At a meeting in St Petersburg broadcast on Russian state television, Putin told Grossi that Moscow was open to dialogue and would discuss “all issues” concerning the nuclear facility’s operations.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine just days ahead of a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Vladimir Putin. Çavuşoğlu urged “a viable ceasefire and a just peace” based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Erdoğan and Putin are expected to meet on Thursday in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana to discuss Ukraine and bilateral relations, the Kremlin confirmed.
Moscow would not turn down a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, at the G20 meeting next month, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said. Moscow was open to talks with the west on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any “serious offers” to negotiate, Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television.
Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, according to the head of the British spy agency GCHQ. Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming said in a rare public address.
Western diplomats are predicting that the number of countries voting to oppose the illegal annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine will have fallen from a similar vote held at the UN in March. The UN’s general assembly is due to vote this week on an EU-sponsored motion condemning the annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine off the back of sham referendums.
The US is speeding up the shipment of two National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS) to Ukraine, the White House said.
President Joe Biden had pledged to support Kyiv’s air defences in a phone call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Monday, following a wave of devastating Russian missile attacks on cities across Ukraine.
The US has approved sending Ukraine a total of eight NASAMS air defences so far, with two expected to be delivered soon and six more sent over a longer time frame.
Speaking to reporters, the White House’s national security council spokesperson John Kirby said:
We think that we’re on track to get those first two over there in the very near future. We are certainly interested in expediting the delivery of NASAMS to Ukraine as soon as we can.
A British businessman has been arrested on US charges of conspiring to violate sanctions placed on the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska, according to prosecutors.
Graham Bonham-Carter was arrested in the UK, and New York federal prosecutors will be seeking his extradition, Reuters reports.
Bonham-Carter was also charged with wire fraud for funding US properties purchased by Deripaska and efforts to expatriate Deripaska’s artwork in the US.
Updated
There was scant attempt to sugarcoat the assessment. With the trams stilled, lights going down across the city and the mobile network intermittent, arguably there was little point in doing otherwise.
“We have to brace ourselves for hard times,” said Andriy Sadovyi, the mayor of Lviv, as he addressed local and international journalists in a building off the western Ukrainian city’s cobbled Rynov Square.
Winter was coming and with it “perhaps the worst-ever period for our country”, the mayor said.
For all that the missiles would continue to rain down it was the cold that the Russians believed could break the Ukrainian spirit. Stock up on fire wood, buy in heaters, insulate where you can, Sadovyi counselled. It was time for Ukrainians to resort to the “old-time methods”.
We are in for hard weeks and months ahead. Four [electricity] substations in the region have been put out of operation and to bring them back into operation they need transformers that are not available. It is hard right now to predict what will happen tomorrow. We will do all we can to keep the medical facilities operating.
Lviv, just 50 miles from the Polish border, has at times felt somewhat removed from Vladimir Putin’s war.
Direct attacks have been few and far between. Following the initial shock over the launch of the Russian president’s “special military operation”, the bars and restaurants had swiftly rediscovered the liveliness that one would expect of an old university town.
When air raid sirens would go off to warn that Russian missiles had been launched, destination unknown, the danger could be barely acknowledged at times. Spring gave way to a relatively care-free summer.
The attacks of Monday and Tuesday changed all that.
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine.
Updated
Russia has added the US tech giant Meta, the parent company of Instagram and Facebook, to its list of “terrorists and extremist” organisations, Russian news agencies have reported.
Facebook and Instagram were both banned in Russia in March for “carrying out extremist activities” and the company was accused of tolerating “Russophobia”.
Meta had announced back then that the platforms would allow statements such as “death to Russian invaders” but not credible threats against civilians. A Moscow court in June rejected an appeal by Meta, whose lawyer said it was not carrying out extremist activity.
The company has now been added to a list of “terrorists and extremists” by Russia’s financial monitoring agency, Rosfinmonitoring.
The list concerns “organisations and individuals with regard to which there is information about their involvement in extremist activities or terrorism”. The ban does not apply to WhatsApp, which Meta also owns.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has asked G7 leaders to supply more air defence systems and for an international monitoring mission on the Belarusian border, as Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with a new wave of missile strikes on Tuesday.
Zelenskiy’s comments came amid warnings from the UN and some Nato countries that Moscow may be committing a war crime with its continuing deadly blitz on civilian targets.
Warning that the Russian president “still has room for further escalation”, Zelenskiy added that the prompt supply of more air defence systems would accelerate the end of the war.
“When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defence systems, the key element of Russia’s terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work,” Zelenskiy said in a video-streamed address.
Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine reported on Tuesday that Ukraine had received a delivery of the German Iris-T air defence system and the White House National Security Council spokesman, John Kirby, said the US was working to expedite the shipment of sophisticated Nasams air defences capable of engaging Russian cruise missiles that was first announced in August.
While Zelenskiy had been expected to press for additional air defence systems to counter the Russian missile threat, and renewed his call for more sanctions against Moscow, his request for international monitoring of Ukraine’s border with Belarus comes amid mounting fears that Minsk is being drawn ever further into the Kremlin’s war.
Elon Musk denies he spoke to Putin before Ukraine war tweet
Elon Musk has denied a report that he spoke with Vladimir Putin before tweeting a proposal to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia.
The Tesla CEO was asked about the report, which was first written about by Ian Bremmer to his subscribers and later picked up by Vice.
No, it is not. I have spoken to Putin only once and that was about 18 months ago. The subject matter was space.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 11, 2022
Updated
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance has been monitoring Russia’s nuclear forces and that any deliberate attack against allies’ critical infrastructure “would be met with a united and determined response”.
Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with missile strikes on Tuesday, amid warnings from the UN and some Nato countries that Moscow may be committing a war crime with its continuing deadly blitz on civilian targets.
Vladimir Putin’s veiled nuclear threats are “dangerous and irresponsible”, Stoltenberg added. He said Nato had not noticed any changes in Russia’s “posture”, but would be monitoring it.
Here’s more on the report that the Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, spoke directly to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, before tweeting his peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.
According to Ian Bremmer’s mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Musk also appeared concerned about direct threats from Putin.
From the Financial Times’ Max Seddon:
There's a lot more wild stuff in the full @ianbremmer email: "musk also appeared concerned about more direct threats from putin. while he didn’t surface anything explicit with me, he did talk about russian cyber capabilities and russia’s potential to disrupt his satellites."
— max seddon (@maxseddon) October 11, 2022
Updated
Putin tells IAEA chief he is 'open to dialogue' on Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant
President Vladimir Putin has told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, that the situation around Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is “of concern”.
At a meeting in St Petersburg broadcast on Russian state television, Putin told Grossi that Moscow was open to dialogue and would discuss “all issues” concerning the nuclear facility’s operations.
Ahead of his meeting with the UN’s nuclear watchdog head, Putin said:
We see that today there are elements of an excessively dangerous politicisation of everything connected with nuclear activity.
We very much hope that, thanks to your efforts, we will be able to reduce all rhetoric and bring this area of our cooperation to normal, despite all the turbulence and complex processes that are taking place on the world stage.
The Russian president said he was “happy” to discuss “all issues that are of mutual interest to us and may even cause concern to someone”:
For example, as far as the situation around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant is concerned. In any case, we are open to this dialogue and are glad to see you.
Updated
Elon Musk spoke to Putin before tweeting Ukraine peace plan - report
Elon Musk spoke directly to Vladimir Putin before tweeting his peace plan to end the war in Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia, according to a report.
In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer claimed Musk told him that the Russian president was “prepared to negotiate” if Crimea remained in Russian hands.
Putin also reportedly insisted to the Tesla chief executive that Ukraine would have to accept permanent neutrality and recognise Russia’s annexation of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
According to Bremmer, Musk said Putin told him these goals would be reached “no matter what”, including the possible use of nuclear weapons if Ukraine invaded Crimea.
Bremmer wrote that Musk told him that “everything needed to be done to avoid that outcome”.
Following the alleged conversation with Putin, Musk posted a Twitter poll with his suggestions for ending the war in Ukraine.
Musk argued that to reach peace, Russia should be allowed to keep the Crimea Peninsula that it seized in 2014.
He also proposed holding votes in parts of Ukraine occupied by Russia that the Kremlin says it is annexing. “Russia leaves if that is will of the people,” he said.
Ukraine-Russia Peace:
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 3, 2022
- Redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision. Russia leaves if that is will of the people.
- Crimea formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783 (until Khrushchev’s mistake).
- Water supply to Crimea assured.
- Ukraine remains neutral.
Updated
Ukraine has received a delivery of the German Iris-T air defence system, Der Spiegel magazine reported.
Germany’s defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, confirmed yesterday that the first of four Iris-T SLM air defence systems would be delivered within days.
Lambrecht’s statement, delivered hours after Russia unleashed a massive wave of aerial strikes on cities across Ukraine on Monday, said:
The renewed missile fire on Kyiv and the many other cities show how important it is to supply Ukraine with air defence systems quickly.
Russia’s attacks with missiles and drones terrorise the civilian population in particular. That is why we are now providing support especially with air defence weapons.
Updated
Britain’s prime minister, Liz Truss, is “firmly committed” to visiting Ukraine “as soon as possible”, Downing Street has said in the wake of Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities this week.
Asked about what impact the renewed threat of Russian strikes on Kyiv could have on a potential visit by Truss, a No 10 spokesperson said:
I couldn’t get into the security considerations around trips like that nor could I get into speculation on dates.
As you’ll appreciate, the Prime Minister is firmly committed to visiting as soon as possible.
G7 leaders warn of 'severe consequences' if Russia uses nuclear weapons
The leaders of the G7 have condemned Russia’s most recent missile attacks in Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms”, and vowed to stand “firmly” with Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
The “indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime” by Russian forces, they said in a joint statement following their meeting with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
They vowed to hold President Vladimir Putin and those responsible for the attacks on Ukraine to account.
They also said they would “never recognise” Russia’s “illegal annexation” of Ukrainian territory or “the sham referenda that Russia uses to justify it”.
The statement continued:
No country wants peace more than Ukraine, whose people have suffered death, displacement and countless atrocities as the result of Russian aggression.
Leaders “deplore deliberate Russian escalatory steps’, including the partial mobilisation of reservists and “irresponsible” nuclear rhetoric, it said:
We reaffirm that any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with severe consequences.
It added:
We will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support and will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.
Updated
Zelenskiy warns G7 leaders that Putin ‘still has room for further escalation’
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has told leaders of the G7 nations that President Vladimir Putin still has “room for escalation” after two days of widespread strikes on cities across Ukraine.
The Russian leader “is now in the final stage of his reign” and is “a threat to all of us”, Zelenskiy said during the video address to G7 leaders.
He also called on G7 leaders for more air defence capabilities to stop Russia:
When Ukraine receives a sufficient quantity of modern and effective air defence systems, the key element of Russia’s terror, rocket strikes, will cease to work.
The Ukrainian president thanked Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, for speeding up the delivery of the IRIS-T air defence system and the US president, Joe Biden, for deliveries of air defence systems.
He also asked G7 leaders to help Ukraine fund an air defence system after dozens of Russian attacks knocked out power facilities across the country:
I am asking you to strengthen the overall effort to help financially with the creation of an air shield for Ukraine. Millions of people will be grateful to the Group of Seven for such assistance.
Updated
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6.15pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:
Russia continued to attack key infrastructure in Ukraine with missile strikes on Tuesday. Amid warnings from the UN and some Nato countries that Moscow may be committing a war crime with its continuing deadly blitz on civilian targets, Russia’s defence ministry confirmed its troops continued to launch long-range air strikes on Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure.
The death toll from Monday’s Russian missile attacks on a swathe of Ukrainian cities has risen to 19 people, with over 100 wounded, according to figures from the Ukrainian state emergency services. Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, warned on Monday of even more “severe retaliation” following Saturday’s attack on the Kerch bridge linking Russia and Crimea.
An attack on the Lviv region in western Ukraine on Tuesday left parts of the city without electricity. The mayor of the city, Andriy Sadovyi, appealed to residents to keep water supplies on hand ahead of expected service interruptions following Russian strikes which appear to have hit critical power infrastructure in the region.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Russia of trying to directly draw Belarus into its war in Ukraine. Zelenskiy, who joined a virtual meeting with heads of the Group of Seven nations on Tuesday, called on leaders to support an international monitoring mission on the Ukraine-Belarus border. Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK, said the mobilisation of troops in Belarus poses a threat to Ukraine’s supply lines in the north of the country.
Belarus’ defence ministry has said the joint deployment of forces with Russia on its borders is a defensive measure. The moves were to ensure “security” along the border between Belarus and Ukraine, it claimed. On Monday, the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its western allies.
Nato is “closely monitoring” Russia’s nuclear forces, its secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said. The Russian leader’s veiled nuclear threats are “dangerous and irresponsible”, Stoltenberg said. He added that any deliberate attack against allies’ critical infrastructure “would be met with a united and determined response”.
Six people have been injured in a second Russian strike at the Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia region, according to reports. Russia targeted Ukrainian energy infrastructure in a series of coordinated attacks across Ukraine for the second day in a row on Tuesday.
A deputy head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been kidnapped by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom has said. Valeriy Martynyuk was seized on Monday and is being detained in an unknown location, Energoatom said in a post on Telegram.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine just days ahead of a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Vladimir Putin. Çavuşoğlu urged “a viable ceasefire and a just peace” based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Erdoğan and Putin are expected to meet on Thursday in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana to discuss Ukraine and bilateral relations, the Kremlin confirmed.
Moscow would not turn down a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, at the G20 meeting next month, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said. Moscow was open to talks with the west on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any “serious offers” to negotiate, Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television.
Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, according to the head of the British spy agency GCHQ. Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming said in a rare public address.
Western diplomats are predicting that the number of countries voting to oppose the illegal annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine will have fallen from a similar vote held at the UN in March. The UN’s general assembly is due to vote this week on an EU-sponsored motion condemning the annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine off the back of sham referendums.
Hello, Léonie Chao-Fong still here with all the latest news from Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Western diplomats are predicting that the number of countries voting to oppose the illegal annexation of parts of eastern Ukraine will have fallen from a similar vote held at the UN in March, but still expect more than 100 UN states to vote against Russia’s actions.
The UN general assembly is due to vote on Wednesday or Thursday on an EU-sponsored motion condemning the annexation of parts of Eastern Ukraine off the back of sham referendums.
The motion has been carefully worded to draw maximum support, stressing the need for dialogue and the inviability of national borders. But even so, many African and Gulf states are refusing to take sides.
In March, in the immediate wake of the invasion, 141 countries opposed Russia’s action, 35 abstained and five supported Russia.
The diplomats said Russia had been “trying very hard in Africa to frame this as a west versus the rest conflict”, adding “lots of things play into these votes that are not necessarily the question in hand”.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, last week visited the foreign ministers of Ghana, Senegal and Ivory Coast on his first African tour since the Russian offensive. He is also trying to build what Ukraine admits has been previously inadequate contacts in India and China.
A western diplomat said:
To any straight-thinking person this is a slam dunk, but countries relationships with each other and their interdependencies are complex and very messy.
But western diplomats said an “important shift” was under way amongst some powerful non-aligned countries that had shown themselves “increasingly uncomfortable” with Putin. The diplomats pointed to a Chinese official statement reaffirming the importance of national sovereignty, and the urging by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, for an end to the fighting.
India, the diplomat pointed out, is dependent on Russia for oil and military equipment:
They think twice about whether they can afford to trim their principles or more probably rely on countries like the UK to defend them and to allow them to operate in a slightly grey area.
The sources added that they “could not see China cutting Russia adrift since it would fear that Russia might ultimately be drawn into the western orbit”. But they claim the repeated requirement of Russia to go in front of the UN General Assembly to explain why it is using its veto to then to be defeated humiliatingly is having the cumulative effect of making Russia feel diplomatically isolated. “It is a case of reducing the space for authoritarian dictators”, the source said.
Russia, it was pointed out, has in recent months been thrown off the UN Human Rights Council board for UN women, and the board for Unicef, and efforts are under way to squeeze them off the UN Economic and Social Committee.
Ukraine has been calling for Russia to be declared a terrorist state, a move that would see Russia lose its seat as one of the permanent five on the UN Security Council.
The US is likely to say if about 100 member states in the General Assembly vote to support the EU resolution that compares favourably with the vote held in 2014 at the time of the annexation of Ukraine.
Updated
Japan’s prime minister, Fumio Kishida, has said Russia’s possible use of nuclear weapons is highly unpredictable.
Speaking to reporters after the virtual G7 meeting on Russia’s invasion fo Ukraine, Kishida said:
The situation does not at all allow any prediction. It requires serious, close attention. For the past 77 years, the world has continued to put a stop to using nuclear weapons. This history of not using nuclear weapons must continue further.
Updated
Zelenskiy accuses Russia of ‘trying to directly draw Belarus into this war’
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called for an international monitoring mission on the Ukraine-Belarus border.
Zelenskiy, who joined a virtual meeting with heads of the Group of Seven nations, called on leaders to support the international mission.
He told G7 leaders:
Russia is trying to directly draw Belarus into this war, playing a provocation that we are allegedly preparing an attack on this country.
It comes after the Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and western backers.
During the G7 meeting, which has now ended, Zelenskiy also called on leaders to give Ukraine enough air defence capabilities to defend itself against Russia, as well as tough new sanctions on Moscow.
Updated
Nato 'closely monitoring' Russia's nuclear forces
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said the alliance is “closely monitoring” Russia’s nuclear forces and that any deliberate attack against allies’ critical infrastructure “would be met with a united and determined response”.
The Nato military alliance “is not party” to the conflict in Ukraine, Stoltenberg said during a news conference. “But our support is playing a key role,” he added.
Allies remained “united in their support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and self-defence”, he said.
Stoltenberg told reporters:
Ukraine has the momentum and continues to make significant gains. While Russia is increasingly resorting to horrific and indiscriminate attacks on civilians and critical infrastructure.
President Putin is “failing in Ukraine” and his “attempted annexations, partial mobilisation, and reckless nuclear rhetoric represent the most significant escalation since the start of the war”, he said.
The Russian leader’s veiled nuclear threats are “dangerous and irresponsible”, Stoltenberg added:
Russia knows that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. We are closely monitoring Russia’s nuclear forces. We have not seen any changes in Russia’s posture.
But we remain vigilant.
The speech was heavily trailed, but here is what Jeremy Fleming, head of the British spy agency GCHQ, had to say about Vladimir Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine this afternoon:
Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machines spouted, it is clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefields and in cyberspace is turning the tide.
Having failed in two major military strategies already. Putin’s plan has hit the courageous reality of Ukrainian defence. With little effective internal challenge, Putin’s decision making has proved flawed.
Yesterday’s attacks in Kyiv and across Ukraine are another example. It is a high stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgement. Their gains are being reversed, and the costs to Russia in people and equipment are staggering.
We know – and Russian military commanders know – that their supplies and ammunition are running out. Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners as reinforcements, and now the mobilisation of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a really desperate situation.
And the Russian people have started to understand all of that, too.
They’re seeing just how badly Putin has misjudge the situation. They’re fleeing the draft, realising they can no longer travel, and they know their access to modern technologies and external influences will be drastically restricted.
And they’re feeling the extent of the dreadful human cost of his war of choice.
During her foreign ministry briefing, Russia’s Maria Zakharova has also expressed Russian displeasure with Moldova and Estonia. She said Russia was concerned at statements by Estonia’s foreign minister, Urmas Reinsalu, and was also concerned about an incident affecting Russian diplomats in Moldova.
💬 #Zakharova: In connection with the provocative statements of Estonian Foreign Minister @UrmasReinsalu calling for a terrorist act against Russia, @mfa_russia is preparing an appeal to @Genproc with a request to consider initiating a criminal case against this Estonian citizen. pic.twitter.com/im9E4DhzBU
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) October 11, 2022
💬#Zakharova: On October 7, @embrus_md was attacked, while the Moldovan carabineers in charge of security allowed it to happen.
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) October 11, 2022
☝️ Fortunately, there were no victims.
❗️ We filed a note of protest with #Moldova demanding that the incident be investigated. pic.twitter.com/p0oTbMlF52
Zakharova also accused the west of hypocrisy in not criticising Ukrainian officials for statements that appear to support violence, accusing the west of “conniving at Kyiv’s impunity”.
💬#Zakharova: We want the global community to finally show impartiality when assessing the Ukrainian officials’ latest actions & statements.
— MFA Russia 🇷🇺 (@mfa_russia) October 11, 2022
☝️ But Western countries will not allow this to happen, not only conniving at Kiev’s impunity but also demanding that others do the same. pic.twitter.com/3ciqV7MAvT
Updated
While Nato’s Jens Stoltenberg has been speaking to the media about nuclear exercises, and the GCHQ boss Jeremy Fleming has been giving his lecture, the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova has also been giving a briefing. The key point to emerge so far appears to be that Russia has not yet formally received a Turkish proposal to host peace talks between Moscow and western countries.
The Kremlin says it has not ruled out that Vladimir Putin and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan could discuss a Turkish proposal to host peace talks when they meet on Thursday, but the foreign ministry said it is yet to hear about this through diplomatic channels.
Updated
Nato’s Jen Stoltenberg has given details of Nato’s annual nuclear deterrence training exercises, which are scheduled for next week, and unlikely to ease nuclear tensions between the alliance and Russia.
Stoltenberg said “This is routine training which happens every year to keep our deterrence safe, secure and effective. President Putin’s veiled nuclear threats are dangerous and irresponsible. Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and can never be fought.”
The FT reports that the weeklong ‘Steadfast Noon’ exercise will “involve 14 Nato alliance members, and nuclear-capable aircraft alongside additional capabilities such as intelligence and refuelling planes. The weeklong exercise is to ensure that relevant personnel and equipment are prepared.”
Jeremy Fleming, the head of GCHQ, is about to start speaking. RUSI is the Royal United Services Institute. The title of the lecture is “If China is the Question, What is the Answer?”, but he is expected to also address the UK’s views on Russia’s current campaign in Russia.
You should be able to watch it in the video window above the live blog. It is being chaired by Shashank Joshi, defence editor of the Economist. The speech was previewed earlier by our defence and security editor Dan Sabbagh.
We have got a video feed of GCHQ head Jeremy Fleming’s speech this afternoon at the top of the live. It is due to start shortly. You may have to refresh the page to get the play button to appear.
The Kyiv Independent, citing a Facebook post by the operators DTEK, is reporting that six people were injured in a second strike at the Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in the Vinnytsia region. The post reads:
Unfortunately, the LTPP has suffered a second blow from Russian terrorist troops. This happened at the moment when rescuers were working on site. There are some victims. According to preliminary information, there are six people. The victims were promptly provided medical care, they were taken to the hospital. There are no employees of the company among the injured.
As a result of the shelling, the company’s energy equipment was damaged again. When the security situation will allow, workers will start with repairs.
Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has said that repairs are already underway to the glass bridge in Kyiv popular with tourists which was struck by Russian missiles yesterday. He posted to Telegram, alongside some images, saying that replacement glass had been ordered and would take three weeks. He said:
Soon our renovated bridge will once again delight the residents of Kyiv and guests of the capital. Because it is now not only one of the tourist symbols of Kyiv, but also a symbol of the indomitability and stability of Ukraine.
Updated
The White House has confirmed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, joined President Joe Biden and other G7 leaders for their virtual meeting today.
The call began at 13:09 GMT, the White House said.
We’ll bring you more information about the G7 meeting as soon as we hear it.
Updated
Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, has called for a ceasefire in Ukraine just days ahead of a meeting between President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and President Vladimir Putin.
“Unfortunately [both sides] have quickly moved away from diplomacy” since the talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul in March, Çavuşoğlu said in a televised interview, cited by AFP.
The situation “gets worse and more complicated” as the war drags on, he said:
A ceasefire must be established as soon as possible. The sooner the better.
He called for a “just peace” based on Ukraine’s territorial integrity, adding:
A process that will ensure Ukraine’s border and territorial integrity should start. Without a ceasefire, it is not possible to talk about those issues in a healthy way: a viable ceasefire and a just peace.
Erdoğan and Putin are expected to meet on Thursday in Kazakhstan’s capital Astana to discuss Ukraine and bilateral relations, the Kremlin confirmed earlier.
Updated
A deputy head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been kidnapped by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom has said.
Valeriy Martynyuk, a deputy director general for human resources at the nuclear plant, was seized on Monday and is being detained in an unknown location, Energoatom said in a post on Telegram.
It said Russian kidnappers were “probably using methods of torture” on Martynyuk in an attempt to obtain information from the personnel files of the Zaporizhzhia staff “in order to force Ukrainian staff to work for Rosatom [the Russian state-owned nuclear power supplier] as soon as possible”.
Energatom appealed to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, and the international community to “take all possible measures” for Martynyuk’s immediate release.
In September, the director general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was detained by Russia while on his way from the plant, Europe’s largest, to the town of Enerhodar.
Ihor Murashov was later released, the IAEA confirmed.
Updated
The bodies of 62 Ukrainian soldiers have been “returned home” following “difficult negotiations”, Ukraine’s ministry responsible for temporarily-occupied territories has said.
The ministry said it had negotiated the return of the soldiers’ remains, including servicemen killed at the Olenivka prison, in a statement on social media.
It said:
Another transfer took place: 62 fallen heroes were returned home.
Olenivka prison, in Russian-occupied Donetsk, was bombed in an attack in July that left at least 50 Ukrainian prisoners of war dead, according to both the Ukrainian and Russian authorities. Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for the attack.
Updated
A meeting between Group of Seven leaders and Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, was scheduled to begin a few moments ago at 1200 GMT.
G7 leaders are expected to discuss their commitment to support Ukraine and hold President Vladimir Putin accountable for Russia’s aggression, including its recent missile strikes across Ukraine, the White House said yesterday.
President Zelenskiy is scheduled to participate at the top of the meeting, where he will ask leaders to urgently supply Ukraine with air defence weapons.
Speaking with reporters earlier today, the Kremlin said it had limited expectations of the G7 meeting. Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said:
The mood of this summit is already obvious and predictable. The confrontation will continue.
Updated
Belarus has said the joint deployment of forces with Russia on its borders is a defensive measure.
In a statement, the Belarusian defence ministry said:
The tasks of the Regional Grouping of Forces are purely defensive. All the activities currently being carried out are aimed at responding adequately to actions near our borders.
The moves were to ensure “security” along the border between Belarus and Ukraine, the statement continued.
It also said it would begin a military inspection today to ensure “combat readiness”:
During the inspection, military units and sub-units will work out the issues of putting on combat readiness.
The Belarusian president, Alexander Lukashenko, said on Monday he had ordered troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its western allies.
The remarks by Lukashenko mark a potential further escalation of the war in Ukraine, possibly with a combined Russian-Belarus joint force in the north of Ukraine.
Updated
Our Moscow correspondent, Andrew Roth, writes that the first deaths are being reported among Russians who were mobilised late last month.
First deaths being reported among Russians who were mobilized in late September and sent to the front in Ukraine just days later. You can see why some consider they’re being sent as cannon fodder. https://t.co/YR2JrXXfmq
— Andrew Roth (@Andrew__Roth) October 11, 2022
Putin to meet Erdoğan on Thursday to discuss Ukraine
The Kremlin has confirmed that President Vladimir Putin will meet his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Thursday to discuss Ukraine.
The meeting will take place in Astana, Kazakhstan, the Kremlin spokesperson said.
Dmitry Peskov had told reporters yesterday that it was “possible” the two leaders would discuss a Turkish proposal to host talks between Russia and the west on peace in Ukraine.
The pair will meet on the sidelines of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia summit in the Kazakhstan capital.
They last met in mid-September in Uzbekistan on the sidelines of a summit of the leaders of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images to be sent to us from Ukraine.
My colleague Peter Beaumont writes that he has seen a number of newly mobilised Russian fighters who have arrived on the frontline of the war with barely any training, including around the town of Svatove in Luhansk region.
Seeing more videos today of Russian mobiks who have arrived almost straight at key fronts with next to no training, some quickly captured, including around Svatove which you would might would be a key location for the Russian military to defend effectively.
— petersbeaumont (@petersbeaumont1) October 11, 2022
Lavrov: Russia would consider Putin-Biden meeting at G20
Moscow would not turn down a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and his US counterpart, Joe Biden, at the G20 meeting next month, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, said.
Moscow was open to talks with the west on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any “serious offers” to negotiate, Lavrov said in an interview on Russian state television.
He said US officials including the White House’s national security spokesperson, John Kirby, had said the US was willing to engage in discussions but Russia had refused.
Lavrov said:
This is a lie. We have not received any serious offers to make contact.
He suggested Russia was willing to listen to any suggestions regarding peace talks:
We have repeatedly said that we never refuse meetings. If there is a proposal, then we will consider it.
Speaking about the possibility that Turkey could host talks between Russia and the west, Lavrov said Moscow would be willing to listen to any suggestions but could not say in advance whether this would lead to results.
He said Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, would have the opportunity to put forward proposals to Putin when both visit Kazakhstan this week.
Lavrov also claimed the US had long been involved in the war in Ukraine, which he said was “being controlled by the Anglo-Saxons”.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry has confirmed its troops continued to launch long-range air strikes on Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure today.
In a statement, it said:
The purpose of the strike has been achieved. All designated facilities have been hit.
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has accused Russia of committing war crimes by targeting energy facilities to create “unbearable conditions for civilians”.
Kuleba wrote:
These are war crimes planned well in advance and aimed at creating unbearable conditions for civilians - Russia’s deliberate strategy since months.
Primary targets of Russian strikes are energy facilities. They’ve hit many yesterday and they hit the same and new ones today. These are war crimes planned well in advance and aimed at creating unbearable conditions for civilians — Russia’s deliberate strategy since months.
— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) October 11, 2022
Updated
A children’s doctor working at a cancer hospital in Kyiv was reportedly among those killed by yesterday’s wave of Russian strikes on cities across Ukraine.
Oksana Leontieva was a doctor in the children’s bone marrow transplant department at the Okhmatdyt children’s cancer hospital, according to the hospital.
She was on her way to work on Monday morning after dropping her son at kindergarten when a Russian missile hit the Ukrainian capital.
In a statement on Facebook, the hospital described Leontieva as a “dedicated and responsible person and doctor” who was a “true professional and support for her patients and colleagues”.
Anton Gerashchenko, a senior presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said her five-year-old son is now an orphan, having lost his father six months ago.
Oksana Leontieva, a doctor in children's bone marrow transplant department, took her 5 year old son to kindergarten yesterday and was driving to work when Russian rockets hit.
— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) October 11, 2022
Her son is now an orphan - his dad died six months ago, his mom yesterday.
My deepest sympathy. pic.twitter.com/z9xGyTrTLO
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here again, taking over the live blog from Martin Belam to bring you all the latest developments on Russia’s war in Ukraine. Feel free to drop me a message if you have anything to flag, you can reach me on Twitter or via email.
Summary of the day so far …
The death toll from Monday’s Russian missile attacks on a swathe of Ukrainian cities has risen to 19 people, with over 100 wounded, according to figures from the Ukrainian state emergency services.
Strikes continued on Tuesday. An attack on the Lviv region in western Ukraine on Tuesday left parts of the city without electricity. Governor Maksym Kozytskyi has said “At this moment, it is known about three explosions at two energy facilities in the Lviv region”. Mayor of the city, Andriy Sadovyi, appealed to resident to keep water supplies on hand ahead of expected service interruptions.
The Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in the Vinnytsia region was struck on Tuesday morning. Regional head Serhiy Borzov said: “An attack was launched on the LTPP. Two Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.”
There has been a lengthy air raid warning in place all morning in Kyiv, with governor Oleksiy Kuleba claiming that at least one rocket had been shot down.
Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Dnipro, has claimed that air defence systems had shot down four missiles over the region. Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv, has said that “there are still missiles in the air” and that Ukraine’s air defences continue to work.
The head of GCHQ has said the UK spy agency has not seen any indicators that Russia is preparing to use a tactical nuclear weapon in or around Ukraine despite recent bellicose statements from Vladimir Putin. Jeremy Fleming, speaking on Tuesday morning, said it was one of GCHQ’s tasks to monitor whether the Kremlin was taking any of the preliminary steps needed before a tactical weapon was being made ready.
Fleming is expected to say in a rare public speech delivered later on Tuesday that Putin is making strategic errors due to unconstrained power. “Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machine spouted, it’s clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide,” Fleming will say. “With little effective internal challenge, Putin’s decision-making has proved flawed”
The deployment of a joint task-force of Russian and Belorussian troops within Belarus poses a threat to Ukraine’s supply lines in the north of the country, according to Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK.
Prystaiko also said that Russia is “running out of sophisticated weapons” and using missiles like “dumb bombs”, and said that Ukraine was still making progress on the frontline but “not as spectacular as it used to be a couple weeks ago”. He said in the south “we are closing the circle” and that “there are almost 20,000 Russian soldiers there. If you manage to capture them it will be a huge blow for the whole campaign.”
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, has called on Russian soldiers to leave the country.
Belarus could face more sanctions if it gets more and more involved in the Ukraine conflict, France’s foreign affairs minister Catherine Colonna told French radio
A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said “We are gravely concerned that some of the attacks appear to have targeted critical civilian infrastructure … indicating that these strikes may have violated the principles on the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law.”
Mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities by Russia constitute war crimes under international law, the presidents of the Bucharest Nine group of countries, accompanied by the presidents of North Macedonia and Montenegro, said on Tuesday.
Thérèse Coffey, deputy prime minister of the UK, said Monday’s strikes showed “this is a time for other countries to continue the level of support that they’ve been showing, and where necessary to escalate their level of support directly to the Ukrainian armed forces.”
The German chancellor has attempted to make reassurances that the country’s energy supply will be secure this winter. Olaf Scholz said: “I am happy to say to you today, if we all continue to adapt to the changed situation – the citizens, the companies and the politicians – then we will get safely through this winter.”
Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, has called Russia a “terrorist state” at a General Assembly meeting on Monday night. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, in turn accused Ukraine of rivalling “the most outrageous terrorist organisations” after a bridge linking Russia to the annexed Ukrainian territory of Crimea was attacked.
Andriy Sadovyi, mayor of Lviv, has asked residents to store a small supply of water in anticipation that there may be outages later today following Russian strikes which appear to have hit critical power infrastructure in the region and has knocked out electricity in some parts of the city.
⚡️⚡️Прохання до всіх зробити невеликий запас води. Протягом наступних годин можливі перебої у водопостачанні. #Львів
— Андрій Садовий (@AndriySadovyi) October 11, 2022
Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus, has called on Russian soldiers to leave the country. She stated that the oppositions position was:
Belarus must officially withdraw from Russian war participation. Every Russian soldier must leave Belarus unconditionally. All involved in Russia’s attack from Belarus must be held accountable. Democratic Belarus and Ukraine should build an alliance against Russian aggression.
This is our position:
— Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya (@Tsihanouskaya) October 11, 2022
👉Belarus must officially withdraw from 🇷🇺 war participation.
👉Every 🇷🇺 soldier must leave Belarus unconditionally.
👉All involved in 🇷🇺 attack from Belarus must be held accountable.
👉Democratic Belarus & 🇺🇦 should build an alliance against 🇷🇺 aggression. pic.twitter.com/jUdwFAkFEP
Tsikhanouskaya has been in exile since Alexander Lukashenko claimed his own victory in the August 2020 election in Belarus.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv in western Ukraine, has posted an update to Telegram saying:
At this moment, it is known about three explosions at two energy facilities in the Lviv region. Information about victims is yet to be received. The danger still continues.
The Lviv region borders Poland, and is one of the furthest regions of Ukraine from the four areas in the east which Russia partially occupies and has claimed to “annex”.
UN official 'concerned' Russian attacks may have 'violated the principles on the conduct of hostilities'
A spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has said “We are gravely concerned that some of the attacks appear to have targeted critical civilian infrastructure … indicating that these strikes may have violated the principles on the conduct of hostilities under international humanitarian law.”
Reuters reports Ravina Shamdasani told a news conference on Tuesday “We urge the Russian Federation to refrain from further escalation, and to take all feasible measures to prevent civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure.”
Moscow has repeatedly denied that it targets civilians and civilian infrastructure during what it has termed its “special military operation” in Ukraine, despite the widespread evidence of damage to civilian areas and the discovery of mass graves in areas formerly occupied by invading Russian troops.
Parts of Lviv without electricity after attack on critical infrastructure – mayor
The mayor of Lviv, Andriy Sadovyi, has said on the Telegram messaging app that parts of the city are again without electricity following what he described as a “rocket attack on a critical infrastructure facility.”
More details soon …
Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv, has just posted to Telegram to say “there are still missiles in the air” and that Ukraine’s air defences continue to work.
Updated
There are reports of explosions in Lviv, which have impacted electricity supplies. The mayor of the city, Andriy Sadovyi, has posted to Telegram: “Explosions are heard in Lviv. There are problems with electricity.”
The regional governor, Maksym Kozytskyi, has posted a similar message. At 12.08pm local time he wrote: “An attack on an energy facility in Lviv region. Stay in shelters. Do not spread photos, videos and rumours.”
Updated
Valentyn Reznichenko, the governor of Dnipro, has posted to Telegram to claim that so far today air defence systems had shot down four missiles over the region. He told residents to stay in shelters as “the attack continues”.
The region borders Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, three of the occupied areas of Ukraine that Russia has claimed to “annex”.
Updated
Ukrinform is reporting that the Ladyzhyn thermal power plant (LTPP) in the Vinnytsia region was struck this morning. It quotes the regional head, Serhiy Borzov, as saying: “An attack was launched on the LTPP. Two Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.”
The report says that emergency services are at the scene.
Updated
The mobilisation of troops in Belarus poses a threat to Ukraine’s supply lines in the north of the country, according to Vadym Prystaiko, Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK.
He told viewers of Sky News in the UK: “The Belorussian case is difficult because they are on top of Ukraine, the north of Ukraine. The danger this is actually posing is to cut the supply lines. We are receiving everything from the west, they’re coming through these western borders.”
However, he also said one factor that might be causing the Belarus leader Lukashenko to be cautious was that “some people believe he’s not mobilising people because he is not sure whether the Kalashnikov’s will be turned against him maybe”.
Updated
Russia is “running out of sophisticated weapons” and using missiles like “dumb bombs”, according to Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK.
Vadym Prystaiko also told viewers of Sky News that Ukraine was still making progress on the frontline but “not as spectacular as it used to be a couple weeks ago”.
He said in the south “we are closing the circle” and that “there are almost 20,000 Russian soldiers there. If you manage to capture them it will be a huge blow for the whole campaign.”
On diminishing weapons stockpiles, he said: “What Russians are using now is old rockets from the 1960s, the 1970s. What they’re doing, more or less, utilising some of the rockets that used to be quite sophisticated, now they are throwing them like dumb bombs. So they are running out of sophisticated equipment, that’s for sure.
“But it has been research done for many years how the new wars will look like, and how fast the sides will run out of sophisticated equipment, and we’ll have to get back to all of this 1960s when they can actually fix the old tank with a hammer and just simple simple instruments.”
Updated
Mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities by Russia constitute war crimes under international law, the presidents of the Bucharest Nine group of countries, accompanied by the presidents of North Macedonia and Montenegro, said on Tuesday.
“We, the presidents of Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia condemn the mass bombardments of Ukrainian cities recently carried out by Russia, which constitute war crimes under international law,” Reuters reports they said in a statement.
Updated
'Desperation' spreading in Russian military and society, says GCHQ
Here are the quotes from head of GCHQ Jeremy Fleming’s interview with the BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. PA Media quotes him saying:
We believe that Russia is running short of munitions, it’s certainly running short of friends.
We’ve seen, because of the declaration for mobilisation, that it’s running short of troops. So I think the answer to that is pretty clear. Russia and Russia’s commanders are worried about the state of their military machine.
The word I’ve used is ‘desperate’. We can see that desperation at many levels inside Russian society and inside the Russian military machine.
It certainly doesn’t imply complacency.
Russia, as we’ve seen in the dreadful attacks yesterday, still has a very capable military machine. It can launch weapons, it has deep, deep stocks and expertise. And yet, it is very broadly stretched in Ukraine.
Fleming was also asked about the prospect of Russia using nuclear weapons.
“I would hope that we will see indicators if they started to go down that path,” he said. “But let’s be really clear about that, if they are considering that, that would be a catastrophe in the way that many people have talked about.”
Updated
The German chancellor has this morning attempted to make reassurances that the country’s energy supply will be secure this winter. Speaking at an engineering conference, Reuters reports that Olaf Scholz said: “I am happy to say to you today, if we all continue to adapt to the changed situation – the citizens, the companies and the politicians – then we will get safely through this winter.”
Scholz added that Germany was almost at the target of having its gas storage facilities 95% full.
Updated
The head of the British spy agency GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, is making a rare public appearance today, with a speech planned later on. He is also appearing on the BBC’s Today programme, where he has been interviewed about Russia and China. Our defence and security editor, Dan Sabbagh, has been listening.
GCHQ boss Jeremy Fleming on Radio 4: "pretty clear Russia and Russia's commanders are worried about the state of their military machine" and "the word I've used is desperate"
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) October 11, 2022
On the recent spate of missile attacks, Russia "still has a very capable military machine. It can launch weapons. It has deep, deep stocks and expertise. And yet, it is very broadly stretched in Ukraine".
— Dan Sabbagh (@dansabbagh) October 11, 2022
Updated
The Russian foreign ministry’s social channels are this morning pushing out links to a response that the foreign ministry spokesperson gave late yesterday to recent statements coming from the US. In it, Maria Zakharova says:
We repeat for the US once again: the objectives we set in Ukraine will be achieved. Russia is open to diplomacy, the terms are known. The longer Washington encourages Kiev’s bellicosity, encouraging rather than preventing terrorist incursions by Ukrainian saboteurs, the more difficult the search for a diplomatic settlement will become.
Official figures from Ukraine suggest that yesterday at least 19 people were killed and more than 100 civilians were wounded after Russia launched a barrage of more than 80 missiles and rockets at cities throughout Ukraine, well away from the frontline of the occupied territory which the Russian Federation claims to have “annexed”.
Updated
Oleksiy Kuleba, the governor of Kyiv, has just reported in the last minutes on Telegram “another shot down rocket. We stay in the shelters.”
Updated
Today’s First Edition newsletter has Archie Bland talking to Andrew Roth, the Guardian’s Moscow correspondent, and to Peter Beaumont, who is in Kyiv. Here’s an extract:
The vital question over the next few days, Peter said, is whether “this is a screw-you retaliatory strike or the start of something bigger and more serious”. But there are doubts over whether Russia has the stocks of missiles to maintain such an approach, as Dan Sabbagh notes in this analysis.
The chief of GCHQ will say in a rare speech today that Russian forces are exhausted and their supplies of munitions are running out. “These attacks don’t make a lot of sense for the military picture on the ground,” Peter said. “Shooting up cities doesn’t advance your troops. What I think would worry Ukraine more is some change on the frontlines.”
In that context, there may be more concern over the news yesterday that Russian forces will be allowed to return to Belarus, potentially stretching Ukrainian forces further on the northern border.
Meanwhile, as G7 leaders meet today, with Volodymyr Zelenskiy in attendance, western leaders appear to have acknowledged the renewed urgency of the case for additional help: Germany said it would begin to deliver four long-awaited advanced air defence systems in the next few days, while Joe Biden also pledged the provision of advanced air defence systems in a call with Ukraine’s president yesterday.
“Those systems aren’t infallible,” Peter said. “But you cannot have a conversation with anyone in this country, whether they’re a farmer in Kherson or a senior official, where they don’t come up.”
Behind all of this is an unthinkable threat: nuclear attack. “Everybody here knows it’s a shoe that hasn’t dropped, and it overshadows life to some degree,” Peter said. “But one of the features of the last few days is that if something like what happened to the Kerch bridge doesn’t prompt that, when it was so humiliating for Putin, we may have a long way to go to get there.”
You can read it in full here: Tuesday briefing – After Russia retaliates, what might happen next?
Updated
The Ukrainian MP Volodymyr Ariev has told Sky News in the UK that he believed Vladimir Putin launched the wave of attacks so he could look like a strong leader at the G20 summit in Bali, rather than a weak one who had been losing ground in Ukraine. He said:
We understand that it was planned in advance. Putin would like to present it like a response to the explosion on the Crimea bridge, but it hasn’t been proven who was behind that attack. But for Putin it makes no sense to find a truthful reason for escalation in Ukraine.
The reason for it, for me, is pretty understandable. In one month, Putin is going to the meeting of G20 countries in Indonesia. So he would like to present himself not a weak leader, after defeats of the Russian army on conventional battlegrounds. He would like to speak to the world from a position of strength.
So that’s why he changed the commander of operations against Ukraine, and his first day was an airstrike to scare Ukraine. Of course, Ukrainians were not scared.
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The missile attacks on Ukrainian cities yesterday were mostly well away from the front line, where Ukrainian forces had been making progress in both the Donbas to the north and towards Kherson in the south in recent weeks. Kirill Stremousov, one of the Russian-imposed leaders in occupied Kherson, has messaged on Telegram this morning to claim that pro-Russian forces have been repulsed in Kherson, as well as an attack on the key Antonovsky bridge. He also wrote:
The denazification of the Ukronazis and the fascist leadership of Ukraine continues. The time has come for residents of the remaining Ukraine to see clearly and stop self-destruction for the sake of the collective West. Separately, an appeal to the Ukronazis – stop hiding behind playgrounds, you will all be condemned as war criminals.
Stremousov provided no evidence to back up his claims. The Russian Federation has claimed to “annex” Kherson region after a widely-derided “referendum”, despite not being in full control of the territory.
UK spy chief: 'supplies and munitions are running out' for Russia
The head of the British spy agency GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, is expected to make a rare public address later today at the Rusi thinktank, and parts of what he will say have been briefed out in advance. Dan Sabbagh reports:
The GCHQ director will highlight the costs to Russia from the months of fighting, arguing that Moscow’s forces have become exhausted and its recent mobilisation of conscripts shows signs of desperation. “We know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out,” he will say.
“Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machine spouted, it’s clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide,” Fleming will say.
Focusing on the Russian president directly, Fleming is expected to say that “with little effective internal challenge, his decision-making has proved flawed” and that he has engaged in “a high-stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgment”.
Fleming is also expected to speak about the future threat posed by China, according to a pre-released extract of the remarks.
Read more of Dan Sabbagh’s report here: GCHQ head – Putin making strategic errors due to unconstrained power
The Interfax news agency in Russia reports that there are now four ferries plying the route across the Kerch Strait between Russia and Crimea. The service runs every two hours, reports Interfax, and a return journey takes four hours. It is to replace the road and rail link of the Kerch bridge, which was hit by an explosion at the weekend causing a section to partially collapse. The Russian Federation annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
Ukraine's emergency services: 19 died, 105 wounded in yesterday's attacks
Ukraine’s state emergency services have updated their count of the dead and wounded from yesterday’s attacks. In a message posted to Telegram earlier this morning, the agency said that “according to preliminary data, 19 people died, there were another 105 injured”.
The service also said that over 1,000 people and 120 units were involved in extinguishing fires and emergency rescue operations yesterday. They suggest that around 300 settlements in four oblasts remains without power.
Maksym Kozytskyi, governor of Lviv, has stated on Telegram that electricity supplies have been restored to everywhere in the region, and that electricity and water supplies have been fully restored in the city of Lviv. The areas suffered outages yesterday after Russian strikes, leading to power failures that included at one point border crossings between Ukraine and Poland.
Vitaliy Kim, governor of Mykolaiv, has posted a status update for his region to the Telegram messaging app. He gave the casualty count in the last 24 hours for Mykolaiv as one woman killed. He said that yesterday air defence systems destroyed 14 cruise missiles over Mykolaiv. He also claims that between 3.30am and 5,30am local time this morning Ukrainian forces destroyed five “Shahed-136” kamikaze drones. The claims have not been independently verified.
UK's deputy PM: 'other countries' should 'escalate level of support directly to Ukrainian armed forces'
Thérèse Coffey, who is deputy prime minister of the UK, has been interviewed on Sky News this morning. She was asked what the UK could do to offer further support to Ukraine following yesterday’s wave of Russian missile strikes on cities. She called for other countries to offer support, saying:
We have been continuing the support that we’ve been giving. The prime minister [Liz Truss] was foreign secretary beforehand, working in step with our defence secretary Ben Wallace and at the time prime minister Boris Johnson, and we continue to do that. So we need to make sure that the west is also resolved to making sure that Putin must fail. And the people of Ukraine succeed.
Pressed on something specific the UK could offer, she continued:
Well, of course, some of these operational matters, of the direct support [that] will be given will be discussed confidentially, both within government, but also with the Ukrainian president. And I know that we have always stepped up to deliver what we can.
But this is a time for other countries to continue the level of support that they’ve been showing, and where necessary to escalate their level of support directly to the Ukrainian armed forces, as we have done
Belarus could face more sanctions if it gets more and more involved in the Ukraine conflict, French foreign affairs minister Catherine Colonna told French radio, Reuters reports.
Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko said yesterday that he had ordered troops to deploy jointly with Russian forces near Ukraine in response to what he said was a clear threat to Belarus from Kyiv and its backers.
This is Martin Belam taking on the live blog in London. You can message me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
That’s it from me, Helen Sullivan, for today. Thanks for following along. My colleague Martin Belam will take you through the latest for the next while.
Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner renounces citizenship
Israeli-Russian billionaire Yuri Milner said on Monday he has renounced his Russian citizenship after leaving the country in 2014.
Milner is the founder of internet investment firm DST Global, and made a fortune by betting on Chinese tech companies like e-commerce platforms Alibaba and JD.com.
“My family and I left Russia for good in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea,” Milner said in a tweet. “And this summer, we officially completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship.”
My family and I left Russia for good in 2014, after the Russian annexation of Crimea. And this summer, we officially completed the process of renouncing our Russian citizenship.
— Yuri Milner (@yurimilner) October 10, 2022
Milner has been an Israeli citizen since 1999 and has not visited Russia since 2014, according to a fact sheet on DST Global’s website.
Milner also has no assets in Russia, 97% of his personal wealth was created outside of the country and “Yuri has never met Vladimir Putin, either individually or in a group,” according to the website.
Death toll from 10 October strikes rises to 19
Ukraine’s state emergency service has reported that the death toll from Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian cities on 10 October has risen to 19, with the number of injured rising to over 105.
⚡️Update: 19 killed, 105 injured as a result of Russia's missile attacks.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) October 11, 2022
Ukraine's State Emergency Service provided updated information on casualties following Russia's widespread missile attacks across Ukraine on Oct. 10.
Hong Kong leader will implement only UN sanctions – not US, UK or EU sanctions
Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said Tuesday he will implement only United Nations sanctions – not US, UK or EU sanctions – after the US warned the territory’s status as a financial centre could be affected if it acts as a safe haven for sanctioned individuals, AP reports.
Lee’s statement Tuesday came days after a luxury yacht connected to Russian tycoon Alexey Mordashov docked in the city.
Mordashov, who is believed to have close ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin, was sanctioned by the US, UK and the European Union in February after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Hong Kong authorities have said that they do not implement unilateral sanctions imposed by other governments.
“We cannot do anything that has no legal basis,” Lee told reporters. “We will comply with United Nations sanctions, that is our system, that is our rule of law,” he said.
A US State Department spokesperson said in a statement Monday that “the possible use of Hong Kong as a safe haven by individuals evading sanctions from multiple jurisdictions further calls into question the transparency of the business environment.”
The State Department spokesperson also said the city’s reputation as a financial centre “depends on its adherence to international laws and standards.”
Russian MoD 'increasingly factional', says UK
The UK Ministry of Defence has published its daily update from Ukraine, reporting that “the Russian Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced that General Sergei Surovikin had been appointed as overall commander of its Joint Group of Forces conducting the ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine” on 8 October.
“For much of its operation, Russia has likely lacked a single empowered field commander,” the MoD tweeted.
“Surovikin’ s appointment likely reflects an effort by the Russian national security community to improve the delivery of the operation. However, he will likely have to contest with an increasingly factional Russian MOD which is poorly resourced to achieve the political objectives it has been set in Ukraine.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 11 October 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 11, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/VbuADMF0JY
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/S9P7kmoo0X
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15 explosions registered in Zaporizhzhia overnight – Ukraine deputy foreign affairs minister
Ukraine’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Emine Dzheppar, reports that Russia fired at least fifteen rockets on Zaporizhzhia last night, targeting “an educational institution, a medical institution and residential buildings.”
#russian terrorists again hit infrastructure facilities in #Zaporizhzhia with rockets this night. At least 15 explosions registered. Their targets were an educational institution, a medical institution, and residential buildings. #russiaisaterrorisstate #StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/2FgR5OyKxa
— Emine Dzheppar (@EmineDzheppar) October 11, 2022
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Reports of shelling in Vinnytsia
Citing the Oblast Military Administration, media outlet Ukrainska Pravda reports that that Ladyzhynska power plant in the southwestern city of Vinnytsia was shelled a short while ago by two Shahed-136 kamikaze drones.
⚡️ The occupiers attacked the Ladyzhynska TPP in Vinnytsia with two Shahed-136 kamikaze drones – Oblast Military Administrtion
— Ukrainska Pravda in English (@pravda_eng) October 11, 2022
Reuters reports via RIA that Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov has warned the US and Nato against “the West’s growing involvement in the Ukrainian conflict”, saying that Moscow would respond and hope[s] that they realise the danger of uncontrolled escalation in Washington and other Western capitals”.
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98 miners trapped underground following Russian strikes – Ukraine state media
Ukranian state news agency Ukrinform reports that 98 miners are still trapped underground following Russia’s shelling of Kryvyi Rih, Ukrainian president Vlodymyr Zelensky’s home town.
Power outages caused by the strikes have left 98 miners stick underground., the news agency reports, with rescuers working to release them.
Almost 900 miners had been trapped in four mines following the strikes, but most have since been freed.
Despite – or because of – yesterday’s missile strikes on several Ukranian cities, people in Lviv, which was among the cities targeted by Russia, went dancing last night.
Wall Street Journal correspondent Matthew Luxmoore posted the below video on Twitter late on Monday night, adding that “Ukranian songs were interspersed tonight with chants of ‘Death to Enemies!’ and ‘Putin is a dick’!’”
So... About Ukrainian morale after Russian attacks https://t.co/8P8NC06PhD
— Anastasiia Lapatina (@lapatina_) October 11, 2022
Air rid sirens are sounding this morning in Kyiv, the BBC’s Paul Adams and others report, as Ukrainians wake up after yesterday’s strikes in cities across the country, which have killed 14 people and left almost 100 injured.
Further strikes were reported in Zaporizhizhia overnight.
The sirens are sounding again in #Kyiv. What sort of day will it be? pic.twitter.com/LhNn7rOns0
— Paul Adams (@BBCPaulAdams) October 11, 2022
Ukraine’s morning starts again with air-raid sirens across the country. Lot of fear last night that Russia would renew missile attacks today.
— Matthew Luxmoore (@mjluxmoore) October 11, 2022
Here we go again: Air raid, Kyiv, just as people are getting ready for work and school. #RussianTerrorAttacks pic.twitter.com/xL7JUgy3yN
— Euan MacDonald (@Euan_MacDonald) October 11, 2022
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Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN, Sergiy Kyslytsya, has called Russia a “terrorist state” at a General Assembly meeting on Monday night.
“Deliberate targeting of civilians is a war crime. By launching missile attacks on civilians, sleeping in their homes or rushing to work, children going to schools, Russia has proven once again that it is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways,” he said.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, in turn accused Ukraine of rivalling ‘the most outrageous terrorist organisations’ after a bridge linking Russia to the annexed Ukrainian territory of Crimea was attacked
Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.
Russia’s soldiers are running out of supplies and munitions and initial gains made by Moscow are being reversed, Jeremy Fleming is expected to add in a rare public address.
“Far from the inevitable Russian military victory that their propaganda machine spouted, it’s clear that Ukraine’s courageous action on the battlefield and in cyberspace is turning the tide,” Fleming will say.
Focusing on the Russian president directly, Fleming is expected to say that “with little effective internal challenge, his decision-making has proved flawed” and that he has engaged in “a high-stakes strategy that is leading to strategic errors in judgment”.
Coming up today
There are a few events and meetings planned for today, so here is a summary of what we can expect, among the unexpected:
G7 leaders will hold crisis talks with Zelenskiy in attendance. The leaders are likely to discuss the global energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion, amid plans to introduce a global cap on the price of Russian oil to target Putin’s revenues.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss is expected to call for a full meeting of Nato leaders to happen in the coming days
United Arab Emirates president Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan will visit Moscow on Tuesday to meet Putin.
Jeremy Fleming, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday that Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership.
UK PM expected to call for full meeting of Nato leaders as G7 to hold crisis talks
The UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss, is expected to call for a full meeting of Nato leaders in coming days as the G7 holds crisis talks on Tuesday following Russian strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.
Russian forces rained more than 80 missiles on cities across Ukraine on Monday, according to Kyiv, in apparent retaliation for an explosion that damaged a key bridge linking the Crimean peninsula to Russia.
The G7 video call will also be attended by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
G7 leaders are also likely to discuss the global energy crisis sparked by Russia’s invasion, amid plans to introduce a global cap on the price of Russian oil to target Putin’s revenues, PA reports.
Ukraine stepped up calls for western allies to provide anti-air and anti-missile systems in response to Monday’s strikes, which have so far killed 14 and injured 97.
Kyiv was targeted for the first time in months, while Russia also hit civilian areas and energy infrastructure across the country, from Kharkiv in the east to Lviv near the Polish border.
Death toll in 10 October strikes on Ukraine rises to 14
The death toll from Russia’s strikes on Kyiv and other cities on 10 October has risen to 14, while 97 have been injured, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services said in an update on Monday night.
More than 1,300 settlements across the country were without power, the emergency service said.
🔸Станом на 21:00 внаслідок ракетних обстрілів залишаються знеструмленими 1 тис. 307 населених пунктів у Київській (13), Львівській (353), Сумській (766),Тернопільській (169) та Хмельницькій (6) областях.
— DSNS.GOV.UA (@SESU_UA) October 10, 2022
🔸Загинуло 14 осіб, травмовано 97 осіб. pic.twitter.com/3qAydhDW70
Many of the locations hit by cruise missiles and kamikaze drones during the morning rush hour appeared to be solely civilian sites or key pieces of infrastructure, apparently chosen to terrorise Ukrainians.
Oleksandr Starukh, Governor of Zaporizhzhia Oblast, announced the attacks overnight in a post on Telegram: “The occupier attacked the regional center with rockets. Infrastructure objects became the targets of the enemy. Information about the destruction and victims is being ascertained.”
Zaporizhzhia was also hit in the 10 October strikes.
Reports of strikes overnight in Zaporizhzhia
The Kyiv Independent reports that there have been strikes on Zaporizhzhia overnight, saying in a tweet shortly before 7am local time that, “Russian forces targeted an infrastructure site in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh. Information on casualties and damages has not yet been reported.”
⚡️Russia strikes Zaporizhzhia overnight on Oct. 11.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) October 11, 2022
Russian forces targeted an infrastructure site in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh. Information on casualties and damages has not yet been reported.
The Guardian has not confirmed this independently. We will bring you more shortly.
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Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to our ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be taking you through the latest as it happens. If there is news you think we may have missed, let me know on Twitter @helenrsullivan or via email: helen.sullivan@theguardian.com.
The Kyiv Independent reports that there have been strikes on Zaporizhzhia overnight, saying in a tweet shortly before 7am local time, “Russian forces targeted an infrastructure site in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Zaporizhzhia Oblast Governor Oleksandr Starukh. Information on casualties and damages has not yet been reported.” The Guardian has not confirmed this independently.
Meanwhile the death toll from Russia’s attacks on Ukraine on 10 October has risen to 14, with the number of injured rising to 97, Ukraine’s State Emergency Services said in an update on Monday night.
Liz Truss is expected to call for a full meeting of Nato leaders in the coming days, as G7 leaders hold crisis talks on Tuesday, with Ukraine’s president, Vlodymyr Zelenskiy, attending, following Russian strikes on Kyiv and other major Ukrainian cities.
In the meantime, here are the other key recent developments:
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his country was “dealing with terrorists” and accused Russia of targeting power facilities and civilians following the missile attacks. “They deliberately chose such a time, such goals, in order to cause as much harm as possible,” the Ukrainian leader said.
US president Joe Biden said the US “strongly condemns” the Russian missile strikes on cities across Ukraine, which demonstrate Putin’s “utter brutality” against the Ukrainian people. In a separate statement, the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the international community “has a responsibility” to make clear that Putin’s actions are “completely unacceptable”.
The United Nations general assembly voted to reject Russia’s call for the 193-member body to hold a secret ballot later this week on whether to condemn Moscow’s move to annex four partially occupied regions in Ukraine. Diplomats said the vote on the resolution would likely be on Wednesday or Thursday.
Australian troops could help train Ukraine’s armed forces following Russia’s “appalling” attack on Kyiv, the country’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, said on Tuesday.
Members of the Group of Seven, and Zelenskiy, will hold emergency talks on Tuesday, a German government spokesperson has confirmed. Zelenskiy confirmed he would address G7 leaders, adding that he had spoken to Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, about increasing pressure on Russia as well as aid for Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin has made strategic errors in his pursuit of the war in Ukraine partly because there are so few restraints on his leadership, the head of the British spy agency GCHQ will say in a speech on Tuesday.
The former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has been included on a list of wanted persons put together by Ukraine security officials. A statement released by Ukraine’s security service, the SBU, said Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia’s Security, was wanted under a section of the criminal code dealing with attempts to undermine Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the inviolability of its borders. Most of the Russian Security Council’s members are on the list.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has confirmed its teams have paused their field work in Ukraine for security reasons. The Norwegian Refugee Council have also said that it has paused its aid operations in Ukraine until it is safe to resume. “Our aid workers are hiding from a barrage of bombs and in fear of repeated attacks,” it said.
The president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, will visit Moscow on Tuesday to meet Putin, UAE state media reported. Mohamed “will discuss with President Putin the friendly relations between the UAE and Russia along with a number of regional and international issues and developments of common interest”, the UAE’s state-owned news agency WAM said.
The European Union has announced it will extend a bloc-wide protection scheme for Ukrainian refugees into 2024. Ukrainians in the EU who choose to return to their country will still be able to maintain their refugee status, as long as they notify the relevant EU country of their move, according to the EU’s home affairs commissioner, Ylva Johansson.
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