Closing summary
It’s 9pm in Kyiv and Moscow. That’s it from me, Léonie Chao-Fong, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog today.
Here’s where we stand:
Ukraine’s army boasted of territorial gains near the strategically vital southern city of Kherson on Wednesday. Five settlements in the Beryslav district in the north-east of the Kherson region – Novovasylivka, Novogrygorivka, Nova Kamyanka, Tryfonivka, Chervone – were said to have been taken from Russian forces over the day.
Nato allies delivered new air defence systems in the wake of Russia’s recent missile attacks across the country. Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, lauded the arrival of the first of four Iris-T defence systems from Germany and an “expedited” delivery of sophisticated National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (Nasams) from the US.
A Russian nuclear strike would “almost certainly” trigger a “physical response” from Ukraine’s allies and potentially from Nato, a senior NATO official has said. Any use of nuclear weapons by Moscow would have “unprecedented consequences” for Russia, the official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
At least seven people were killed and eight injured in a Russian strike on a crowded market in the town of Avdiivka, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region said. “There is no military logic in such shelling - only an unbridled desire to kill as many of our people as possible and intimidate others,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to resume gas supplies via one link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that remains operational. The ball was in the EU’s court on whether it wanted gas supplied via the pipeline, Putin said in an address to the Russian Energy Week international forum.
The head of the Russian state-owned gas monopoly supplier, Gazprom, has warned Europe of the consequences of renouncing Russian gas. There is “no guarantee” that Europe would survive winter based on its current gas storage capacity, Alexei Miller said, adding that gas in Germany’s underground storage would be enough for between two- and two-and-a-half months.
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has appealed to citizens and businesses to reduce their electricity consumption during peak hours to avoid blackouts. People are being asked to reduce power consumption from 5pm to 10pm across Ukraine by 25% in order to stabilise the power system, which had been damaged by Russian missile attacks.
External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Rafael Grossi had warned earlier that the loss of off-site power at the facility, Europe’s largest, was “deeply worrying”. Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that manages the ZNPP, has accused Russian forces occupying it of refusing a convoy of company vehicles carrying diesel to refuel the plant’s generators after shelling of a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region caused the plant to lose power.
Eight people have been detained over the weekend’s attack on the Crimea bridge, and Russia’s security forces have named a senior figure from Ukraine as being behind them. A senior Ukrainian official dismissed the investigation as “nonsense”.
A crowdfunding appeal that was launched after Russian attacks on cities across the country on Monday has raised $9.6m (£8.7m) in 24 hours for the purchase of kamikaze drones for the Ukrainian armed forces. An initial 50 Ram II drones, unmanned aerial vehicles with a 3kg explosive payload, designed and built by Ukrainian companies, will be bought with the money, along with three control stations.
President Putin will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in what is likely to be a “very interesting” meeting in Kazakhstan tomorrow, where the Turkish leader may propose ideas for peace in Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. The Russian and Turkish presidents are expected to meet in Kazakhstan’s capital tomorrow on the sidelines of a regional summit.
President Joe Biden has said he believes Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor” who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine. The US president told CNN on Tuesday that he believed his Russian counterpart had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian defiance in the face of invasion, but does not believe he would resort to using a tactical nuclear weapon.
Ukraine’s ministry of reintegration has confirmed that 37 Ukrainian children who were illegally deported to Russia have now returned home. The children had been deported from the Russian-occupied territory of Kharkiv region in August, it said in a statement on Facebook.
The Kremlin has denied a report that Elon Musk spoke with President Vladimir Putin before publishing his “peace plan” for Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia. In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer said the Tesla CEO had told him that Putin was “prepared to negotiate”. Musk has also denied the report.
Russian nuclear strike would trigger a 'physical response' by Nato, says official
A Russian nuclear strike would “almost certainly” trigger a “physical response” from Ukraine’s allies and potentially from Nato, a senior NATO official has said.
Any use of nuclear weapons by Moscow would have “unprecedented consequences” for Russia, the official was quoted by Reuters as saying.
It would “almost certainly be drawing a physical response from many allies, and potentially from Nato itself,” the official said.
The official added that Moscow was using its nuclear threats mainly to deter the alliance and other countries from directly entering its war on Ukraine.
Ukraine makes gains near Kherson as allies provide air defences
Ukraine’s army boasted of territorial gains near the strategically vital southern city of Kherson on Wednesday as Nato allies delivered new air defence systems in the wake of Russia’s recent missile attacks across the country.
After 48 hours of Ukrainian cities coming under heavy fire, the government in Kyiv could celebrate positive news from both the frontlines and its diplomatic efforts to secure ground-to-air systems.
Five settlements in the Beryslav district in the north-east of the Kherson region – Novovasylivka, Novogrygorivka, Nova Kamyanka, Tryfonivka, Chervone – were said to have been taken from Russian forces over the day.
Kherson was the first city to fall to Russia following the invasion on 24 February and it is a crucial strategic and symbolic target for Ukraine’s southern counterattack.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s defence minister, Oleksiy Reznikov, lauded the arrival of the first of four Iris-T defence systems from Germany and an “expedited” delivery of sophisticated National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (Nasams) from the US.
“A new era of air defence has begun in Ukraine,” Reznikov tweeted.
Iris-Ts from Germany are already here. Nasams are coming. This is only the beginning. And we need more.”
Updated
Canada’s defence minister, Anita Anand, has announced a new military aid package for Ukraine, which includes ammunition, communications equipment, winter clothing, armoured vehicles and artillery.
Some $15m (£9.8m) in winter clothing and $15.2m (£9.9m) in howitzer ammunition make up the bulk of the latest military assistance package, Anand announced as she sat down with her Nato counterparts in Brussels.
Canada also will provide another $15.3m (£10m) worth of the high-tech cameras the Ukrainians have been using on their drones, along with more satellite communication services.
I met with my friend @OleksiiReznikov today to send a clear message: we stand with you. We’re donating additional artillery ammunition, drone cameras, satellite services and winter clothing – and we’ll continue to train Ukrainian forces with the skills they need to fight and win. pic.twitter.com/bRrrfDeEBQ
— Anita Anand (@AnitaAnandMP) October 12, 2022
Updated
More than 50 countries gathered for a meeting at Nato headquarters to promise more weapons, including air defences, for Ukraine after Russia launched its most intense missile strikes across the country since the war began.
The US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, opened the gathering by condemning the Russian president, Vladimir Putin’s, deadly missile attacks against “targets with no military purpose”.
Sitting beside his Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksii Reznikov, Austin said:
The whole world has just seen yet again the malice and cruelty of Putin’s war of choice, rooted in aggression and waged with deep contempt for the rules of war. But Russia’s latest assaults have only deepened the determination of the Ukrainian people and further united countries of goodwill from every region on Earth.
Updated
More than 90,000 Russian fighters have been listed as “irrecoverable” military losses since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, according to a report by the Russian media project iStories.
“Irrecoverable losses” is a category that includes servicemen who were killed, went missing, died from their wounds or were disabled and cannot return to military service.
The figure is close to US and UK estimates. In August, Britain’s defence minister, Ben Wallace, said the Russian army’s total losses, including deaths, injuries, and desertions, exceeded 80,000.
Updated
Here’s more from Gazprom’s chief, Alexei Miller, who has warned that “whole towns” in Europe could freeze this winter despite the continent having almost filled its gas storage facilities.
Speaking at the Russia Energy Week conference in Moscow earlier this afternoon, Miller said:
Winter can be relatively warm, but one week or even five days will be abnormally cold and it’s possible that whole towns and lands, god forbid, will freeze.
During days of peak winter demand, Europe could lack some 800m cubic metres of natural gas per day, or one third of its total consumption, Miller said.
European gas inventories are currently about 91% full, with the most pessimistic estimates suggesting they will be at 5% capacity in March, he added.
US president Joe Biden has said he has not seen any movement from the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, on the release of the American basketball star Brittney Griner.
Griner, a two-time Olympic basketball gold medalist, was sentenced to nine years in prison in August after Russian police said they found vape canisters with cannabis oil in her luggage at Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow in February.
On Monday, Griner’s defence team appealed against her conviction for narcotics possession and trafficking. The US has said she was wrongfully detained and has offered to exchange her for Viktor Bout, a Russian arms dealer serving a 25-year prison sentence in America.
Asked if he had seen any action on Griner’s case, Biden replied:
Not from Putin.
During his interview with CNN on Tuesday, Biden said he would be willing to meet Putin at the G20 meeting next month if the Russian leader wanted to discuss the detained WNBA star.
He said:
I have no intention of meeting with him. But for example, if he came to me at the G20 and said I want to talk about the release of Griner, I’d meet with him. I mean, it would depend.
Updated
The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, has tweeted a photo of himself returning to Kyiv after meeting with President Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg yesterday.
As agreed with 🇺🇦 President @ZelenskyyUa, after my meetings in St Petersburg I am coming back to Kyiv. The work on the establishment of a nuclear safety & security protection zone around #Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant continues. pic.twitter.com/JKuAtN8O7E
— Rafael MarianoGrossi (@rafaelmgrossi) October 12, 2022
At Tuesday’s meeting shown on Russian state television, Putin told the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief that the situation around Ukraine’s Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant was “of concern”.
The Russian leader also told Grossi that Moscow was open for dialogue and would discuss “all issues” concerning the facility’s operations.
Russian authorities are mobilising men from the country’s most vulnerable groups to fight in Ukraine, according to a report.
Officials in Moscow have taken men from charity centres for the homeless and needy, as well as hostels where labour migrants live, the Moscow Times has cited a report by the independent Mediazona news website.
Dozens of homeless men have been taken off the streets and brought to military enlistment offices in the weeks since President Vladimir Putin declared a “partial” mobilisation, according to a group that hands out food to the capital’s homeless community.
One source told Mediazona:
The police come here without anyone asking. They see a queue of people waiting for food — and then they grab them by the scruff of the neck, against their will.
The men are then loaded onto buses and transported to military enlistment offices, the source said.
Ukrainians urged to cut power consumption by 25% to avoid outages
Ukraine’s prime minister, Denys Shmyhal, has appealed to citizens and businesses to reduce their electricity consumption during peak hours to avoid blackouts.
People are being asked to reduce power consumption from 5pm to 10pm across Ukraine by 25% in order to stabilise the power system, which had been damaged by Russian missile attacks.
In a statement, Shmyhal said:
We are grateful to all Ukrainians who deliberately reduced electricity consumption yesterday and the night before yesterday. The total saving was 10%. We also thank the heads of regions, heads of communities, who took a responsible approach and cut power consumption in communities.
He also appealed to people to use gas and coal sparingly after turning on the heating:
The minimum permissible indoor temperature this winter will be 16 degrees Celsius, while the average temperature will be 18 degrees. This is a necessity and this is our contribution to the victory. After all, it depends on each of us how we will get through this winter.”
Summary of the day so far
It’s 6pm in Kyiv and Moscow. Here’s where we stand:
At least seven people were killed and eight injured in a Russian strike on a crowded market in the town of Avdiivka, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region said. “There is no military logic in such shelling - only an unbridled desire to kill as many of our people as possible and intimidate others,” Pavlo Kyrylenko said.
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to resume gas supplies via one link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that remains operational. The ball was in the EU’s court on whether it wanted gas supplied via the pipeline, Putin said in an address to the Russian Energy Week international forum.
The head of the Russian state-owned gas monopoly supplier, Gazprom, has warned Europe of the consequences of renouncing Russian gas. There is “no guarantee” that Europe would survive winter based on its current gas storage capacity, Alexei Miller said, adding that gas in Germany’s underground storage would be enough for between two- and two-and-a-half months.
External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Rafael Grossi had warned earlier that the loss of off-site power at the facility, Europe’s largest, was “deeply worrying”. Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that manages the ZNPP, has accused Russian forces occupying it of refusing a convoy of company vehicles carrying diesel to refuel the plant’s generators after shelling of a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region caused the plant to lose power.
Eight people have been detained over the weekend’s attack on the Crimea bridge, and Russia’s security forces have named a senior figure from Ukraine as being behind them. A senior Ukrainian official dismissed the investigation as “nonsense”.
A crowdfunding appeal that was launched after Russian attacks on cities across the country on Monday has raised $9.6m (£8.7m) in 24 hours for the purchase of kamikaze drones for the Ukrainian armed forces. An initial 50 Ram II drones, unmanned aerial vehicles with a 3kg explosive payload, designed and built by Ukrainian companies, will be bought with the money, along with three control stations.
Pope Francis condemned Russia’s “relentless bombings” of Ukrainian cities and appealed to “those who have the fate of the war in their hands” to stop. The Vatican’s number two, secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said the bombing of unarmed civilians “is beyond any logic. It is to be totally condemned”.
President Putin will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in what is likely to be a “very interesting” meeting in Kazakhstan tomorrow, where the Turkish leader may propose ideas for peace in Ukraine, the Kremlin has said. The Russian and Turkish presidents are expected to meet in Kazakhstan’s capital tomorrow on the sidelines of a regional summit.
President Joe Biden has said he believes Vladimir Putin is a “rational actor” who badly misjudged his prospects of occupying Ukraine. The US president told CNN on Tuesday that he believed his Russian counterpart had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian defiance in the face of invasion, but does not believe he would resort to using a tactical nuclear weapon.
Ukraine’s ministry of reintegration has confirmed that 37 Ukrainian children who were illegally deported to Russia have now returned home. The children had been deported from the Russian-occupied territory of Kharkiv region in August, it said in a statement on Facebook.
The Kremlin has denied a report that Elon Musk spoke with President Vladimir Putin before publishing his “peace plan” for Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia. In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer said the Tesla CEO had told him that Putin was “prepared to negotiate”. Musk has also denied the report.
Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still with you today with all the latest from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Russia has depleted a significant proportion of its precision-guided ammunition in its invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior Nato official.
Reuters quotes the official as saying that Moscow’s industry cannot produce all kinds of ammunition and weapon systems due to western sanctions.
Putin-Erdoğan talks will be 'very interesting', says Kremlin
President Vladimir Putin will meet President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in what is likely to be a “very interesting” meeting in Kazakhstan tomorrow, where the Turkish leader may propose ideas for peace in Ukraine, the Kremlin has said.
Speaking to reporters, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said:
Now many say that the Turks are ready to come up with other initiatives in the context of the settlement of the Ukrainian conflict.
There are reports in the press that the Turkish side is putting forward specific considerations in this regard, I do not exclude that Erdoğan will actively touch on this topic during the Astana contact. So a very interesting and, I hope, useful discussion awaits us.
The Russian and Turkish presidents are expected to meet in Kazakhstan’s capital tomorrow on the sidelines of a regional summit.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, has previously said the potential talks between Russia and the west could be discussed during the meeting.
Updated
The Netherlands will deliver €15m worth of air defence missiles to Ukraine in reaction to Russian air raids on Ukraine earlier this week.
Reuters reports the the defence minister, Kajsa Ollongren, wrote in a letter to parliament: “These attacks ... can only be met with unrelenting support for Ukraine and its people.”
Updated
Vatican official: Russian bombing of Ukrainian cities 'to be totally condemned'
Earlier we reported that Pope Francis had condemned the recent wave of attacks on Ukrainian cities, saying: “My heart is always with the Ukrainian people, especially the residents of the places that have been hit by relentless bombings. May the Lord’s spirit transform the hearts of those who have the fate of the war in their hands, so that the hurricane of violence stops and peaceful coexistence in justice can be rebuilt.”
Reuters has now reported an additional quote from the Vatican number two, secretary of state Cardinal Pietro Parolin. Asked if the attacks could be considered war crimes, he said he was not qualified to make such a technical, juridical judgment.
“But certainly they are unacceptable acts that cry out vengeance before God and before humanity, because bombing unarmed civilians is beyond any logic. It is to be totally condemned,” Parolin said.
Updated
Here are some of the latest images we have received from the aftermath of Russian attacks on central Kyiv earlier this week.
Updated
External power to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant restored, says IAEA chief
Power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is surrounded by Russian troops, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Rafael Grossi, director general of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, had warned earlier today that the nuclear plant, Europe’s biggest, had lost all external power needed for vital safety systems for the second time in five days.
Grossi has now tweeted that he has been informed by his team that the external power to the facility has been restored:
UPDATE—I've been informed by our team on site that external power to #Zaporizhzhya NPP is restored. #ZNPP's operator says this morning's outage was caused by shelling damage to a far off sub-station, highlighting how precarious the situation is. We need a protection zone ASAP. https://t.co/Idi8BimvGR
— Rafael MarianoGrossi (@rafaelmgrossi) October 12, 2022
Earlier today, Grossi, who met yesterday with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, said IAEA monitors at the Zaporizhzhia plant reported the interruption in external power, and said backup diesel generators were keeping nuclear safety and security equipment operational.
Updated
Gazprom chief warns ‘no guarantee’ Europe will survive winter if it renounces Russian gas
The head of the Russian state-owned gas monopoly supplier, Gazprom, has warned Europe of the consequences of renouncing Russian gas, saying there is “no guarantee” that Europe would survive winter based on its current gas storage capacity.
Speaking at the Russia Energy Week conference in Moscow, Alexei Miller said gas in Germany’s underground storage would be enough for between two- and two-and-a-half months.
Miller also said repairs to the damaged Nord Stream pipelines would take at least a year, and that Russia had still not been granted access to the area of damage.
Germany and the EU “should respond” if they are interested in restoring the pipeline, he said.
Updated
Simon Smith, a former British ambassador to Ukraine, writes for us today about how Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine over the past two days stem from Vladimir Putin’s desperation.
In their vicious efforts to extinguish Ukraine, the Russians have reached an unprecedented state of weakness and cluelessness, he writes.
Putin is signalling that he is paying no heed to any waning commitment to the war among the population at large, following his mobilisation decision. And that he’s listening more closely to those who have been vocally critical of the army’s poor performance, and who have called for a tougher, (even) more ruthless offensive approach.
But it goes further than that. It’s also an intimidatory message to Russian citizens opposed to his needless war – or even those simply less convinced of its good sense or justice.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a presidential adviser to Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has called on the west to officially recognise Russia’s aggression and acts in Ukraine as genocide.
Russian forces have committed attacks on civilian infrastructure, mass executions and rape, forced deportations, separated families and destroyed Ukrainian literature in schools, Podolyak said on Twitter.
Civilian infrastructure attacks, mass executions and raping, forced deportation, families separation, literature destruction in schools, "dismantling of Ukraine" official statements. @RepCohen is right: Russia is committing genocide in Ukraine. This must be officially recognized.
— Михайло Подоляк (@Podolyak_M) October 12, 2022
Here’s more from President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Russian Energy Week international forum earlier today, where he proposed that Moscow could redirect gas supplies for the Nord Stream pipelines to the Black Sea to create a major European gas hub in Turkey.
Putin said it was possible to repair the damaged pipelines but that Russia and Europe should decide their fate.
He said:
We could move the lost volumes along the Nord Streams along the bottom of the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea region and thus make the main routes for the supply of our fuel, our natural gas to Europe through Turkey, creating the largest gas hub for Europe in Turkey.
He added:
That is, of course, if our partners are interested in this. And economic feasibility, of course.
Updated
The Kremlin has denied a report that Elon Musk spoke with President Vladimir Putin before publishing his “peace plan” for Ukraine that would have seen territory permanently handed over to Russia.
In a mailout sent to Eurasia Group subscribers, Ian Bremmer said the Tesla CEO had told him that Putin was “prepared to negotiate”. Musk has since denied the report.
Asked if Musk had spoken to Putin prior to publishing the Twitter poll, the Kremlin’s spokesperson said:
No, this is not true.
The pair had communicated over the phone “about a year and a half ago”, Peskov added without providing any details.
In a reply to a tweet, Musk said he had spoken to the Russian leader “only once and that was about 18 months ago”. The subject matter of that conversation was “space”, he added.
Bremmer subsequently reiterated his initial claims, and said Musk had told him he had spoken with Putin “directly about Ukraine”.
We reported yesterday that children’s doctor Oksana Leontieva was among those killed by Russian missile strikes on Kyiv earlier this week.
Leontieva was on her way to work on Monday morning after dropping her son at kindergarten when a Russian missile hit the Ukrainian capital.
Now her father, Gregory, has told German newspaper Bild that her death has left her five-year-old son an orphan after his father recently died as well.
He added:
Oksana had called the hospital in the morning because the kindergarten couldn’t take her son due to warnings of a possible attack. In the end, they did take Grischa ... and she went to work.
Gregory said the boy had not yet been told his mother had died. Gregory said:
For now he thinks she is at work and working very hard. We will tell him today or tomorrow.
The doctor’s funeral is due to be held later this week.
Yesterday Russia killed Oksana Leontieva, a doctor who used to save lives of kids with blood cancer in Kyiv's largest children's hospital Okhmatdyt for 11 years. Her infant son is now an orphan. His father died several years ago. Now his grandfather will take care of a boy. pic.twitter.com/QCHRJd6Ivx
— Nika Melkozerova (@NikaMelkozerova) October 11, 2022
The number of people wounded after a Russian strike on a crowded market in the town of Avdiivka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region has risen to nine, according to a city official.
At least seven people were killed after the Russian shelling on the market this morning, Vitalii Barabash, the head of the Avdiivka city military administration, said.
In a statement on Telegram, Barabash said:
Today is another black day for our Avdiivka. In the morning, the Russian evil spirits once again brought death to our land, sneakily, as always, shelling the central market with tanks and MLR systems during rush hour. Seven residents of Avdiivka were killed and nine were wounded.
The European Commission wants at least €18bn (£15.8bn) in emergency aid to help Ukraine’s government stay afloat next year, as an economic crisis looms in the country.
Officials in Brussels think the EU should provide at least half the €3bn-€3.5bn monthly running costs it estimates the Ukrainian state needs to function in 2023, the Guardian has learned.
The financial aid would most likely be in the form of cheap loans with long repayment deadlines. But it would require EU member states to find extra money to guarantee the loans and potentially pay the interest.
According to the World Bank, Ukraine’s economy is on course to shrink by more than one third (35%) in 2022, as a result of the widespread destruction of factories, infrastructure, fertile land, as well as the displacement of 14 million people. EU sources fear that if Ukraine cannot afford to pay its bills it could print money, triggering inflation.
EU officials are optimistic about an agreement on the new financial aid, despite long delays in releasing €9bn funding for Ukraine promised in May. Nearly five months since the commission proposed €9bn in “macro financial assistance” for Ukraine, only €1bn has been released.
Earlier this month, Brussels and Kyiv signed an agreement on the next €5bn, paving the way for a €2bn tranche to be released this month.
EU member states have been wrangling over whether aid to Ukraine should be offered as non-repayable grants, as favoured by Germany, or cheap loans, the option backed by most member states.
The money would allow the Ukrainian government to pay salaries, fund humanitarian relief and make emergency repairs to some essential infrastructure. But it falls far short of the vast costs of rebuilding Ukraine, estimated by the World Bank to be $349bn (€359bn, £315bn).
Putin: Russia ready to resume gas supplies to EU via Nord Stream 2
President Vladimir Putin says Russia is ready to resume gas supplies via one link of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that remains operational, in his address to the Russian Energy Week international forum.
The Russian leader said gas could still be supplied by one remaining intact part of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. The ball was in the EU’s court on whether it wanted gas supplied via the pipeline, he said.
Putin says:
Russia is ready to start such supplies. The ball is in the court of the EU. If they want, they can just open the tap.
He went on to say that Russia has nothing to do with the sky-high energy prices that Europeans are facing this winter, instead blaming the west for stoking a global energy crisis.
It was the poorest countries that would pay the highest price in terms of rising energy costs, Putin added.
Updated
Putin accuses Ukraine of Crimea bridge 'terrorist attack'
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is currently addressing the Russian Energy Week international forum’s plenary session.
Large leaks that suddenly erupted in the Nord Stream gas pipelines running from Russia to Europe were an “act of international terrorism” that set a “dangerous precedent”.
Putin says:
There is no doubt it was an act of international terrorism, aiming to undermine the energy security of a whole continent. The calculation behind it was quite cynical, to block and destroy the cheap energy sources and deprive millions of people and industrial consumers of gas, heat, power and other resources.
The “attack” against the Nord Stream pipelines was a “most dangerous precedent”, he continued:
It shows that any piece of critical transport energy or communications infrastructure is at risk now.
Putin goes on to blame Ukrainian special services for what he calls the “terrorist attack” against the Kerch bridge connecting Russia to Crimea.
Updated
At least seven killed in Russian strike on crowded market, says governor
At least seven people were killed and eight injured in a Russian strike on a crowded market in the town of Avdiivka, the governor of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region said.
In a statement, Pavlo Kyrylenko said:
The Russians struck the central market where many people were at that time.
He added:
There is no military logic in such shelling - only an unbridled desire to kill as many of our people as possible and intimidate others.
More to follow.
Updated
Ukraine’s ministry of reintegration has confirmed that 37 Ukrainian children who were illegally deported to Russia have now returned home.
The children had been deported from the Russian-occupied territory of Kharkiv region in August, it said in a statement on Facebook.
The statement reads:
At the end of August, the little ones were forcibly taken out of Kharkiv region to the Russian township of Kabardinka (near Gelendzhik), despite the fact that everyone has parents.
The families had been reunited, it said. The ministry described the return process as difficult but successful.
🇺🇦🙏 37 Ukrainian children were returned from forced deportation to the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Reintegration reported.
— The New Voice of Ukraine (@NewVoiceUkraine) October 12, 2022
Russian invaders took the children from Kharkiv Oblast to a Russian village near Gelendzhik - despite the fact that all of them have parents. pic.twitter.com/48kUnGwx8P
Updated
A crowdfunding appeal that was launched after Russian attacks on cities across the country on Monday has raised $9.6m (£8.7m) in 24 hours for the purchase of kamikaze drones for the Ukrainian armed forces.
An initial 50 Ram II drones, unmanned aerial vehicles with a 3kg explosive payload, designed and built by Ukrainian companies, will be bought with the money, along with three control stations.
Further munitions would be secured over the coming days, said Serhiy Prytula, who organised the initiative.
He said: “They wanted to scare us but we united even more. Remember: never infuriate Ukrainians. Never. The people have donated for the revenge, so we will ensure the revenge happens.”
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, told G7 leaders on Tuesday via video conference that Russia had used a variety of munitions to strike Ukrainian cities over the previous two days, killing 20 people.
“The enemy has used more than 100 cruise missiles, dozens of different drones, including Iranian Shaheds,” he said. “And every 10 minutes I receive a message about the enemy’s use of Iranian Shaheds.”
Kremlin accuses west of ‘provocative’ nuclear rhetoric
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said rhetoric from western leaders on the potential use of nuclear weapons was “provocative”.
Speaking to reporters during his regular briefing, Peskov said:
We express our daily regret that Western heads of state – the US as well as European – engage in nuclear rhetoric every day. We consider this a pernicious and provocative practice. Russia does not want to take part in these exercises and does not take part in them.
Leaders from the Group of Seven (G7) countries yesterday warned of “severe consequences” if Russia decided to use nuclear weapons, in a statement after a call with President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
The US president, Joe Biden, warned that threats from Russia could result in catastrophic “mistakes” and “miscalculation”, a week after he said the risk of “nuclear Armageddon” was at its highest level in 60 years.
Peskov added that there had been no attempt from either Washington or Moscow to discuss a potential meeting between Biden and President Vladimir Putin.
The Kremlin also denied reports from some regional officials that they were stepping up mobilisation efforts.
“There is no new wave,” Peskov said, telling reporters to check with individual governors to see what they meant.
Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong here again, taking over the live blog from Martin Belam to bring you all the latest developments from the Russia-Ukraine war. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.
Updated
Summary of the day so far …
Eight people have been detained over the weekend’s attack on the Crimea bridge, and Russia’s security forces have named a senior figure from Ukraine as being behind them. A statement from the Federal Security Service (FSB) claimed “the organiser of the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge was the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, its head Kyrylo Budanov, employees and agents. Currently, five citizens of Russia, three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia, who participated in the preparation of the crime, have been detained within the framework of the criminal case.”
A senior Ukrainian official dismissed the investigation as “nonsense”. “The whole activity of the FSB and Investigative Committee is nonsense,” Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne cited interior minister spokesman Andriy Yusov as saying. He described the FSB and Investigative Committee as “fake structures that serve the Putin regime, so we will definitely not comment on their next statements”.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has described developments at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which has lost off-site power, as “deeply worrying”. Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that manages the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has accused Russian forces occupying it of refusing a convoy of company vehicles carrying diesel to refuel the plant’s generators after shelling of a substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region caused the plant to lose power.
Pope Francis on Wednesday condemned Russia’s “relentless bombings” of Ukrainian cities and appealed to “those who have the fate of the war in their hands” to stop. He was quoted as saying “My heart is always turned to the people of Ukraine, especially those living in places hit by the bombing”. The pontiff prayed for an intercession that “may change the hearts of those who have the fate of the war in their hands, so that they may cease this wave of violence and rebuild peaceful coexistence”.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” US president Joe Biden said in a clip of a CNN interview broadcast late on Tuesday.
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 airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure.
The leaders of the G7 on Tuesday condemned Russia’s most recent missile attacks on cities across Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms” and vowed to stand “firmly” with Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, had asked G7 leaders to supply more air defence systems and for an international monitoring mission on the Belarusian border.
Roughly 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been hit by Russia since Monday, officials said. As millions in Ukraine are facing blackouts due to the attacks, the government has urged civilians to cut their electricity use and not use domestic appliances such as ovens and washing machines.
That is it from me Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later. Léonie Chao-Fong will be with you shortly.
Russia’s security forces have released what they claim is an X-ray image of the cargo that caused the explosion at the weekend on the Crimea bridge.
The veracity of the image, and its source, has not been independently verified.
It has been issued as part of their investigation which has led to the arrest of eight individuals today [see 7.13am]. Russia has claimed the plan was masterminded by Ukrainian officials, a suggestion which has been dismissed as “nonsense” by Ukraine’s interior minister spokesperson, Andriy Yusov [see 9.08am].
Russia’s Dmitry Peskov has said that comments made by Nato General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg could be considered confirmation that Nato is fighting on Ukraine’s side in Kyiv’s conflict with Russia.
Reuters remind us that yesterday Stoltenberg said that a Russian victory in Ukraine would be “a defeat for us all”
During his regular morning media briefing, the Kremlin spokesperson also said rhetoric from western leaders on the potential use of nuclear weapons was harmful and provocative.
“We express our daily regret that western heads of state engage in nuclear rhetoric every day,” Peskov said, adding that such a practice was “provocative”.
Ukrainian officials: Russian forces refusing diesel delivery to Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant
Energoatom, the Ukrainian state-owned company that manages the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) has accused Russian forces occupying it of refusing a convoy of company vehicles carrying diesel to refuel the plant’s generators. It has been cut off from off-site power. In a statement posted to Telegram, Energoatom said:
This morning, 12 October at 8.59am, as a result of rocket fire by Russian troops, the Dniprovska substation in the Dnipropetrovsk region was damaged. As a result, the 750-kV communication line of ZANP – Dniprovska was accidentally opened. As a result, the ZNPP was completely de-energized. Diesel generators turned on automatically.
Energoatom prepared and sent another batch of diesel fuel to the ZNPP. However, as of 10am, the Russian side does not allow the company’s convoy of vehicles to pass.
Russian shelling and damage to energy infrastructure related to the operation of nuclear power plants is the same manifestation of nuclear terrorism as direct shelling of the ZNPP, and leads to the same consequences and threats of a radiation accident.
The occupiers continue to neglect the nuclear and radiation safety of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, threatening the world with a radiation disaster.
The claims have not been independently verified. Both sides have previously accused the other of shelling the ZNPP directly, which sits in one of the occupied regions that Russia has claimed to “annex”.
Pope Francis condemns 'relentless bombings' of Ukrainian cities
Pope Francis condemned Russia’s “relentless bombings” of Ukrainian cities and appealed to “those who have the fate of the war in their hands” to stop.
He was quoted as saying “My heart is always turned to the people of Ukraine, especially those living in places hit by the bombing.”
The pontiff prayed for an intercession that “may change the hearts of those who have the fate of the war in their hands, so that they may cease this wave of violence and rebuild peaceful coexistence”.
Updated
Ukrainian official claims Russia's FSB investigation into Crimea bridge attack is 'nonsense'
A senior Ukrainian official dismissed as “nonsense” on Wednesday Russia’s investigation into an explosion last weekend that badly damaged a bridge linking the Russian mainland to the Crimea peninsula that Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has blamed Ukraine’s security forces for the explosion, and earlier today Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had detained five Russians and three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia over the blast.
“The whole activity of the FSB and Investigative Committee is nonsense,” Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne cited the interior minister spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, as saying when asked about Moscow’s allegations on the Crimea Bridge blast.
Reuters reports Yusov described the FSB and Investigative Committee as “fake structures that serve the Putin regime, so we will definitely not comment on their next statements”.
Updated
RIA Novosti, the Russian state-owned news agency, has a breaking news story quoting Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russian-installed leader of occupied Zaporizhzhia, saying that a nuclear safety zone cannot be established around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant “until the frontline is pushed at least 100km, otherwise it is unsafe”.
Updated
Grossi: repeated loss of off-site power at Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant 'deeply worrying'
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency has described developments at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP), which has lost off-site power, as “deeply worrying”.
Rafael Grossi tweeted:
Our team at the ZNPP informed me this morning that the plant has lost all of its external power for the second time in five days. Its back-up diesel generators are now providing electricity for its nuclear safety and security functions. This repeated loss of the ZNPP’s off-site power is a deeply worrying development and it underlines the urgent need for a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the site.
The ZNPP has been occupied by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian staff since early in Russia’s latest invasion of Ukraine. Russia has claimed to have “annexed” Zaporizhzhia, and stated it intends to take the plant under its own operational framework.
Druzhba oil pipeline leak caused by 'accidental damage' – Polish official
You can understand there being jitters about Europe’s power infrastructure after the Nord Stream pipeline incident, but Poland’s top official in charge of energy infrastructure, Mateusz Berger, has told Reuters by telephone that there are no grounds to believe the leak in the Polish section of the Druzhba oil pipeline was caused by sabotage.
“Here we can talk about accidental damage,” he said.
Reuters is carrying a report, citing the Russian Interfax news agency, that Russia’s Transneft state-owned pipeline monopoly said on Wednesday it had received notice from Polish operator Pern about a leak on the Druzhba oil pipeline.
Transneft stated that oil continues to be pumped towards Poland, and that Pern had not yet said how long repairs would take.
The pipeline was built by the Soviet Union in the 1960s to pump oil from eastern regions of Russia into the satellite states of the Soviet bloc, and it now carries oil to points in Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Austria and Germany.
Dmytro Zhyvytskyi, governor of Sumy, has posted to Telegram to say that “the night was quiet” in his region, but that in the morning Russians resumed shelling at the border. As of 10am local time he had no information on casualties.
Ukrainian MP Lisa Yasko has been interviewed from Strasbourg by Sky News in the UK, and has said that delays in delivering assistance to Ukraine were “incredibly frustrating”, and that she felt little comfort from suggestions that there were no signs Russia was about to deploy nuclear weapons in Ukraine. She told viewers:
I know that sometimes, some western countries, they’re just far and they don’t feel the urgency, which is incredibly frustrating for us. Because you know, we don’t have time for discussion. So we are screaming, we are trying to to do everything possible to defend with our weapons, our people, every second.
Asked about the head of British GCHQ, Jeremy Fleming, talking down the prospect of the use of nuclear weapons, she said:
I don’t think it can offer me a comfort, because the threat of nuclear war is very, very high. We understand that Putin doesn’t have any logic anymore. It’s not possible to justify Putin anymore. We understand that he is in the final battle of his life, where he wants to prove to all the world that he can do whatever he wants, including taking lands, killing thousands of people, destroying infrastructure, and we understand that nuclear threats and a strike is very possible.
Yesterday Fleming said “I would hope that we would see indicators if they started to go down that path,” and suggested that “The way in which the Russian military machine and President Putin are conducting this war, they are staying within the doctrine that we understand for their use, including for nuclear weapons.”
Here is a video clip from Joe Biden’s CNN TV interview, where he says that he believed his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin had underestimated the ferocity of Ukrainian defiance in the face of invasion. ‘I think … he thought he was going to be welcomed with open arms, that this was the home of Mother Russia in Kyiv, and that he was going to be welcomed, and I think he just totally miscalculated,’ Biden said.
Russia’s state-owned news agency RIA Novosti is carrying some more details of the plot to damage the Crimea bridge which Russian security forces claim to have revealed today.
It reports:
In early August, the cargo was sent from the seaport of Odesa to the Bulgarian Ruse [port] … From Bulgaria it proceeded to the Georgian port of Poti , and then to Armenia. From 29 September to 3 October, at the Transalliance terminal in Yerevan, the cargo was cleared … On a DAF truck registered in Georgia, the cargo crossed the Russian-Georgian border on 4 October at the Upper Lars checkpoint, two days later it was delivered and unloaded at a wholesale base in Armavir.
On 7 October … the documents for the cargo were again changed. TEK-34 LLC from Ulyanovsk was indicated as the sender , and a non-existent company in the Crimea was indicated as the recipient.
The movement of cargo along the entire route was controlled by an employee of the main intelligence directorate of the ministry of defence of Ukraine, who introduced himself to the participants in the scheme as “Ivan Ivanovich”. To coordinate actions, he used a virtual anonymous number, as well as a phone registered to a resident of Kremenchug.
RIA reminds us that the explosion occurred on 8 October, and that the official account is “a truck exploded on the Crimean bridge after which seven tanks with fuel of a passing train caught fire. Two car spans partially collapsed, but the bridge arch supports were not damaged. Four people were killed, including a judge from Moscow.”
Polish pipeline operator Pern says leak detected in Druzhba oil pipeline
Polish pipeline operator Pern detected a leak on Tuesday evening in one line of the Druzhba pipeline, which carries oil from Russia to Europe, it said on Wednesday.
Pern said at this point the causes of the leak are unknown. It was detected in a section of the pipe around 70km from the central Polish city of Plock.
The second line of the pipeline, and other elements of Pern’s infrastructure, were working as normal, Pern said.
“At this point, all Pern services (technical, operational, in-house fire brigade and environmental protection) are taking action in accordance with the algorithms provided for this type of situation,” Reuters reports the operator said.
The self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has claimed that five people were injured and 17 houses were damaged by fire from Ukrainian forces in the last 24 hours. Donetsk is one of the occupied regions that Russia has claimed to annex. The Donetsk People’s Republic was declared in 2014, and Russia, Syria and North Korea are the only UN member states to recognise it as a legitimate authority. The claims have not been independently verified.
Serhai Haidai, Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk, has posted an update on Telegram on Ukraine’s military progress in the occupied Luhansk region. He writes:
The armed forces of Ukraine are moving forward little by little. The Russians are shelling our positions mainly with rocket and barrel artillery. The occupiers are building a multi-layer defence line in Luhansk region, the entire first section of the front line is mined by them. Our military has already encountered the first wave of partially mobilised Russians.
Luhansk is one of the region of occupied Ukraine which the Russian Federation has claimed to annex following a widely-derided “referendum”.
Russia detains eight over Crimea bridge attack, names alleged organiser – reports
Eight people have been detained over the weekend’s attack on the Crimea bridge, and Russia’s security forces have named a senior figure from Ukraine as being behind them, according to reports from the state-owned Tass news agency.
It quotes a statement from the Federal Security Service (FSB) saying:
The Federal Security Service, together with the Investigative Committee, established that the organiser of the terrorist attack on the Crimean Bridge was the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defence Ministry, its head Kyrylo Budanov, employees and agents.
Currently, five citizens of Russia, three citizens of Ukraine and Armenia, who participated in the preparation of the crime, have been detained within the framework of the criminal case.
The FSB claims that the explosives which caused a section of the bridge to collapse were sent from Odessa through Bulgaria, Georgia and Armenia. Tass reports that the cargo carrying the explosives was being sent to a non-existent company in Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.
This is Martin Belam taking over the live blog in London. You can contact me at martin.belam@theguardian.com
More than 20 Russians have sailed in yachts from North Pacific ports to South Korea, Reuters reports, as they flee to avoid military call-up to fight in Ukraine. Most have reportedly been refused entry.
There has been an exodus of conscription-age men from Russia since President Vladimir Putin ordered a partial mobilisation on 21 September, but most fled by road, rail and air to Europe, and neighbouring former Soviet Union countries, like Georgia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
On Tuesday, South Korean broadcaster KBS reported that at least 21 Russians had arrived aboard yachts at ports in the south of the country, but only two had been granted entry, while others were refused as authorities deemed their purpose “ambiguous”.
KBS reported that three yachts had docked in the southeastern port city of Pohang over the past several days, mostly carrying Russian men in their 20-30s.
An official at Pohang’s coast guard declined to comment when contacted by Reuters.
A justice ministry official said he did not have details about the yacht cases, but Russians are in general allowed to enter the country without a visa as long as they obtain prior approval via South Korea’s electronic travel authorisation system.
The UK Ministry of Defence has published its latest update on the situation in Ukraine, in which it reports that 60% of the “Shahed” drones launched by Russia on 10 October were destroyed in the air. The drones are manufactured in Iran.
“These UAVs are slow and fly at low altitudes making lone aircraft easy to target using conventional air defences. There is a realistic possibility that Russia has achieved some success by attacking with several UAVs at the same time,” according to the UK Ministry of Defence.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 12 October 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 12, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/JlAU5rpobY
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/S8aHomo3fy
Putin to attend Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit – report
Russian President Vladimir Putin has accepted an invitation to attend the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Bangkok next month, according to a report in the Bangkok Post, which cites an unnamed security source.
Both the G20 and Apec summits will be held in Southeast Asia in November, with gatherings overshadowed by the war in Ukraine. Ministerial meetings held over the past year have been marred by confrontation and walkouts.
Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden are reportedly expected to attend the G20 summit in Bali between 15 and 15th November, while Indonesia has also invited the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, to attend. Apec will be held on 18 and 19 November.
On Tuesday, Lavrov said that Putin would not turn down a meeting with Biden in Bali. Talking on Russian state TV, he said that Moscow was open to talks with the west on the Ukraine war but had yet to receive any “serious offers” to negotiate.
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. “This is a lie”, he added.
Biden is not expected to be at Apec and will instead return home to attend his granddaughter’s wedding ceremony, according to Thai media. It is not known whether Xi will attend Apec.
Updated
Would Lukashenko really throw Belarus into a war Russia is losing? Andrew Roth and Daniel Boffey tackle the question in a new analysis piece.
Alexander Lukashenko, the dictatorial leader of Belarus, has executed a careful balancing act during the war in Ukraine.
On 24 February, Russian troops that had massed on Belarusian territory surged across the border into Ukraine, using his country as a staging ground in the largest invasion in Europe since the second world war.
But the Belarusian leader has not joined the war directly or sent his own troops into the fight, at times saying that he felt the invasion was “dragging on”.
Now, meetings between Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin have once again raised fears he is about to enter the fray. Lukashenko has said that Belarus and Russia are to deploy a joint military group and that thousands of Russian troops will be arriving in his country in the coming days for drills.
“We emphasise once again that the tasks of the regional force group are purely defensive. And all activities carried out at the moment are aimed at providing a sufficient response to actions near our borders,” the Belarusian defence minister, Viktor Khrenin, said in a statement on Tuesday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, sounded the alarm during a meeting of the G7 on Tuesday, proposing to send UN peacekeepers to the border between Ukraine and Belarus to prevent Lukashenko from launching a “provocation”.
Despite the warning signs, there is considerable doubt that Lukashenko is ready to throw his own forces into a war that Russia is losing in Ukraine, even if he is under pressure from Putin.
Energy exports appear to be helping Russia ride out Western sanctions, AFP reports.
Moscow says inflation is easing and employment is virtually full, contradicting the predictions of a catastrophe from many financial experts.
The International Monetary Fund on Tuesday offered some support to Russia’s view, saying recession will be less severe than expected due to oil exports and relatively stable domestic demand.
The IMF forecast the Russian economy to contract just 3.4% over the whole year, after contracting 21.8% during the second quarter at a quarterly annualised rate.
It was only in June that the IMF forecast an annual drop of 6%.
Biden, asked whether Putin will use nuclear weapons, says, 'I don't think he will'
When US President Joe Biden was asked in a Tuesday evening interview on CNN whether he thinks Putin will use nuclear weapons, he said, “I don’t think he will.” Biden was speaking after warning last week that the world faced the most acute nuclear threat for 60 years –since the Cuban missile crisis.
“The whole point I was making was it could lead to just a horrible outcome,” he told Tapper. “And not because anybody intends to turn it into a world war or anything, but just once you use a nuclear weapon, the mistakes that can be made, the miscalculations, who knows what would happen.”
Without detailing specifics, President Biden says contingencies have been gamed out should Russia use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine https://t.co/EiwMxTbhRL pic.twitter.com/N7cSo3vjOx
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) October 12, 2022
Russia sustains losses in southern Ukraine
Russian troops have sustained equipment and personnel losses in Ukraine’s south, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing Ukraine’s Operational Command.
“Ukraine’s Operational Command ‘South’ reported that they completed over 300 fire missions, targeting and damaging two Russian Gvozdika self-propelled howitzers and an APC,” the Kyiv Independent said in a tweet.
Welcome and summary
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. My name is Helen Sullivan and I’ll be taking you through the latest developments for the next while.
Russian troops have sustained losses in Ukraine’s south following 300 fire missions, Ukraine’s Operational Command reported overnight.
Meanwhile, in an interview with CNN on Tuesday evening, US President Joe Biden said he doesn’t think Putin will use a tactical nuclear weapon. Biden was speaking after warning last week that the world faced the most acute nuclear threat for 60 years –since the Cuban missile crisis.
We’ll have more on this shortly. In the meantime, here are the key recent developments in the conflict:
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 airstrikes on Ukraine’s energy and military infrastructure.
The leaders of the G7 condemned Russia’s most recent missile attacks on cities across Ukraine “in the strongest possible terms” and vowed to stand “firmly” with Kyiv “for as long as it takes”.
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 French president, Emmanuel Macron, described Russia’s attacks as “a profound change in the nature of this war”. During Russia’s strikes in recent days, cruise missiles and armed drones rained down on parks, playgrounds, power stations and other civilian targets.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is a “rational actor who has miscalculated significantly,” US president Joe Biden said in a clip of a CNN interview broadcast on Tuesday.
Ukrainian authorities said on Tuesday they exhumed the bodies of dozens of people, including civilians and a one-year-old baby, to determine the cause of death after the retreat of Russian troops from Lyman and Sviatohirsk, two recently liberated towns in the eastern Donetsk region.
Roughly 30% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been hit by Russia since Monday, officials said. As millions in Ukraine are facing blackouts due to the attacks, the government has urged civilians to cut their electricity use and not use domestic appliances such as ovens and washing machines.
The Kremlin has confirmed that Putin will meet Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, on Thursday to discuss Ukraine.
Moscow would not turn down a meeting between Putin and 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.
Putin has told the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency that he is “open to dialogue” on the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Meanwhile the deputy head of the Zaporizhzhia power plant has been kidnapped by Russian forces, Ukraine’s state nuclear energy company Energoatom said. Valeriy Martynyuk was taken on Monday and is being detained in an unknown location, Energoatom said in a post on Telegram.
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 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.
Russian strikes have damaged hundreds of cultural sites, Zelenskiy said as he urged the UN cultural agency to expel Russia, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the Unesco World Heritage Committee.
