We are closing this blog now, please see all our Ukraine news here.
Summary
It’s slightly past 11pm in Kyiv. Here’s where things stand:
The Ukrainian defence ministry on Sunday made fun of Moscow’s partial mobilization order, posting on Twitter a compilation of social media videos of Russian police beating and arresting men protesting the call-up. The mockery came as Russia’s two top lawmakers expressed concern about the drive, ordering regional officials to resolve “excesses” that have ignited public anger, triggered demonstrations and prompted military-age men to make for border crossings.
Russophiles rallied across Bulgaria on Sunday in celebration of Russian president Vladimir Putin. Wearing T-shirts showing Russian bears, waving flags with “Z” symbols, and holding pictures of Putin aloft - the Ukraine war has not deterred Bulgarian Russophiles, who rallied in the centre of the country on Sunday to show their support, AFP reports.
Serbia will not recognize Russian annexation ‘referendums’ in occupied Ukrainian areas. “[The annexation referendums] completely contradict our state and national interests, our policy of dealing with territorial integrity, sovereignty and the principle of inviolability of borders,” said Nikola Selakovic, the Serbian foreign minister.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has renewed calls for Western allies to cut Russian banks from SWIFT, the global banking system that allows banks to send messages to each other. “If we cut Russian banks from SWIFT, we need to cut all Russian banks from SWIFT, but we need to make sure and I will repeat this, some countries do not follow and they are not completely involved in these sanctions. So Russian banks, the whole system, the whole Russian banking system must be cut from SWIFT,” he said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has also said that Ukraine has received NASAMS (National Advance Surface-to-Air Missile Systems) air defence missiles from the US in a TV interview. Zelenskiy thanked Joe Biden and confirmed that they now have the systems in Ukraine. The Pentagon said ten days ago that two systems were due to be delivered. However he said he needed more to protect Ukrainian citizens.
The Ukrainian ambassador to the UK has issued a plea for continued “generosity” and “patience” from those offering a home to refugees in Britain. Vadym Prystaiko said Ukraine needs “much more” help from the UK as the country fights back against Moscow’s invasion, with the partial mobilisation of Russian reservists amounting to “something formidable.”
UK prime minister Liz Truss has said its allies France and the US should continue to support Ukraine in the face of increased threats by Vladimir Putin and his mobilisation order. Truss said Putin was escalating the war because he was not winning and had made a mistake.
Protests against the mobilisation order to recruit more people for Russia’s army appear to be continuing in the Russian republic of Dagestan, with videos showing standoffs between police and the public. Video footage posted on social media shows the police arresting demonstrators. The order will see thousands more Russians drafted to be part of the war effort in Ukraine.
Israel will treat 20 Ukrainian soldiers who have been injured in the war with Russia, according to the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine. The first two patients will arrive on Sunday for treatment at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, said envoy Michael Brodsky.
The US and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, its national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realised. “We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,” Sullivan told CBS.
Aiden Aslin, one of the five British nationals released by Russia earlier this week, has given his first media interview after returning to the UK. He told the Sun on Sunday that he was kept in solitary confinement for five months and “treated worse than a dog.”
Long queues of vehicles are at border crossing between Russia and Mongolia as people continue to flee the Kremlin’s partial mobilisation order, AFP reports. The head of a checkpoint in the town of Altanbulag told the agency that more than 3,000 Russians had entered Mongolia via the crossing since Wednesday.
Updated
The Ukrainian defence ministry on Sunday made fun of Moscow’s partial mobilization order, posting on Twitter a compilation of social media videos of Russian police beating and arresting men protesting the call-up.
The mockery came as Russia’s two top lawmakers expressed concern about the drive, ordering regional officials to resolve “excesses” that have ignited public anger, triggered demonstrations and prompted military-age men to make for border crossings.
“Russia still has remnants of a professional army” that the Ukrainian army “hasn’t yet destroyed,” the Ukrainian defence ministry said in an English-language tweet, referring to this month’s rout of Russian forces from much of the northeastern Kharkiv region. “Looks like we’ll be ‘de-mobilizing’ these Russians ahead of schedule.”
“We also know that soon these ‘soldiers’ will be at the front, and with such a love for alcohol, it will be easier for them to die on our land,” the defence ministry added.
We understand that not all russian troops are like this;russia still has remnants of a professional army that #UAarmy hasn’t yet destroyed.
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) September 25, 2022
We also know that soon these "soldiers" will be at the front,and with such a love for alcohol,it will be easier for them to die on our land. pic.twitter.com/Y7EgS0c5ze
Multiple reports have documented how people with no military service have been issued draft papers - contrary to Russian defence minister Sergei Shoigu’s guarantee that only those with special military skills or combat experience would be called up.
Updated
Russophiles rallied across Bulgaria on Sunday in celebration of Russian president Vladimir Putin.
Agence France-Presse reports:
Wearing T-shirts showing Russian bears, waving flags with “Z” symbols, and holding pictures of Putin aloft - the Ukraine war has not deterred Bulgarian Russophiles, who rallied in the centre of the country on Sunday to show their support.
The Balkan state - an EU and NATO member with historically close ties to Russia - still has many citizens nostalgic for the former Communist regime.
The pro-Moscow rally came as Sofia readies to return to the polls and the country grapples with its identity.
Hristo Ganev, a 60-year-old driver, had arrived at Sunday’s event early and bought a T-shirt emblazoned with the “Z” of the Ukraine offensive from one of the many stalls selling trinkets and souvenirs.
“Without Russia, Bulgaria would not have existed,” he told AFP, referring to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-1878, in which Russia freed Bulgaria from five centuries of Ottoman domination.
Ganev is married to a Russian he met when he was working in Siberia in the 1980s, and says he supports President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
He believes Putin’s claim that the troops are needed to “fight Nazism” and says he is even in favour of a nuclear war, “if that is the price to pay to free yourself from American domination.”
Serbia will not recognize Russian annexation ‘referendums’ in occupied Ukrainian areas, the Kyiv Independent reports.
“[The annexation referendums] completely contradict our state and national interests, our policy of dealing with territorial integrity, sovereignty and the principle of inviolability of borders,” said Nikola Selakovic, the Serbian foreign minister.
He added that his country would comply with international law and the UN Charter.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has renewed calls for Western allies to cut Russian banks from SWIFT, the global banking system that allows banks to send messages to each other.
“If we cut Russian banks from SWIFT, we need to cut all Russian banks from SWIFT, but we need to make sure and I will repeat this, some countries do not follow and they are not completely involved in these sanctions. So Russian banks, the whole system, the whole Russian banking system must be cut from SWIFT,” the president told CBS in an interview.
He went onto add, “If we talk about an embargo for energy, we need not to look for compromises, or we need to make sure that this embargo will be working and all the prices would be implemented according to the embargo because the profits from these imports support the Russian army and fund the war.”
“We see that it’s a very expensive toy for Putin. It’s a very bloody toy. So he needs more money, all the money and super profits from oil and gas Russia’s using, and we need to limit that.”
Zelenskiy says Ukraine has air defence missiles
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Ukraine has received NASAMS (National Advance Surface-to-Air Missile Systems) air defence missiles from the US in a TV interview.
Speaking to US broadcaster CBS, Zelenskiy thanked Joe Biden and confirmed that they now have the systems in Ukraine. The Pentagon said ten days ago that two systems were due to be delivered. However he said he needed more to protect Ukrainian citizens.
Zelenskiy told Margaret Brennan on Face The Nation: “I want to thank president Biden for a positive decision that has been already made. And to the US Congress, we received NASAMS. It’s the air defense systems. But believe me, it’s not even nearly enough to cover the civilian infrastructure, schools, hospitals, universities, homes of Ukrainians."
“Why do we need this? We need the security in order to attract our Ukrainians to come back home. If it’s safe, they will come, settle, work here and will pay taxes and then we won’t have a deficit of $5 billion in our budget. So it will be a positive for everybody.”
The Ukrainian ambassador to the UK has issued a plea for continued “generosity” and “patience” from those offering a home to refugees in Britain.
Vadym Prystaiko said Ukraine needs “much more” help from the UK as the country fights back against Moscow’s invasion, with the partial mobilisation of Russian reservists amounting to “something formidable”.
Addressing a fringe event hosted by Labour Friends of Ukraine in Liverpool, the ambassador said people who found refuge in the UK through the government’s sponsorship scheme continue to need support, PA Media reports.
“We hoped to reach a six-month period by the sponsorship agreement between most of the UK citizens and Ukrainians who came here,” he said.
“I just hope that the generosity, tolerance, kindness, patience of these people will allow us to engage with Ukrainians who still need some support here.”
He added: “Still we need support here, helping these people to go through the most difficult times of the war.”
In March, the UK government launched the Homes for Ukraine scheme so people could sponsor refugees fleeing the war-torn country by offering a spare room or home for at least six months.
Ministers have since faced calls to consider increasing the monthly thank-you payments to hosts who extend their offer beyond the initial period they committed to.
Prystaiko said it should be Russia that pays to rebuild Ukraine.
“I know there are so many generous people in nations around the globe, who told us, ‘don’t worry guys, we will help you to rebuild’. I believe the Russians have to pay for this, not you, not your taxpayers’ money,” he said.
The ambassador said the partial mobilisation of Russian reservists looks to be “something formidable”.
“We are adults here and I have to be frank with you,” he said.
“We obviously understand that three, four, five (hundred) thousand people Russia has promised to mobilise... this make a difference in the battlefield.
“Yes, Russians will struggle to re-arm them, feed them, equip them, and most of these people are not fit for... service. But (the) sheer mass of these people is something formidable.”
UK prime minister Liz Truss has said its allies France and the US should continue to support Ukraine in the face of increased threats by Vladimir Putin and his mobilisation order.
Truss said Putin was escalating the war because he was not winning and had made a mistake.
“I think he didn’t anticipate the strength of reaction from the free world,” Truss said in the interview broadcast on Sunday, Reuters reports.
“We should not be listening to his sabre-rattling and his bogus threats. Instead, what we need to do is continue to put sanctions on Russia and continue to support the Ukrainians.”
Truss, who became prime minister earlier this month, has pledged to raise defence spending to 3% of the UK’s GDP.
Protests against the mobilisation order to recruit more people for Russia’s army appear to be continuing in the Russian republic of Dagestan, with videos showing standoffs between police and the public.
Video footage posted on social media shows the police arresting demonstrators. The order will see thousands more Russians drafted to be part of the war effort in Ukraine. On Thursday a video showed people angrily confronting an official at a recruitment centre.
Dagestan’s capital, Makhachkala, appears to be at the centre of the protests, with some roads blocked. The area borders Azerbaijan and Georgia to the south.
In Dagestan’s Makhachkala, protesters are shouting “No to war!” and “Let them go!”, arguing with policemen, and trying to take back the detainees. Earlier, protesters against mobilisation blocked the federal highway.
— Novaya Gazeta. Europe (@novayagazeta_en) September 25, 2022
Video: Utro Dagestan
🔗https://t.co/riv1nts2jG pic.twitter.com/gdGwThGK1y
«Нет войне!» «Наши дети — не удобрение!»
— Медиазона (@mediazzzona) September 25, 2022
На митинге в Махачкале женщины скандируют антивоенные лозунги и отбивают задержанных
Видео: Утро Дагестан pic.twitter.com/p3ftj89BIZ
Policemen are trying to push back protesters in #Dagestan. pic.twitter.com/ZLa5fbAJDr
— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) September 25, 2022
Israel will treat 20 Ukrainian soldiers who have been injured in the war with Russia, according to the Israeli ambassador to Ukraine.
“Israel will receive for treatment 20 Ukrainian servicemen who were seriously wounded during the war,” envoy Michael Brodsky tweeted.
The first two patients will arrive on Sunday for treatment at Sheba Medical Center near Tel Aviv, he added.
A medical source confirmed to Agence France-Presse that two soldiers were en route to Israel, while a spokesperson for the Ukrainian embassy in Tel Aviv said she expected the first patients to arrive “soon”.
They will be treated with prosthetics and rehabilitation.
Sheba Medical Center, Israel’s largest hospital, ran a field hospital in western Ukraine for six weeks following the Russian invasion in February.
Updated
US to act 'decisively' if Russia uses nuclear weapon in Ukraine
The US and its allies will act “decisively” if Russia uses a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, its national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday, reaffirming the Joe Biden White House’s previous response to mounting concerns that Vladimir Putin’s threats are in increased danger of being realised.
“We have communicated directly, privately and at very high levels to the Kremlin that any use of nuclear weapons will be met with catastrophic consequences for Russia, that the US and our allies will respond decisively, and we have been clear and specific about what that will entail,” Sullivan told CBS’s Face The Nation.
Sullivan said that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had been “waving around the nuclear card at various points through this conflict”, and it was a matter that Biden’s administration has “to take deadly seriously because it is a matter of paramount seriousness – the possible use of nuclear weapons for the first time since the second world war”.
Updated
As mentioned earlier, Aiden Aslin, one of the five British nationals released by Russia earlier this week, has given his first media interview after returning to the UK.
He told the Sun on Sunday that he was kept in solitary confinement for five months and “treated worse than a dog”.
He also said he and other prisoners were forced to sing the Russian national anthem every morning, and if they did not comply “you would get beaten”.
Aslin, who is originally from Newark, Nottinghamshire, had built a new life in Ukraine in 2018, having fallen in love with a Ukrainian woman and joined the marines.
He was held in April while fighting in the south-eastern city of Mariupol and put on trial along with fellow British national Shaun Pinner and Brahim Saadoun, a Moroccan citizen. They were told they faced the death penalty.
You can read the full report on his interview here:
Updated
Queues building at Mongolian-Russian border after mobilisation order
Long queues of vehicles are at border crossing between Russia and Mongolia as people continue to flee the Kremlin’s partial mobilisation order, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
The head of a checkpoint in the town of Altanbulag told the agency that more than 3,000 Russians had entered Mongolia via the crossing since Wednesday.
Queues of people holding Russian passports were also seen outside the immigration counter for the border crossing, according to an AFP reporter there.
Russia’s military call-up is designed to fill its army with hundreds of thousands of men after a string of setbacks in its seven-month war with Ukraine.
Updated
Afternoon summary
Here’s a roundup of today’s key events so far:
More than 2,000 people have been detained in Russia after protests against a mobilisation order, according to a human rights group. OVD-Info said some of those held were children and detentions had happened across 33 towns. Frustrations with the order have been compounded by call-up papers being sent to the wrong men.
Russian authorities have vowed to fix errors in the rollout of the mobilisation order. It comes after reports of several stories of older, unwell or inexperienced people being called-up for duty. Under the partial mobilisation, Vladimir Putin said military service would only apply to those with “relevant” skills or experience. Regional governors have promised to fix mistakes after Russia’s upper house speaker described the errors as “unacceptable”.
Nearly 5m tonnes of produce has left Ukrainian ports since the Black Sea export corridor came into force. Ukraine’s infrastructure ministry said seven more ships carrying agricultural produce had left on Sunday, bringing the total amount of produce shipped through the corridor to 4.85m tonnes. The UN-backed deal has been in place since August, but exports have not returned to normal. Ukraine shipped up to 6m tonnes of grain a month before the war began.
Autumnal weather is starting to limit Ukraine’s pushback against Russia in occupied territories. US-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War, said the mobility of tanks and heavy weaponry were being restricted by muddy conditions. But it added that the counteroffensive, which began in late August, was still gaining ground.
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has denied cancelling two gigs in Poland over the backlash against his controversial comments on Russia’s invasion. It comes after Live Nation Poland announced on Saturday that the dates had been scrapped but without giving an explanation. In a Facebook post, Waters accused a Krakow city councillor who had urged people to boycott the concerts of “draconian censoring”.
Updated
Russian authorities have vowed to fix errors in their troop call-up after older and sick people were mistakenly ordered to report for duty.
Announcing a partial mobilisation in Russia this week, president Vladimir Putin said military service would only apply to those with “relevant” skills or military experience.
But several cases of people who are unfit for service being summoned have been reported.
In the southwestern region of Volgograd, a 63-year-old diabetic ex-military stagger was sent to a training camp, despite poor health and cerebral issues.
Russian state agency RIA Novosti reported he had since returned home.
The governor of the northwestern Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko told local districts heads to “take the residents’ appeals under your personal control and deal with each single case,” according to a statement posted on his administration’s website on Sunday.
The Vladimir region governor Vladimir Avdeev said on Saturday that “anyone mobilised by mistake will return home.”
Seven more ships carrying agricultural exports left Ukrainian ports on Sunday, the country’s infrastructure ministry has said.
It brings the total number of ships able to leave its ports to 218 since a UN-brokered corridor through the Black Sea came into force in August.
Ukraine, a major agricultural producer, had been unable to export via the route following Russia’s invasion in February until the agreement promising safe passage for ships carrying crops.
The ministry said the latest departures brought the total amount of produce shipped through the corridor to 4.85m tonnes.
“On 25 September … seven ships with 146.2,000 tons of agricultural produce for countries in Africa, Asia and Europe left the ports of Odesa, Chornomorsk and Pivdennyi,” it said on Facebook.
Prior to the war, Ukraine shipped up to 6m tonnes of grain a month.
Updated
Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jews are braving the dangers of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to mark the Jewish new year, Rosh Hashana.
Among those who said they would not be deterred by the war or by government travel warnings and head to the Ukrainian city of Uman was Avraham Burstein, 51, a musician and actor.
“It is like being in love, I simply have to go,” he told Agence France-Presse.
Burstein has travelled to Uman, about 200km (125 miles) south of Kyiv, every year since 1989.
He only missed the pilgrimage once, in 2020, when the Covid pandemic shut down international travel.
Most of those travelling are, like Burstein, members of the Breslov branch of Haredi Judaism, followers of Rabbi Nachman, from Bratslav in modern-day Ukraine, who died in 1810.
Nachman was the founder of an ultra-Orthodox movement that settled in Uman in the early 1800s. Before his death, Nachman asked that his followers visit his tomb to celebrate Jewish holidays.
Burstein said: “For us, it would be nice if he was buried in London, or in Amsterdam, even in Berlin. But he chose to be there, and he asked us to come every year for Rosh Hashana, so we have to go.”
Updated
Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has denied cancelling two Polish dates of his 2023 world tour amid backlash over his stance on Russia’s war against Ukraine.
Krakow’s city council is to debate a motion this week that would declare Waters a “persona non grata”, while councillor Lukasz Wantuch urged city residents to boycott the gigs.
Earlier this month, Waters wrote an open letter saying the west should stop providing arms to Ukraine, accusing President Volodymyr Zelenskiy of allowing “extreme nationalism” in Ukraine and urging him to “put an end to this deadly war”.
Yesterday, Live Nation Polska said the concerts, which had been scheduled for April next year at the city’s Tauron Arena, had been cancelled but did not give any more details.
Waters took to Facebook to deny Polish media reports that his team had pulled out but criticised Wantuch, accusing him of “draconian censoring of my work”.
“Lukasz Wantuch seems to know nothing of my history of working, all my life, at some personal cost, in the service of human rights,” Waters said.
Paraphrasing Pink Floyd’s hit single “Another Brick in the Wall”, he also wrote: “Hey! Lukasz Wantuch! ‘Leave them Kids Alone!’”.
He added that he had only wanted to urge the countries involved “to work towards a negotiated peace rather than escalate matters towards a bitter end”.
You can read more about the controversy below:
Updated
The onset of autumn, with rains making fields too muddy for tanks, is beginning to cloud Ukraine’s efforts to take back more Russian-held territory before winter freezes the battlefields, a Washington-based think tank has said.
For Ukrainian and Russian military planners, the clock is ticking, with the approach of winter expected to make fighting more complicated, AP reports.
Already, rainy weather is bringing muddy conditions that are starting to limit the mobility of tanks and other heavy weaponry, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
But the think tank said Ukrainian forces are still gaining ground in their counteroffensive, launched in late August, that has spectacularly rolled back the Russian occupation across large areas of the northeast and which also prompted Russian President Vladimir Putin’s new drive for reinforcements.
Ukrainian forces say the southern port city of Odesa was attacked by Iranian-made drones overnight, AFP reports.
It comes after Ukraine downgraded diplomatic ties with Iran and stripped its ambassador of his accreditation over Tehran’s decision to supply Russian forces with the weapons.
“Odesa was attacked again by enemy kamikaze drones,” said the Ukrainian army’s Operational Command South.
“The enemy hit the administrative building in the city centre three times,” it said in a Facebook message. “One drone was shot down by (Ukrainian) air defence forces. No casualties (were) recorded.”
“These were Iranian drones,” a Ukrainian South Command spokesperson, Natalya Gumenyuk, later told AFP.
The strikes come two days after two civilians were killed in Odesa in a Russian attack with an Iranian-made drone.
Updated
One of the monitors sent at the invitation of the Russian state to assess the legitimacy of the referendums under way in occupied areas of Ukraine has been revealed to be none other than the CEO of a publicly owned German energy provider, Stefan Schaller.
BBC Monitoring’s Francis Scarr posted an interview Schaller gave to Russian state media in occupied Melitopol in German, in which he says that he’s impressed by the transparency of the referendum and will be communicating this to his media contacts in Germany.
Schaller, CEO of Energie Waldeck-Frankenberg (EWF) in northern Hesse, which provides several hundred thousand residents in the region with electricity, gas and heating, confirmed to his local newspaper, HNA.
“I wanted to gather my own on the ground impressions about the situation there. Not least because I believe that objective information can never be wrong,” he said.
Acknowledging the danger of being instrumentalised for Russian propaganda purposes, Schaller said that he was “always at pains in my statements to concentrate on facts and not on political valuations. I assess what I see, in the full knowledge that I am only being allowed to see what I should see.”
Schaller added that his visit had nothing to do with his role as the CEO of EWF. “It is a purely private matter. I took holiday in order to do it”.
Pro-Russian authorities in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson have accused Kyiv’s forces of killing two people in a missile strike on a hotel.
The regional Russian-controlled administration said a missile had been fired on the Play Hotel by Ribas at around 5.30am (2.30am GMT) on Sunday, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reports.
“According to preliminary data, two people died in this terrorist act. Rescue workers are still combing the rubble to search for victims,” the administration added in a statement.
Regional official Kirill Stremousov said Oleksiy Jouravko, a pro-Russian former Ukrainian lawmaker, was among the dead.
The authorities said journalists from Russian media were in the hotel when the missile struck.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Updated
Updated
Putin allies concerned over mobilisation drive 'excesses'
Russia’s two most senior lawmakers have expressed concern at the way the mobilisation drive is unfolding in the country.
Valentina Matviyenko, the chairwoman of Russia’s upper house, the Federation Council, said she was aware of reports of men who should be ineligible for the draft being called up.
“Such excesses are absolutely unacceptable. And, I consider it absolutely right that they are triggering a sharp reaction in society,” she said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
In a direct message to Russia’s regional governors – who she said had “full responsibility” for implementing the call-up – she wrote: “Ensure the implementation of partial mobilisation is carried out in full and absolute compliance with the outlined criteria. Without a single mistake.”
Vyacheslav Volodin, another Putin ally and speaker of the State Duma, Russia’s lower chamber, voiced his views in a separate post.
“Complaints are being received,” he said. “If a mistake is made, it is necessary to correct it … Authorities at every level should understand their responsibilities.”
Updated
On that note, one of the five Britons released by Russia this week after being detained in Ukraine for months has given his first interview to the media.
Speaking to the Sun on Sunday, 28-year-old Aiden Aslin said he was stabbed while being kept in solitary confinement.
“I never thought I’d get out alive,” he told the paper.
Aslin, from Nottinghamshire, described being “treated worse than a dog” after being captured in the south-eastern city of Mariupol.
He had been living in Ukraine for a number of years and was serving with its regular forces before the Russian invasion began.
After being stabbed in the back by an officer, Aslin said he was asked: “Do you want a quick death or a beautiful death?”
His captors also played the Russian national anthem on a loop, claimed Aslin, who said he was forced to stand and sing along or face being beaten.
Updated
Its role in securing freedom for foreign fighters in Ukraine may help Saudi Arabia rehabilitate its international reputation, analysts say.
It comes after Russia released 10 foreigners it had captured in Ukraine, including five Britons, to Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
Saudi Arabia said its mediation effort had been led by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has struggled to reinstate his reputation since the 2018 murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Kristin Ulrichsen, a political scientist at Rice University’s Bake Institute in the US, said the working relationship between Saudi Arabia and Russia appears to have been a crucial element in the choice of intermediary.
“By sanctioning this mediation and delivering results, Mohammed bin Salman is able to present himself as capable of playing the role of regional statesman in a way that counters the narrative of the crown prince as an impulsive and disruptive actor,” he added.
After earlier criticisms that its efforts to secure the release of the prisoners was an attempt to approve the country’s image, the Saudi foreign minister said such a view was “cynical”.
You can read more about it from my colleague, Dan Sabbagh, here:
Updated
More than 2,000 people detained during protests in Russia, says human rights group
More than 2,000 people in total have been detained across Russia for protesting against President Vladimir Putin’s partial military mobilisation, including 798 people detained in 33 towns on Saturday, according to independent monitoring group OVD-Info.
Reuters reports that frustrations even spread to pro-Kremlin media, with one editor at the state-run RT news channel saying problems such as call-up papers being sent to the wrong men were “infuriating people”.
When Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, was asked on Saturday why so many Russians were leaving the country, he pointed to the right of freedom of movement.
Updated
A Moroccan prisoner of war released as part of an exchange between Moscow and Kyiv said he wanted to draw attention to the “struggle” of Ukraine as he returned home on Saturday.
Agence France-Presse reported the 21-year-old as saying:
I’m happy to come home after going through very difficult times.
I want to draw attention to the difficult situation in Ukraine and the struggle of its people in this painful time.
Brahim Saadoun, an aeronautical engineering student, had been based in Ukraine since 2019.
He was freed on Wednesday, one of 10 foreign prisoners of war – including five British and two American citizens – transferred to Saudi Arabia as part of the exchange between Moscow and Kyiv.
Smiling and appearing in good health alongside his mother, Saadoun thanked Saudi Arabia, the Turkish government and the Moroccan people “who stood in solidarity with us”.
Updated
Any annexed territory will have Russia's ‘full protection’ – Lavrov
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, says the four Ukraine regions where votes are under way in “referendums” will be under Moscow’s “full protection” if they are annexed by Russia.
At a news conference following his speech to the United Nations general assembly in New York, Lavrov was asked if Russia would have grounds for using nuclear weapons to defend annexed regions of Ukraine. He said Russian territory – including territory “further enshrined” in Russia’s constitution in the future – “is under the full protection of the state”.
“All of the laws, doctrines, concepts and strategies of the Russian Federation apply to all of its territory,” Reuters reported him as saying while also referring specifically to Russia’s doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons.
Lavrov’s comments came after he sought in his UN speech to portray opposition to Russia’s war in Ukraine as limited to the United States and countries under its sway.
The Group of Seven industrialised economies have said they will not recognise the results of the “referendum” votes.
Updated
Shelling hits Ukraine south and east
Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for missile strikes and shelling in various parts of the south and east, Reuters reports.
Ukraine’s military said early on Sunday that Russian forces had launched dozens of missile attacks and air strikes on military and civilian targets, including 35 “settlements”, over the past 24 hours.
Russia denies targeting civilians. Its RIA state news agency, citing unidentified sources, said earlier that Ukrainian forces shelled a granary and fertiliser warehouses.
Reuters was unable to verify either side’s claims.
Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. This is Adam Fulton and here are the latest developments to bring you up to speed as it approaches 9.15am in Kyiv.
More than 730 people were detained across Russia at the latest protests against the country’s mobilisation decree, a rights group said, three days after president Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s first military draft since the second world war. The independent OVD-Info protest monitoring group said it was aware of detentions in 32 cities, from St Petersburg to Siberia. Unsanctioned rallies are illegal under Russian law, which also forbids any activity considered to defame the armed forces.
A new law signed by Putin says Russian troops who refuse to fight, desert, disobey or surrender to the enemy could now face a jail sentence of up to 10 years, according to Russian media reports. The law was approved by the parliament during the week.
Russia’s deputy defence minister, Dmitry Bulgakov, has been dismissed from his post. Bulgakov, who has been in charge of military logistics since the beginning of the Ukraine invasion, has been replaced by Col Gen Mikhail Mizintsev, the head of the National Defence Management Centre, who oversaw Russia’s siege of Mariupol.
Russia’s foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, addressed the UN general assembly on Saturday, casting opposition to Russia’s assault on its neighbour as limited to Washington and countries under its sway. “The official Russophobia in the west is unprecedented. Now the scope is grotesque,” Lavrov told the general assembly. He criticised the west for not engaging with Russia, saying: “We have never stepped away from maintaining contact.”
Lavrov, in a news conference following his speech to the assembly in New York, said the Ukrainian regions where votes were under way would be under Moscow’s “full protection” if they were annexed by Russia, including with nuclear weapons.
The so-called referendums are continuing in Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia provinces, areas of Ukraine fully or partially occupied by Russian troops, with residents told to vote on proposals to declare independence and then join Russia. The polls are due to run until Tuesday.
China’s foreign minister says it supports all efforts conducive to the peaceful resolution of the “crisis” in Ukraine. Wang Yi told the United Nations general assembly on Saturday that the pressing priority was to facilitate talks for peace, Reuters reported.
Kyiv and Moscow traded blame for shelling in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region on Saturday. The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said on Telegram that Russian forces launched “a massive missile strike” on the region from about 10 planes, wounding at least three people. Russia’s RIA state news agency, citing unnamed sources, said Ukrainian forces shelled a granary and fertiliser warehouses in the region. Reuters was unable to verify either side’s claims.
Iran regrets Ukraine’s decision to downgrade diplomatic ties, its foreign ministry says. A statement said Iran’s ministry spokesperson, Nasser Kanaani, had “advised” Ukraine to “refrain from being influenced by third parties who seek to destroy relations between the two countries”. It came after Ukraine stripped Iran’s ambassador of his accreditation over what it called Tehran’s “unfriendly” decision to supply Russian forces with drones.
The queue at the border between Russia and Georgia is about 10km (six miles) long, where people have reportedly been waiting more than 20 hours to cross. The number of border crossings from Russia into Finland has doubled in recent days compared with last week.
Two civilians were killed in attacks in Ukraine’s Donetsk region on Friday and three were injured, according to Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of the Donetsk oblast. Russian forces also shelled settlements near the Russian border. In the Kupyan district, five people were injured from shelling, including two children, aged 10 and 17.
Russian authorities in the occupied regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson have allegedly started handing out draft notices and mobilising men of conscription age who “renounced Ukrainian citizenship and received passports of the Russian federation”, according to Ukraine’s ministry of defence.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy told Ukrainians in occupied territory to hide from Russian mobilisation, avoid conscription letters and get to Ukraine-held territory. However, if they ended up in the Russian military, Zelenskiy asked people to save their lives and help liberate Ukraine.
Russian forces are probably trying to attack dams in Ukraine in order to flood Ukrainian military crossing points amid Russian concerns about battlefield setbacks, the latest UK Ministry of Defence briefing said. The strikes were “unlikely to have caused significant disruption to Ukrainian operations due to the distance between the damaged dams and the combat areas”, it said.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse
Updated
