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Ukraine’s army has accused Russia of the large-scale destruction of civilian vessels moored on the banks of the Dnieper River, in the occupied southern region of Kherson that Kyiv’s forces are trying to capture.
Ukrainian forces have been piling pressure on Russian troops on the western bank of the Dnieper, fuelling speculation that Moscow’s troops are preparing to retreat to the other side.
A spokesperson for Ukraine’s general staff said in a statement that the fuel from the destroyed vessels had leaked into the river’s delta and also accused Moscow’s forces of appropriating the vessels’ engines and other equipment, Reuters reported.
The Ukrainian general staff gave no explanation for Moscow’s actions. Destroying civilian vessels would prevent Ukrainian forces from using them should they decide to cross to the eastern side in the event of any Russian withdrawal.
Updated
Fighters affiliated with the Russian-installed administration of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region have arrived in the town of Amvrosiivka after being freed in a prisoner swap with the Ukrainian military.
“I still can’t believe I’m home,” a returning prisoner of war, Maxim Chekanov, told Reuters.
“It was so horrible. I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.” added Chekanov, who said he had been captured by Ukrainian forces on 11 October.
The fighters were freed during a prisoner exchange earlier this week, with the two sides in the eight-month-old conflict releasing 107 captives each.
One woman, Lyudmila, said her returning son, Yevgeny, had lost a lot of weight since she last saw him. He walked slowly beside her, leaning on a walking stick.
“I didn’t recognise him,” she said through tears as they sat next to each other, asking not to give their full names.
“Everything will be OK, sweetie,” she told Yevgeny, who clutched a handkerchief to his face.
Updated
US officials have reportedly warned the Ukrainian government in private that it needs to signal an openness to negotiating with Russia.
Officials in Washington have warned that “Ukraine fatigue” among allies could worsen if Kyiv continues to be closed to negotiations, the Washington Post reported. US officials told the paper that Ukraine’s position on negotiations with Russia was wearing thin among allies who are worried about the economic effects of a protracted war.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Ukraine is only prepared to enter negotiations with Russia if its troops leave all parts of Ukraine, including Crimea and the eastern areas of the Donbas, de facto controlled by Russia since 2014, and if those Russians who have committed crimes in Ukraine face trial.
Zelenskiy also made clear that he would not hold negotiations with the current Russian leadership. Last month, he signed a decree specifying that Ukraine would only negotiate with a Russian president who has succeeded Vladimir Putin.
Updated
The Russian-installed administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region said on Sunday that a number of settlements, including the city of Kherson, had lost water and power supplies after what it said was an act of “sabotage”.
The Russian state-owned news agency Tass quoted Kherson’s Moscow-appointed governor, Vladimir Saldo, as saying that the city’s power supply was expected to be restored by the end of the day.
Updated
Mykhailo Podolyak, a Ukrainian presidential adviser, said on Twitter that Ukraine would “stand” despite Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure, adding that this would be done by using air defence, protecting infrastructure and optimising consumption.
Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, assured people in Kyiv that the outages were still controlled.
“Today, the situation with the supply of electricity to consumers in the capital is difficult,” the deputy head of the presidential office wrote on Telegram.
Updated
Here’s a run through the latest developments as it passes 5.45pm in Kyiv.
Kyiv authorities have begun planning the evacuation of the city’s 3m residents if the Ukrainian capital suffers a complete blackout, according to the New York Times.
The Biden administration in the US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to the Washington Post.
Russian forces are stepping up their strikes in a fiercely contested region of eastern Ukraine, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending army, Ukrainian authorities have said.
The mayor of Kyiv has warned residents to prepare for the worst, saying that if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure they must prepare for having no electricity, water or heat as temperatures drop below freezing.
Russian troops have been looting Kherson ahead of a potential withdrawal from the south-eastern Ukrainian city. Items taken range from art and cultural exhibits to ambulances and tractors.
There has been an assassination attempt on a judge who sentenced two Britons to death in Russian-controlled Ukraine. Alexander Nikulin, who said Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner should be shot by a firing squad, was shot in Vuhlehirsk, in Donetsk, on Friday night. The local supreme court justice is in a serious condition in hospital.
Russian troops are allegedly searching for residents in the Kherson region who are refusing to evacuate, before the forces’ potential withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnieper River.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has claimed its forces killed another 600 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has said the country did supply Russia with drones but that it took place before President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Kyiv. The drones have been used in attacks on civilian infrastructure, notably targeting power stations and dams.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed talk of limited Iranian supplies to Russia, saying Kyiv had downed 11 drones on Friday alone. He said: “If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, it means the world will make even more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran for such cooperation.” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said Iran “should realise that the consequences of complicity in the crimes of Russian aggression against Ukraine will be much larger than the benefits of Russia’s support”.
External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant two days after it was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling damaged high voltage lines, the UN nuclear watchdog said.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he does not believe Russia will use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
The 300,000 troops Putin conscripted as part of the mobilisation drive are providing “little additional offensive combat capability” as the Russian military is struggling to train them, UK’s Ministry of Defence has reported.
Scheduled power cuts will take place on Sunday in seven Ukrainian provinces including major cities such as Kyiv. Other provinces affected are Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Poltava. About 500 power generators have been sent to Ukraine by 17 EU countries to help with the energy problems caused by Russian attacks.
At least 112,000 Russians have emigrated to Georgia this year, border crossing statistics show. Reuters reported that the first large wave of 43,000 arrived after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February and the second wave came after Putin announced a nationwide mobilisation drive in late September.
While residents of Kherson are being told to leave (see 14.54) many residents are choosing to stay.
You can read the account of one anonymous Kherson resident here:
A car with a loudspeaker drives around the city urging residents to leave and text messages are sent during the night. But, like me, many of my friends stayed. We buy food and store water. We do not believe in forced evacuation. People are said to be taken to remote regions of Russia – but these are rumours.
There is practically no internet in Kherson. Communication has disappeared and even Russian TV channels have stopped broadcasting. That’s why there are so many rumours. We hear Ukraine’s artillery duel with Russia and we wait for release.
President Zelenskiy discusses macro-financial aid with EU Commission president
President Zelenskiy has tweeted that he spoke with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen on Sunday to discuss macro-financial aid for Ukraine.
Discussed macro-fin aid to 🇺🇦 for the current year & 2023 with President of the European Commission @vonderleyen. Noted the importance of continuing the grain initiative for world food security. Discussed increasing sanctions & opposing actions of Iran, which supports aggression
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 6, 2022
Zelenskiy wrote on Twitter:
Noted the importance of continuing the grain initiative for world food security. Discussed increasing sanctions & opposing actions of Iran, which supports aggression.
Updated
Russians tell residents of Kherson to evacuate
Ukraine’s military said on Sunday that residents of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied city of Kherson received warning messages on their phones urging them to evacuate as soon as possible.
Russian soldiers warned civilians that Ukraine’s army was preparing for a massive attack and told people to leave for the city’s right bank immediately.
Ukrainian forces have been pushing forward in the south, as Russia intensifies its attacks on Kyiv.
AP reports:
Russian forces are preparing for a Ukrainian counteroffensive to seize back the southern city of Kherson, which was captured during the early days of the invasion. In September, Russia illegally annexed Kherson as well as three other regions of Ukraine and subsequently declared martial law in the four provinces.
The Kremlin-installed administration in Kherson already has moved tens of thousands of civilians out of the city.
Nataliya Humenyuk, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s Southern Forces, told state television that Russia has been “occupying and evacuating” Kherson simultaneously, trying to convince Ukrainians that they’re leaving when in fact they’re digging in.
She said:
There are defence units that have dug in there quite powerfully, a certain amount of equipment has been left, firing positions have been set up.
Russian forces are also digging in in the east of Ukraine. Russian attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar. Shelling killed one civilian and wounded three.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor, said on Saturday:
The destruction is daily, if not hourly.
Moscow-backed separatists have controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February and “protecting” the region was one of Putin’s justifications for the invasion. Russian troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.
While Russia’s “greatest brutality” was focused in the Donetsk region, “constant fighting” continued elsewhere along the front line that stretches more than 1,000km (620 miles), the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said.
Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes hitting more than 35 villages in nine regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, killing two people and wounding six, the president’s office said.
AP reports:
In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
The front line is now on Bakhmut’s outskirts, where mercenaries from the Wagner Group, a shadowy Russian military company, are reported to be leading the charge.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, founder of the group who has typically remained under the radar, is taking a more visible role in the war. In a statement Sunday he announced the funding and creation of “militia training centers” in Russia’s Belgorod and Kursk regions in the southwest, saying that locals were best placed to “fight against sabotage” on Russian soil. The training centers are in addition to a military technology center the group said it was opening in St. Petersburg.
Updated
Mayor of Kyiv tells residents to prepare for the worst
The mayor of Kyiv has warned residents that if Russia keeps striking the country’s energy infrastructure they must prepare for having no electricity, water or heat as temperatures drop below freezing.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko told state media:
We are doing everything to avoid this. But let’s be frank, our enemies are doing everything for the city to be without heat, without electricity, without water supply, in general, so we all die. And the future of the country and the future of each of us depends on how prepared we are for different situations.
Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo said parts of Kyiv were scheduled to have hourly rotating blackouts Sunday, with blackouts also planned in the nearby Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions.
The Associated Press reports that Kyiv plans to deploy about a 1,000 heating points, but this may not be enough for a city of 3 million people.
The Russian-installed administration in Ukraine’s Kherson region said electricity and water supplies were “temporarily absent” on Sunday after what it said was a “terrorist attack” damaged three power lines in the region.
In a statement on Telegram, it said the attack had been organised by Ukraine, though it provided no evidence, Reuters reported. The news agency said it was unable to immediately verify battlefield accounts from either side.
Russian state-owned news agency Tass said that ten settlements, including Kherson city, which had a pre-war population of 280,000, had been left without electricity.
Russian officials have in recent weeks repeatedly warned civilians to leave Kherson, amid what they say are preparations for a Ukrainian offensive against the city, the only regional capital that Russia has captured since ordering tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine on 24 February.
Updated
Ukrainian authorities: Russian forces intensify strikes in eastern Ukraine
Russian forces are stepping up their strikes in a fiercely contested region of eastern Ukraine, worsening the already tough conditions for residents and the defending army, Ukrainian authorities have said.
Following Moscow’s illegal annexation and declaration of martial law in Donetsk province Russia, the attacks have almost completely destroyed the power plants that serve the city of Bakhmut and the nearby town of Soledar, Pavlo Kyrylenko, the region’s Ukrainian governor said.
Late on Saturday he said shelling had killed one civilian and wounded three.
In a state television interview Kyrylenko said:
The destruction is daily, if not hourly.
The Associated Press gives more background:
Moscow-backed separatists controlled part of Donetsk for nearly eight years before Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. Protecting the separatists’ self-proclaimed republic there was one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s justifications for the invasion, and his troops have spent months trying to capture the entire province.
In his nightly video address on Saturday Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that while Russia’s “greatest brutality” was focused in the Donetsk region, “constant fighting” continued elsewhere along the front line that stretches more than 1,000km (620 miles).
AP reports:
Between Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s launched four missiles and 19 airstrikes impacting more than 35 villages in seven regions, from Chernihiv and Kharkiv in the northeast to Kherson and Mykolaiv in the south, according to the president’s office.
Russia has focused on striking energy infrastructure over the last month, causing power shortages and rolling outages across the country. The capital, Kyiv, was scheduled to have hourly blackouts rotating Sunday in various parts of the city of some 3 million and the surrounding region,
Rolling blackouts also were planned in the Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy, Kharkiv and Poltava regions, Ukraine’s state-owned energy operator, Ukrenergo, said in a Telegram post.More positive news was the re-connection of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant to Ukraine’s power grid, local media reported Sunday. Europe’s largest nuclear plant needs electricity to maintain vital cooling system, but it had been running on emergency diesel generators since Russian shelling severed its outside connections.
In the Donetsk city of Bakhmut, some 15,000 remaining residents were living under daily shelling and without water or power, according to local media. The city has been under attack for months, but the bombardment picked up after Russian forces experienced setbacks during Ukrainian counteroffensives in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions.
In Kharkiv, officials are working to identify bodies found in mass graves after the Russians withdrew, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for the regional prosecutor’s office, said in an interview with local media.
DNA samples have been collected from 450 bodies discovered in a mass grave in the city of Izium, but the samples need to be matched with relatives and so far only 80 people have participated, he said.
Updated
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday personally thanked all partners and donors to United24, which collects charitable donations in support of Ukraine, for these six months of support.
In 6 months, @u24_gov_ua united hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world in helping 🇺🇦. We are grateful to everyone for supporting our values, for believing in 🇺🇦 and our victory. We feel that the world is supporting 🇺🇦, and this gives us strength in our struggle. pic.twitter.com/gNj0ZeCjmz
— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 5, 2022
United24 has posted details of how the Champion stadium in Irpin, which was completely destroyed by Russian shells, will be rebuilt.
In March, the Champion stadium in Irpin was demolished by🇷🇺shells: they completely destroyed the stadium's premises, stands, and damaged the football pitch. In August, the #united24 ambassador, @jksheva7, decided that he should rebuild that stadium: pic.twitter.com/q5McVGRH8h
— U24 (@U24_gov_ua) November 6, 2022
Andriy Shevchenko, ex-coach of the Ukraine national football team, and the United24 fundraising platform have started raising funds to restore the stadium in Irpin.
The football player has already involved AC Milan in the fundraising campaign, the club will donate 150,000 euros for the restoration of the stadium, the Ministry of Digital Transformation of Ukraine posted on Telegram.
Updated
Ukraine’s ministry of defence challenging the energy of Prince Akeem Joffer in Coming to America today, as it lists what it says are the total combat losses of the enemy from 24 February to 6 November.
"Good morning, my neighbors!"
— Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) November 6, 2022
Prince Akeem Joffer
Total combat losses of the enemy from Feb 24 to Nov 6: pic.twitter.com/cu6UExvHuw
In the replies someone has posted the clip from the movie:
— Більбо Сумкін Сатаніст (@pullove40659516) November 6, 2022
Updated
Russia appointed a new acting commander of the Central Military District on 3 November, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 06 November 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) November 6, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/EaX9aGJYIq
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/IzATxyDkiZ
Major General Alexander Linkov replaces Colonel General Alexander Lapin who was purportedly removed from office at the end of October 2022.
The MoD states:
If confirmed, this follows a series of dismissals of senior Russian military commanders since the onset of the invasion in February 2022. The Commanders of the Eastern, Southern, and Western Military Districts were replaced earlier this year.
Lapin has been widely criticised for poor performance on the battlefield in Ukraine by both Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin.
These dismissals represent a pattern of blame against senior Russian military commanders for failures to achieve Russian objectives on the battlefield. This is in part likely an attempt to insulate and deflect blame from Russian senior leadership at home.
Updated
Despite the energy crisis in Kyiv, the city is continuing to show its indomitable spirit, reports Mark MacKinnon, senior international correspondent for the Globe and Mail
No electricity in central Kyiv this morning, but my favourite coffee shop is still managing to offer black coffee and avocado toast. Glorious.
— Mark MacKinnon (@markmackinnon) November 6, 2022
Updated
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has thanked the 17 EU countries which have provided the country with 500 power generators to help with its power supply problems.
We are grateful to 17 🇪🇺countries that sent 500 power generators to #Ukraine via the EU Civil Protection Mechanism to help with the energy problems caused by #Russian attacks and sustain access to electricity and heating.
— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) November 5, 2022
🇸🇮🇸🇰🇮🇪🇦🇹🇸🇪🇪🇸🇩🇪🇮🇹🇩🇰🇫🇮🇪🇪🇧🇪🇧🇬🇱🇺🇨🇾🇵🇱🇫🇷#StandWithUkraine pic.twitter.com/8yfpXoHGRR
Kyiv prepares to evacuate all civilians in case of total blackout, reports New York Times
Kyiv authorities have begun planning the evacuation of the city’s 3m residents if the Ukrainian capital suffers a complete blackout, according to the New York Times.
The widespread bombardment by Russian forces of critical energy infrastructure across the country is continuing, with 40% of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure damaged or destroyed.
Municipal workers are setting up 1,000 heating shelters that can double as bunkers while engineers try to fix bombed-out power stations without the needed equipment, the NYT reports.
Ukraine’s national energy utility said on Saturday that it would continue to impose rolling blackouts in seven regions in order to try to keep the grid from failing altogether.
Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government was quoted as saying:
If there’s no power, there will be no water and no sewage. That’s why the government and city administration is taking all possible measures to protect our power supply system.
The NYT reports:
“We understand that if Russia continues such attacks, we may lose our entire electricity system,” Roman Tkachuk, the director of security for the Kyiv municipal government, said in an interview, speaking of the city.
Officials in the capital have been told that they would be likely to have at least 12 hours’ notice that the grid was on the verge of failure. If it reaches that point, Mr. Tkachuk said, “we will start informing people and requesting them to leave.”
For now at least, the situation is manageable, and there were no indications that large numbers of civilians were fleeing Kyiv, he said. But that would change quickly if the services that relied on city power stopped.
Updated
The Biden administration in the US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless Vladimir Putin is removed from power, according to the Washington Post.
Biden administration privately encourages Zelensky to show Russia that Ukraine is open to negotiating an end to war https://t.co/WQU6P6e03b
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) November 5, 2022
The Post quotes sources “familiar with the discussions”.
The request was not a bid to force Ukraine into negotiations but an attempt to maintain support in countries worried about Putin’s war’s impact on the world economy and the threat of nuclear war.
The Post quotes one anonymous US official who stated: “Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners.”
The White House National Security Council had no immediate comment on the accuracy of the Post report. A State Department spokesperson said: “The Kremlin continues to escalate this war. The Kremlin has demonstrated its unwillingness to seriously engage in negotiations since even before it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.”
Updated
Tens of thousands of Italians have marched through Rome calling for peace in Ukraine and urging Italy to stop sending of weapons to fight the Russian invasion.
Agence France-Presse reported that one large banner carried by protesters on Saturday read “No to war. No to sending weapons” as a vast crowd broke into cries of “give peace a chance”.
Italy, a founding member of Nato, has supported Ukraine from the start of the war, including providing it with arms. The new far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, has said that will not change and the government has said it is expecting to send more weapons soon.
But some, including former prime minister Giuseppe Conte, have said Italy should be stepping up negotiations instead.
The peace rally was attended by about 30,000 people, Rome police told Italian media.
Demonstrator Roberto Zanotto told AFP:
The weapons were sent at the beginning on the grounds that this would prevent an escalation
Nine months later and it seems to me that there’s been an escalation. Look at the facts: sending weapons does not help stop a war, weapons help fuel a war.
Student Sara Gianpietro said the conflict was being dragged out by arming Ukraine, which “has economic consequences for our country, but for the respect of human rights too”.
The Group of Seven foreign ministers, including Italy, vowed on Friday to continue supporting Ukraine in the fight against Russia.
Russian colonel general latest military commander to be replaced in Ukraine, says UK
A Russian colonel general has purportedly been replaced in the latest of a “series of dismissals” of senior Russian military commanders since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the UK Ministry of Defence says.
It said in its latest intelligence update that Maj Gen Alexander Linkov was reportedly appointed acting commander of Russia’s central military district on Thursday, replacing Col Gen Alexander Lapin.
The ministry said:
Lapin has been widely criticised for poor performance on the battlefield in Ukraine by both Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov and Wagner head Yevgeny Prigozhin. These dismissals represent a pattern of blame against senior Russian military commanders for failures to achieve Russian objectives on the battlefield.
This is in part likely an attempt to insulate and deflect blame from Russian senior leadership at home.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 06 November 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) November 6, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/EaX9aGJYIq
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/IzATxyDkiZ
Updated
Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has defended a controversial trip to China as “worth it” due to an agreement to oppose the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine.
Speaking to a meeting of his Social Democrats on Saturday, a day after his 12-hour visit to Beijing, Scholz hailed an accord with China’s President Xi Jinping that a nuclear escalation of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine must be avoided, Agence France-Presse reported.
Scholz said:
I think that in light of all the debate about whether it was the right thing to travel there or not, the fact that the Chinese government, the president and I could state that there must not be any nuclear weapons used in this war, for that alone this trip was worth it.
The German leader said after talks with Xi that he had insisted “the Russia war in Ukraine is a dangerous situation for the whole world” and urged Russia’s ally Beijing to use its “influence” on Moscow to avert an escalation and stop the invasion.
Beijing’s Xinhua news agency reported:
Xi underscored the need for China and Germany, two major countries with great influence, to work together in times of change and instability and contribute more to global peace and development.
Surviving in besieged Bakhmut 'becoming harder and harder'
Residents of the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut are living in dire conditions, with civilians killed and wounded daily, the deputy mayor said as fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces raged around the city.
“With every day it’s becoming harder and harder to survive in this city,” Reuters reported Oleksandr Marchenko as saying from inside an empty government building as mortar fire boomed nearby.
He said more than 120 civilians have been killed in Bakhmut since Russia’s invasion in February.
There are districts where we don’t know the exact number of people killed because active fighting is ongoing there or the settlements are temporarily occupied [by Russian forces].
Ukrainian troops were “firmly holding the frontline”, Marchenko said, while describing a deteriorating humanitarian situation facing the city, where the population has fallen from its pre-war level of about 80,000 to as low as 12,000 today.
Bakhmut has been an important target for Russia’s military in its slow advance through eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, one of the territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed.
Kyiv’s military has said the area is the site of some of the heaviest fighting with Russian forces. Marchenko said Russia’s troops were “trying to storm the city from several directions”.
Bakhmut has been without electricity, gas and running water for nearly two months. The coming winter would be most difficult for the elderly and infirm, Marchenko said.
Updated
Summary
Welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the Russia-Ukraine war. Here’s a run through the latest developments as it passes 9am in Kyiv.
Russian troops have been looting Kherson ahead of a potential withdrawal from the south-eastern Ukrainian city. Items taken range from art and cultural exhibits to ambulances and tractors.
There has been an assassination attempt on a judge who sentenced two Britons to death in Russian-controlled Ukraine. Alexander Nikulin, who said Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner should be shot by a firing squad, was shot in Vuhlehirsk, in Donetsk, on Friday night. The local supreme court justice is in a serious condition in hospital.
Russian troops are allegedly searching for residents in the Kherson region who are refusing to evacuate, before the forces’ potential withdrawal from the west bank of the Dnieper River.
The Ukrainian foreign ministry has claimed its forces killed another 600 Russian soldiers in the past 24 hours.
Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, has said the country did supply Russia with drones but that it took place before President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Kyiv. The drones have been used in attacks on civilian infrastructure, notably targeting power stations and dams.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy dismissed talk of limited Iranian supplies to Russia, saying Kyiv had downed 11 drones on Friday alone. He said: “If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, it means the world will make even more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran for such cooperation.” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Oleg Nikolenko, said Iran “should realise that the consequences of complicity in the crimes of Russian aggression against Ukraine will be much larger than the benefits of Russia’s support”.
External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant two days after it was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling damaged high voltage lines, the UN nuclear watchdog said.
Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, has said he does not believe Russia will use a nuclear weapon in Ukraine.
The 300,000 troops Putin conscripted as part of the mobilisation drive are providing “little additional offensive combat capability” as the Russian military is struggling to train them, UK’s Ministry of Defence has reported.
Scheduled power cuts will take place on Sunday in seven Ukrainian provinces including major cities such as Kyiv. Other provinces affected are Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Sumy and Poltava. About 500 power generators have been sent to Ukraine by 17 EU countries to help with the energy problems caused by Russian attacks.
At least 112,000 Russians have emigrated to Georgia this year, border crossing statistics show. Reuters reported that the first large wave of 43,000 arrived after Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February and the second wave came after Putin announced a nationwide mobilisation drive in late September.
Updated
