Closing summary
It is 9pm in Ukraine. We’re closing this live blog now but a fresh one will commence in the coming hours, with plenty of news reported by the Guardian on the war in the meantime. Here are the main events that occurred during this day.
The Russian government has written to the United Nations telling the international body that “starting today” it is suspending for an “indefinite term” the Black Sea grain deal that allowed vital exports of Ukrainian food supplies. Moscow also requested a related meeting of the UN Security Council in New York on Monday.
Russia has reportedly suspended participation in the grain deal to export agricultural produce from Ukrainian ports after attacks on ships in Crimea, according to Tass. The UN secretary general had urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain deal that has seen more than 8m tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices. The agreement between Ukraine and Russia was due to expire on 19 November.
Russia accused the British Navy of a “terrorist attack” on Nord Stream gas pipelines, and claimed British “specialists” aided a drone attack in Sevastopol. The targeted ships, Russia says, were involved in a UN-brokered deal to allow the export of Ukrainian grain. Responding to the Nord Stream accusations, a spokesperson for Britain’s ministry of defence said: “To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” and that “this latest invented story, says more about the arguments going on inside the Russian government than it does about the west.”
Russia said on Saturday that it would raise the Nord Stream pipeline blasts and an alleged drone attack in Crimea at the UN Security Council, both incidents in which Moscow has alleged British involvement.
The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth about 17bn euros (£14.6bn) since Moscow invaded Ukraine, the EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, said in an interview published on Saturday.
Up to 100 prisoners of war have been reportedly exchanged between Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine handed over 50 prisoners of war after talks. The Ukrainian armed forces account posted on Telegram that “52 Ukrainians returned home” during another “exchange of prisoners”.
A senior Ukrainian official expressed scepticism on Saturday about the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. The billionaire and Tesla boss drew fury from Kyiv and praise from Moscow this month when he posted a Twitter poll proposing Ukraine permanently cede Crimea to Russia, that new referendums be held under UN auspices to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality.
Russian-backed forces say they have finished a pull-out of civilians from the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. The city had a population of about 288,000 people before the war and was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion. A Russian-installed official in Kherson has said at least 70,000 people had left their homes in the region in the space of a week.
Here are more details and background on Russia stating it is pulling out of the deal aimed at unlocking Ukrainian grain and fertiliser exports from Black Sea ports and easing global food shortages.
The deal brokered in July aimed to help avert famine by injecting more wheat, sunflower oil and fertilizer into world markets and to ease a dramatic rise in prices, Reuters reports.
The United Nations World Food Programme said at the time the deal was signed that some 47 million people had moved into a stage of “acute hunger” due to fall-out from the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which halted Ukrainian shipments.
The deal signed on July 22 was valid for 120 days and the United Nations expected it to be renewed unless the war had ended by then. It ensured safe passage in and out of Odesa and two other Ukrainian ports in what the official called a “de facto ceasefire” for the ships and facilities covered.
Since the deal was signed, more than 9 million tonnes of grains and other food products have been exported, U.N. aid chief Martin Griffith said this week. He added the deal had been successful in bringing food prices down and boosting export quantities.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine attacked the Black Sea Fleet near Sevastopol on the annexed Crimean peninsular with 16 drones in the early hours of Saturday, and that British navy “specialists” had helped coordinate the “terrorist” attack.
Russia said it had repelled the attack, with just minor damage to a minesweeper, but that the ships targeted were involved in ensuring the grain corridor.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, accused Russia of inventing “fictitious terrorist attacks on its own facilities” while Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said Moscow was using a “false pretext” to sink the deal.
Russia tells UN it is suspending grain deal indefinitely, requests meeting
The Russian government has written to the United Nations telling the international body that “starting today” it is suspending for an “indefinite term” the Black Sea grain deal that allowed vital exports of food from occupied parts of southern Ukraine, Reuters reports.
The news agency reports that it has seen the contents of the letter and that, following what Russia has said alleging attacks on its naval fleet in the Black Sea involving British as well as Ukrainian forces – claims that the Ukrainians deny – that Moscow also cannot “guarantee the safety of civilian ships” travelling under the terms of the internationally negotiated grain deal.
Moreover, Russia has now requested a UN Security Council meeting on Monday to discuss its claims that attacks on its Black Sea fleet provoked it to suspend the grain deal.
The July deal was designed to allow essential Ukrainian grain exports, that were backing up in the occupied area even as developing countries faced the threat of starvation without such supplies, to leave Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory.
But Russia has slow-marched the exports amid claims that they were going to developed countries that oppose Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, not to desperately hungry communities in the developing world.
Updated
Russia and Ukraine carried out the latest in series of prisoner of war exchanges on Saturday, with both sides returning around 50 people, officials in Moscow and Kyiv have said.
Ukraine’s military intelligence directorate reported the return of 52 detainees, among them soldiers, sailors, border guards, national guard members and doctors.
Further exchanges were being worked on, it said, but did not give details.
Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine handed over 50 prisoners of war after talks, Reuters reports.
Earlier on Saturday, Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed head of the Donetsk region – one of four regions of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally proclaimed as its territory last month – also said a prisoner swap with Ukraine was taking place.
He said 50 people from each side were being exchanged.
Updated
The Pentagon has responded to Russia saying the accelerated deployment of modernised US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at Nato bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and it would take the move into account in its military planning.
The Pentagon said it was not going to discuss the details of the US nuclear arsenal and that the US had long planned the modernisation of its B61 nuclear weapons, Reuters reports.
“Modernisation of US B61 nuclear weapons has been under way for years, and plans to safely and responsibly swap out older weapons for the upgraded B61-12 versions are part of a long-planned and scheduled modernisation effort,” Pentagon spokesman Oscar Seara said.
“It is in no way linked to current events in Ukraine and was not sped up in any way.”
Updated
Ukraine’s foreign minister accused Moscow of using a “false pretext” to suspend its participation in the Black Sea grain corridor on Saturday.
“I call on all states to demand Russia to stop its hunger games and recommit to its obligations,” Dmytro Kuleba wrote on Twitter.
Russia said earlier it was suspending participation in the three-month-old deal after what it claimed was a Ukrainian attack on Russian ships in the Moscow-occupied Crimea peninsula, Reuters reports.
The Ukrainian president’s chief of staff accused Russia of “blackmail” and “invented terror attacks” on its own facilities on Saturday following explosions in the Russian occupied peninsula of Crimea.
“The primitiveness of Russian blackmail (can be seen) in everything. Nuclear blackmail, energy, food,” Ukraine’s top presidential staffer Andriy Yermak wrote on the Telegram app.
His comments were an apparent response to Russian accusations that Ukraine was behind the blasts, as a result of which Moscow said it was suspending its participation in the United Nations-backed Black Sea grain corridor, Reuters reports.
Yermak accused Russia of “fictitious terrorist attacks on its own facilities.”
The United Nations is in contact with Russian authorities following reports that Moscow has suspended participation in a deal that resumed Ukrainian Black Sea grain and fertiliser exports, Reuters reports.
“It is vital that all parties refrain from any action that would imperil the Black Sea Grain Initiative which is a critical humanitarian effort that is clearly having a positive impact on access to food for millions of people around the world,” U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric said.
Countries must work together to fight online terror and cut terrorists’ resources to prevent deadly attacks, the UK’s foreign secretary James Cleverly told a United Nations meeting in India.
Speaking at the UN Security Council counter-terrorism committee in New Delhi on Saturday, he urged allied states to tackle terror groups’ exploitation of technological advances.
The UK is also funding new technologies to counter drones being used such as those employed to target critical infrastructure and civilian targets in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Summary
It is 6pm in Ukraine. Here’s what you might have missed from the day so far.
Russia has reportedly suspended participation in the grain deal to export agricultural produce from Ukrainian ports after attacks on ships in Crimea, according to Tass. The UN secretary general had urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the grain deal that has seen more than 8m tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices. The agreement between Ukraine and Russia was due to expire on 19 November.
Russia accused the British Navy of a “terrorist attack” on Nord Stream gas pipelines, and claimed British “specialists” aided a drone attack in Sevastopol. The targeted ships, Russia says, were involved in a UN-brokered deal to allow the export of Ukrainian grain. Responding to the Nord Stream accusations, a spokesperson for Britain’s ministry of defence said: “To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” and that “this latest invented story, says more about the arguments going on inside the Russian government than it does about the west.”
Russia said on Saturday that it would raise the Nord Stream pipeline blasts and an alleged drone attack in Crimea at the UN Security Council, both incidents in which Moscow has alleged British involvement.
The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth about 17bn euros (£14.6bn) since Moscow invaded Ukraine, the EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, said in an interview published on Saturday.
Up to 100 prisoners of war have been reportedly exchanged between Russia and Ukraine. Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine handed over 50 prisoners of war after talks. The Ukrainian armed forces account posted on Telegram that “52 Ukrainians returned home” during another “exchange of prisoners”.
A senior Ukrainian official expressed scepticism on Saturday about the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk. The billionaire and Tesla boss drew fury from Kyiv and praise from Moscow this month when he posted a Twitter poll proposing Ukraine permanently cede Crimea to Russia, that new referendums be held under UN auspices to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality.
Russian-backed forces say they have finished a pull-out of civilians from the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson. The city had a population of about 288,000 people before the war and was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion. A Russian-installed official in Kherson has said at least 70,000 people had left their homes in the region in the space of a week.
Updated
Russia suspends participation in deal on Ukraine grain exports, Tass reports.
Russia has suspended participation in the deal to export agricultural produce from Ukrainian ports following attacks on ships in Crimea, Tass cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday.
Updated
Russia to raise Nord Stream and Crimea attacks at UN Security Council
Russia said on Saturday that it would raise the Nord Stream pipeline blasts and an alleged drone attack in Crimea, both incidents in which Moscow has alleged British involvement, at the UN Security Council.
“The Russian Side intends to draw the international community’s attention, including at the United Nations Security Council, to a series of terrorist attacks committed against the Russian Federation in the Black & Baltic seas, highlighting the UK’s involvement,” Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.
Moscow has so far provided no evidence for its claim.
Ukraine questions Twitter takeover amid precarious ties with Musk
A senior Ukrainian official expressed scepticism on Saturday about the takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, Reuters reports.
Musk’s relations with Kyiv have been precarious since the billionaire suggested in early October Ukraine should give up occupied land for peace.
Musk, a self-declared “free speech absolutist”, has expressed desire to shake up Twitter’s content moderation, and tweeted that “the bird is freed” after completing the purchase.
Ukrainian presidential aide Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted on Saturday: “Did the bird really get its freedom, or has it just moved to a new cage?”
The billionaire and Tesla boss drew fury from Kyiv and praise from Moscow this month when he posted a Twitter poll proposing Ukraine permanently cede Crimea to Russia, that new referendums be held under UN auspices to determine the fate of Russian-controlled territory, and that Ukraine agree to neutrality.
The deputy chair of Russia’s Security Council, Dmitry Medvedev, tweeted his congratulations to Musk on Friday.
“Good luck [Elon Musk] in overcoming political bias and ideological dictatorship on Twitter.” Medvedev wrote.
Updated
Russia’s defence ministry said on Saturday that Ukraine handed over 50 prisoners of war after talks, Reuters reports.
Earlier on Saturday, Denis Pushilin, the Moscow-backed head of the Donetsk region (one of four regions of Ukraine that Russia unilaterally proclaimed as its territory last month) also said a prisoner swap with Ukraine was taking place.
He said 50 people from each side were being exchanged.
On Saturday, the Ukrainian armed forces account posted on Telegram that “52 Ukrainians returned home” during another “exchange of prisoners”.
Russia alleges British “specialists” aided drone attack in Sevastopol
The Russian army accused Ukraine of a “massive” drone attack on its Black Sea Fleet in Crimea on Saturday, claiming the UK helped in the strike that damaged a ship, AFP reports.
It has also claimed that the targeted ships were involved in a UN-brokered deal to allow the export of Ukrainian grain.
Sevastopol in Moscow-annexed Crimea, which has been targeted several times in recent months, serves as the headquarters for the fleet and a logistical hub for operations in Ukraine.
The Russian army claimed to have “destroyed” nine aerial drones and seven maritime ones, in an attack early Saturday in the port.
Moscow’s forces alleged British “specialists”, whom they said were based in the southern Ukrainian city of Ochakiv, had helped prepare and train Kyiv to carry out the strike.
The claims could not be independently verified.
Earlier today, Britain denied Russian claims that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month.
Britain denies Russian accusations, says they are “false claims of an epic scale”
Britain on Saturday denied Russian claims that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, calling them “false claims of an epic scale”, Reuters reports.
“To detract from their disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Ministry of Defence is resorting to peddling false claims of an epic scale,” a spokesperson for Britain’s ministry of defence said.
“This latest invented story, says more about the arguments going on inside the Russian government than it does about the west.”
Updated
Russia says ships attacked in Sevastopol were part of grain deal
Russia said on Saturday that its ships targeted in a drone attack in Crimea’s Sevastopol port were involved in a UN-brokered deal to allow the export of Ukrainian grain.
“It should be emphasised that the ships of the Black Sea Fleet that were attacked by terrorists are involved in ensuring the security of the ‘grain corridor’ as part of an international initiative to export agricultural products from Ukrainian ports,” Moscow’s defence ministry said in a statement.
The Guardian could not verify these claims.
The grain deal is scheduled to expire on 19 November, and the UN secretary general has called for an extension.
Updated
Moscow is “likely” planning an expedited withdrawal from Kherson city, according to the latest intelligence update from the UK Ministry of Defence.
Ukrainian forces have been advancing towards Kherson for weeks.
The update noted that more than 70,000 people had now left the city, according to Russian-appointed governor of Ukraine’s occupied Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo.
It also mentioned Saldo’s claims that Russia had removed the remains of the well-known 18th century Russian statesman, Prince Grigory Potemkin, from his tomb in Kherson’s cathedral to east of the Dnipro.
“In the Russian national identity, Potemkin is heavily associated with the Russian conquest of Ukrainian lands in the 18th century and highlights the weight Putin almost certainly places on perceived historical justification for the invasion,” the MoD update states.
“This symbolic removal of Potemkin and the civilian exodus likely pre-empts Russian intent to expedite withdrawal from the area.”
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 29 October 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 29, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/YeQYn5GxVm
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/KnwzTUXx7e
Updated
Russian troops moved large numbers of sick and wounded comrades from hospitals in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, Ukrainian military officials reported on Saturday as their forces fought to retake a province overrun by invading soldiers early in the war.
Kremlin-installed authorities in the mostly Russian-occupied region previously urged civilians to leave the city of Kherson, the region’s capital. They also were reported this week to have joined tens of thousands of residents who fled to other Russia-held areas before an expected Ukrainian advance.
“The so-called evacuation of invaders from the temporarily occupied territory of the Kherson region, including from medical institutions, continues,” the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces said in a morning update. “All equipment and medicines are being removed from Kherson hospitals.”
The military’s claims could not be independently verified. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said in a nightly video address on Friday that the Russians were “dismantling the entire health care system” in Kherson and other occupied areas.
“The occupiers have decided to close medical institutions in the cities, take away equipment, ambulances. just everything,” Zelenskiy said. “They put pressure on the doctors who still remained in the occupied areas for them to move to the territory of Russia.”
Kherson is one of four regions of Ukraine that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, illegally annexed last month and where he subsequently declared martial law. The others are Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia.
Updated
EU has frozen 17bn euros in Russian assets
The European Union has frozen Russian assets worth about 17bn euros (£14.6bn) since Moscow invaded Ukraine, the EU justice commissioner, Didier Reynders, said in an interview published on Saturday.
The figure has risen from the roughly 13.8bn euros “from oligarchs and other entities” that Reynders in July announced the EU had frozen, mainly in five countries.
“So far, the assets of 90 people have been frozen, more than 17bn euros in seven member states, including 2.2bn euros in Germany,” he told German media group Funke, including the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung daily.
Ukrainian officials have been calling for the assets to be used to rebuild their country after the war.
“If it is criminal money confiscated by the EU, it is possible to transfer it to a compensation fund for Ukraine,” Reynders said in the interview.
“This amount is far from being sufficient to finance reconstruction,” he added.
Reynders noted that western sanctions have also led to the “freezing of 300bn euros” of Central Bank of Russia foreign exchange reserves around the world, saying this could be used as a guarantee.
“From my point of view, it is at least possible to keep these 300bn euros as a guarantee until Russia voluntarily participates in the reconstruction of Ukraine,” he said.
Since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, 1,236 people including the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and the foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as oligarchs including Roman Abramovich, have been subject to asset freezes and bans from entering the EU.
Updated
Today we published one of a series of essays on the war in Ukraine from countries in or neighbouring the former Eastern bloc. Here, Hungarian historian György Dalos asks how long the country can remain on the fence.
Russia accuses British Navy of “terrorist attack” on Nord Stream gas pipelines.
Russia’s defence ministry on Saturday said that British navy personnel blew up the Nord Stream gas pipelines last month, directly accusing a leading Nato member of sabotaging critical Russian infrastructure, Reuters reports.
The defence ministry did not give evidence for its claim.
“According to available information, representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on 26 September this year – blowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines,” the ministry said.
Allegations were also made that the same British military specialists – supposedly located in the city of Ochakiv, in Ukraine’s Mykholaiv region – helped Kyiv’s forces plan a drone attack on Russia’s Black Sea fleet on Saturday morning.
Britain’s defence ministry declined immediate comment.
Updated
More than 10,000 people filled the Czech capital’s central Wenceslas Square on Friday, with demonstrators calling for the government to resign as consumers face sharply rising prices.
Dubbed Czech Republic First, the protest was the third of its kind organised by a group calling for the nation’s exit from Nato and renewed ties with Moscow.
Nationalist activists have blasted the EU’s sanctions against Moscow as the source of the region’s turmoil, and called for talks with the Kremlin to secure fresh supplies of cheaper natural gas.
On social media, organisers attacked the government’s support for 400,000 Ukrainian refugees in the country and called on authorities to prevent them from permanently settling in the Czech Republic.
The Interior Ministry described a similar protest that drew 70,000 in September as promoting “pro-Kremlin propagandist narratives”.
Updated
Russians stealing medical equipment in Kherson, says Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Russian forces in the occupied region of Kherson are engaged in mass theft of medical equipment and ambulances in a bid to make the area uninhabitable, Zelenskiy said on Friday evening.
Kherson is one of the four regions Moscow claimed as part of Russia.
“The occupiers have decided to close down medical institutions in towns, take away medical equipment, ambulances, everything. They are putting pressure on doctors who still remain ... to move to the territory of Russia,” Zelenskiy said.
“Russia is trying to make the Kherson region a no man’s land,” he added, in an evening video address.
Ukrainian officials have regularly accused retreating Russian troops of widespread looting.
Updated
Russia says US lowering “nuclear threshold” with newer bombs in Europe, Reuters reports.
Russia said on Saturday that the accelerated deployment of modernised US B61 tactical nuclear weapons at Nato bases in Europe would lower the “nuclear threshold” and that Russia would take the move into account in its military planning.
Earlier this week, Politico reported that the US told a closed Nato meeting this month that it would accelerate the deployment of a modernised version of the B61, the B61-12, with the new weapons arriving at European bases in December.
“We cannot ignore the plans to modernise nuclear weapons, those free-fall bombs that are in Europe,” Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Alexander Grushko, told state RIA news agency.
“The United States is modernising them, increasing their accuracy and reducing the power of the nuclear charge, that is, they turn these weapons into ‘battlefield weapons’, thereby reducing the nuclear threshold,” Grushko said.
Updated
Moscow-installed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, has asked residents not to post videos of a drone attack on the city to social media.
“It should be clear to everyone that such information is much needed for Ukrainian Nazis in order to understand how the defence of our city is built,” he said.
Earlier today, the official, appointed by Russia, said that Russian naval forces had repelled a drone attack in waters off the port city of Sevastopol.
No “civilian infrastructure” was damaged, according to Razvozhaev on Telegram. The Guardian could not verify battlefield accounts.
Updated
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, gave a live, virtual address to the Yale School of Management on Friday.
Today, posting on Telegram about the conversation, he wrote: “It is important for the whole world that Russia loses now – in the war in Ukraine. When we will gain a victory for ourselves, we will also gain a victory for other nations whose freedom is potentially at risk.
“Right now, and precisely in Ukraine, it is being decided whether our part of the world will be free and democratic. Ultimately, this is how the global fate of democracy will be determined. This fate should be determined by us – the free world, not terrorists. I believe that it will be so.”
Updated
Speaking during a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said 82,000 conscripts had already been sent to Ukraine.
Shoigu added that Russia was no longer recruiting people for its armed forces, saying that “citizen notification has been discontinued”.
Putin thanked his defence minister, acknowledging that there had been some problems at the start of the recruitment drive. “This was probably inevitable,” he said, “bearing in mind that such events have not been held in our country for a long time.”
Watch the video here:
Updated
Ukraine said Russian forces have launched four rockets, up to 25 airstrikes and more than 70 attacks from rocket salvo systems which hit areas of more than 35 settlements over the past day.
In the Beryslav settlement of the Kherson oblast, Ukrainian authorities said “the occupiers are en masse changing into civilian clothes and moving into private residences”.
The update on Saturday also said the “so-called ‘evacuation’” from the occupied territory in Kherson includes medical facilities. “All equipment and medicines are taken out of Kherson hospitals. Doctors who refuse to leave are not allowed to enter hospital grounds, even for personal belongings.”
The remains of an 18th century Russian statesman have been removed from his tomb in Kherson, according to the latest UK intelligence update.
The update on Saturday morning said the symbolic removal of Prince Grigory Potemkin’s remains from the cathedral to the east of Dnipro, signals plans from Putin to “expedite withdrawal” from the region.
More than 70,000 people have now left Kherson city, according to the Russian-appointed governor of the region, Vladimir Saldo.
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 29 October 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) October 29, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/YeQYn5GxVm
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/KnwzTUXx7e
Updated
Here are the latest photos coming out of Ukraine and elsewhere:
Updated
Russian naval forces repelled a drone attack in the Bay of Sevastopol, where the Black Sea Fleet is headquartered, according to Reuters.
The Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, said on Telegram:
Ships of the Black Sea Fleet repelled a drone attack in the waters of the Sevastopol Bay. Nothing has been hit in the city. We remain calm. The situation is under control.
Sevastopol is the largest city in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014.
Updated
Canada has announced fresh sanctions against 35 individuals and six companies in Russia’s energy sector, as a well as a bond issue to support Ukraine.
Those individuals named on Friday include National Hockey League player Alexander Frolov and chess grandmaster Anton Demchenko, Agence France-Presse reports.
Ukraine has repeatedly urged its allies in the west to extend its sanctions to high-profile personalities who have publicly backed Russia’s invasion.
Civilian evacuation of Kherson finished, say Russia's proxies
Russian-backed forces say they have finished a pull-out of civilians from the key southern Ukrainian city of Kherson.
Kyiv’s forces are now closing in on the city after making major gains in Ukraine’s east and south, Agence France-Presse reports.
The city had a population of about 288,000 people before the war and was one of the first to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion.
Since mid-October, the occupying authorities have urged Kherson residents to cross the Dnipro River, going deeper into Moscow-controlled territory and closer to regions of southern Russia.
A Russian-installed official in Kherson, Vladimir Saldo, has said at least 70,000 people had left their homes in the region in the space of a week.
Kyiv has compared the operation to Soviet-era “deportations”.
Updated
Russia has declared Natayia Sindeyeva, the head of the independent TV channel Dozhd, a “foreign agent” along with two journalist colleagues, in the latest crackdown on civil society.
Agence France-Press reported that the names of Natalia Sindeeva, Vladimir Romensky and Ekaterina Kotrikadze appeared on the latest Russian justice ministry list of “foreign agents”.
They had been added because of their “political activities”, the ministry said.
TV Dozhd was launched in 2008 and covered Russia’s opposition and protest movements, and last year the channel itself was labelled a “foreign agent”.
All main independent media outlets in Russia, including radio station Echo of Moscow and Dozhd TV, have been shut down or have suspended their operations in the country.
Dozhd wound up its Russia operations and suspended broadcasting from Russia with an emotional show on 3 March, less than a fortnight after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The channel resumed broadcasting in 18 July from studios in neighbouring Latvia.
Updated
UN chief calls for grain deal to be renewed for global 'food security'
The UN secretary general has urged Russia and Ukraine to renew the deal that has seen more than 8m tonnes of grain exported from Ukraine and brought down global food prices.
Antonio Guterres also called for other countries, mainly in the west, to expedite the removal of obstacles blocking Russian grain and fertiliser exports, Agence France-Presse reported.
The UN chief’s spokesman said on Friday that Guterres underlined the urgency of renewing the deal so as “to contribute to food security across the world”.
The agreement between Ukraine and Russia – major suppliers of grain around the globe – was brokered by the UN and Turkey in July and is due to expire on 19 November.
Russia’s UN ambassador said on Wednesday that before Moscow discussed a renewal, “Russia needs to see the export of its grain and fertilisers in the world market, which has never happened since the beginning of the deal”.
He said the hurdles facing Russia’s exports include getting insurance for vessels, conducting financial transactions, finding ports of call for Russian ships, and freeing up fertiliser on ships detained at European ports.
Guterres has said the resumption of Ukrainian grain exports from three Black Sea ports “has significantly contributed to lower prices of wheat and other commodities”.
Summary
Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s ongoing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. It is approaching 9.30am in Kyiv. Here’s a brief rundown on the latest developments.
Russia’s defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has said the partial mobilisation of reservists announced in September “has been completed” and “no further measures are planned”. Speaking at a meeting with Vladimir Putin broadcast on state television, Shoigu said 82,000 mobilised recruits were in the conflict zone and a further 218,000 in training in barracks. His statement reflects what the west called a desperate effort to halt Kyiv’s counteroffensive with poorly trained troops.
About 4 million people across Ukraine are being hit by power cuts from rolling blackouts due to Russia’s bombing campaign, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said. Agence Frence-Presse quoted energy company DTEK, the operator for the Kyiv region, as saying it would have to introduce “unprecedented” power cuts to prevent a complete blackout.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, said he had received a phone call from his Iranian counterpart, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, on Friday and had demanded Tehran stop sending weapons to Russia. Ukraine and western allies accuse Iran of sending “kamikaze” drones to Russia that have been used to devastating effect against Ukrainian infrastructure. Iran denies the charge.
At least four people were killed and 10 wounded when several towns neighbouring the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia power plant were hit by shelling, a statement from the Ukrainian presidential office said.
The Russian defence ministry said its forces had repelled attempted Ukrainian advances in the east and had destroyed a Ukrainian military factory near the town of Pavlograd.
The US will provide $275m in additional military assistance to Ukraine, including arms, munitions and equipment from US defence department inventories, the secretary of state has said. “We are also working to provide Ukraine with the air defence capabilities it needs with the two initial US-provided Nasams ready for delivery to Ukraine next month,” Antony Blinken said. “And we are working with allies and partners to enable delivery of their own air defence systems to Ukraine.”
Assets belonging to Russian and Belarusian individuals seized by Ukraine could be used for the huge postwar reconstruction effort, the Ukrainian finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, has been quoted as saying. The government has frozen Russian and Belarusian assets in Ukraine worth about 44 billion hryvnias ($1.21bn) since the start of Moscow’s invasion, according to the Economic Security Bureau, a state agency.
The European Union has appointed a Polish general, Piotr Trytek, to lead a new training operation with Ukrainian troops. Trytek, 51, was chosen as part of the EU’s pledge to step up military support for Ukraine.
Vladimir Putin’s first deputy chief of staff has visited the Russian-held Ukrainian city of Kherson. Sergei Kiriyenko stopped at a ferry port where hundreds of people were being removed by order of Russian authorities.
A Russian official’s threat to strike western satellites aiding Ukraine has raised concerns among space lawyers and industry executives about the safety of objects in orbit. No country has carried out a missile strike against an enemy’s satellite.
UN nuclear inspectors are expected to reach a conclusion soon on Russia’s claims of the possible production of a “dirty bomb”. Investigators are being sent to two locations in Ukraine where Russia alleged the activities were taking place.
