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Russia-Ukraine war: head of Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant released; Kremlin unclear on which parts of Ukraine it is annexing – live

Ihor Murashov returned to family safely; Kremlin says borders of Russian-occupied southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions not determined

A BM-21 'Grad' multiple rocket launcher fires towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region.

A BM-21 'Grad' multiple rocket launcher fires towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

A BM-21 'Grad' multiple rocket launcher fires towards Russian positions in the Donetsk region. Photograph: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP/Getty Images

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Zelenskiy: Ukraine has made gains in Kherson as well as Donetsk

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that Ukraine is not just experiencing military success in Lyman, but also in Kherson. In his overnight statement, he said Ukraine forces have liberated the small Arkhanhelske and Myrolyubivka settlements in the Kherson region.

Ukraine has also pushed to regain some territory within the region of Luhansk. This means that Russia does not hold the full territory of any of the areas of occupied Ukraine that it announced it would annex on Friday.

Close-up map of area around Lyman

Zelenskiy also overnight reiterated Ukraine’s pledge to punish those who had taken part in organising “referendums” on Ukrainian soil. In a Telegram message, he said:

Recently, someone somewhere held pseudo-referendums, and when the Ukrainian flag is returned, no one remembers the Russian farce with some pieces of paper and some annexations. Except, of course, law enforcement agencies of Ukraine. Because everyone who is involved in any elements of aggression against our state will be accountable for it.

Key events

Pjotr Sauer
Pjotr Sauer

Russia has put Marina Ovsyannikova, the former state TV editor who interrupted a news broadcast to protest against the Ukraine war, on a wanted list after she reportedly escaped house arrest.

The Ukrainian-born Ovsyannikova, 44, gained international attention in March after bursting into a studio of Channel One, her then employer, to denounce the Ukraine war during a live news bulletin, holding a poster reading “no war”. At the time she was fined 30,000 roubles (£460) for shunning protest laws.

Marina Ovsyannikova in court in August. She has been added to the interior ministry’s online list of fugitives.
Marina Ovsyannikova in court in August. She has been added to the interior ministry’s online list of fugitives. Photograph: Natalia Kolesnikova/AFP/Getty Images

Ovsyannikova continued protesting against the war and was charged in August with spreading false information about the Russian army for holding up a poster that read “Putin is a murderer, his soldiers are fascists” during a solo protest on the Moskva River embankment opposite the Kremlin. She was subsequently placed under house arrest to await trial and was facing up to 10 years in prison if found guilty.

On Saturday, Ovsyannikova’s ex-husband said she had escaped house arrest together with her young daughter.

“Last night, my ex-wife left the place that the court assigned her, and disappeared with my 11-year-old daughter in an unknown direction,” Igor Ovsyannikov, who is employed at the state-run news outlet RT, said.

Ovsyannikova’s whereabouts are unknown and she did not immediately respond to a request for comment. On Monday, she was added to the interior ministry’s online list of fugitives, accompanied by a photograph.

Read the full story here:

Head of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been released, says IAEA chief

The head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been released, according to the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi.

Ihor Murashov, the director general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, has returned to his family safely, Grossi wrote on Twitter.

I welcome the release of Ihor Murashov, Director General of #Ukraine’s #Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant; I have received confirmation that Mr Murashov has returned to his family safely.

— Rafael MarianoGrossi (@rafaelmgrossi) October 3, 2022

Murashov was detained on Friday by a Russian patrol as he travelled from the Zaporizhzhia plant to the town of Enerhodar, where many of the plant’s staff live, according to the state-owned company in charge of the plant.

The head of Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said in a statement:

He was taken out of the car, and with his eyes blindfolded he was driven in an unknown direction,

The IAEA later confirmed it had been in contact with “the relevant authorities” without mentioning Russia by name and said it had been informed that Murashov was in “temporary detention”.

Murashov’s detention “has an immediate and serious impact on decision-making in ensuring the safety and security of the plant”, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday.

Three Russian men who were called up to fight in the war in Ukraine have died at an army training centre in Poroshino in Russia’s Yekaterinburg region, according to Novaya Gazeta.

The Russian state Duma lawmaker, Maxim Ivanov, was cited by a local news outlet as saying:

Yes, I confirm that three people have died. One of the mobilised men died from a heart attack, another one committed suicide. The third one was discharged and sent home, where he died from cirrhosis of the liver.

Another news outlet earlier reported the suicide of a 46-year-old from the Kurgan region, whose body was reportedly found in the canteen of the Poroshino army training centre.

Russia no longer has full control of any of four ‘annexed’ Ukrainian provinces

Russia no longer has full control of any of the four provinces of Ukraine it says it annexed last week after Ukrainian troops reportedly advanced dozens of kilometres in Kherson province in the south of the country and made additional gains in the east.

On Monday, the Russian military acknowledged that Kyiv’s forces had broken through in the Kherson region. It said the Ukrainian army and its “superior tank units” had managed to “penetrate the depths of our defence” around the villages of Zoltaya Balka and Alexsandrovka.

Map

The ministry of defence spokesperson Igor Konashenkov said Russian troops had occupied what he called a “pre-prepared defensive line”. They continued to “inflict massive fire damage” on Ukrainian forces, he claimed.

His comments are an admission that Ukraine’s southern counter-offensive is dramatically gaining pace, two months after it began. Ukrainian brigades appear to have achieved their biggest breakthrough in the region since the war started, bursting through the frontline and advancing rapidly along the Dnieper River.

Kyiv gave no official confirmation of the gains. Russian sources acknowledged that the Ukrainian tank offensive had moved along the river’s west bank, recapturing a number of villages along the way, and threatening the supply lines for thousands of marooned Russian troops.

Read the full report by my colleagues Luke Harding, Isobel Koshiw and Peter Beaumont:

Russia has sacked the commander of its western military district, Col Gen Alexander Zhuravlyov, according to news outlet RBC.

The reported departure of Zhuravlyov, who led one of the five military districts that make up Russia’s armed forces, is the latest in a series of top officials to be fired after a series of defeats and humiliations in the war in Ukraine.

It comes after dramatic Russian losses in north-east Ukraine in September and the recapture by Ukraine on Saturday of the key eastern city of Lyman.

Zhuravlyov will be replaced by Lieut Gen Roman Berdnikov, RBC reported. There was no official confirmation of the change.

Summary of the day so far

It’s 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

Map
  • President Zelenskiy said Ukraine is not just experiencing military success in Lyman, but also in Kherson. In his overnight statement, he said Ukraine forces have liberated the small Arkhanhelske and Myrolyubivka settlements in the Kherson region. Vladimir Saldo, the head of the Russian-imposed authority in the region, admitted that Ukrainians had gained some ground.

  • Ukraine’s military has said its forces recaptured the village of Torske near Lyman in the Donetsk region on Sunday. Russian forces who have been forced to retreat towards Luhansk’s city of Kreminna are being hit “with fire” by Ukrainian missile units, artillery and air forces, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern group of Ukraine’s armed forces.

  • The Kremlin is still determining which areas of occupied Ukraine it has “annexed”, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson has said. Putin has vowed to protect Russia’s newly claimed territories using “all means at its disposal”, indicating a potential nuclear strike. The lack of a clear red line may undermine his attempts at using nuclear deterrence to halt Ukraine’s successful counteroffensive and western support for Kyiv.

  • The lower house of Russia’s parliament, the state Duma, has approved laws on annexing four Ukrainian territories into Russia. No lawmakers in the lower house voted against the bill to incorporate the Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Donetsk and Luhansk regions into Russia. Lawmakers in the upper house, Russia’s federation council, are expected to formalise the illegal annexation on Tuesday.

  • The Kremlin also said Russia favours a “balanced approach” to the issue of nuclear weapons that is not based on emotion. The remarks by Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov come after Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin-appointed leader of the Chechnya region, said Moscow should consider using a “low-yield” nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

  • Thousands of people called up to fight in Ukraine from a far-eastern Russian region have been sent home due to wrongful mobilisation, according to a local official. In the Khabarovsk region, about 8,500km (5,300 miles) east of Moscow, the governor, Mikhail Degtyaryov, said an enlistment officer had been suspended for the wrongful mobilisation.

  • The Chechen leader and Vladimir Putin ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, has said that his three underage sons are heading to fight in Ukraine. Kadyrov said “the time has come” for his sons, 14, 15 and 16 years old, “to show themselves in a real battle” and that they will “soon go to the frontline”.

  • The Czech Republic has repeated a warning to its citizens to leave Russia amid a worsening security situation, its foreign ministry said. The call mirrors similar recent recommendations by other European countries in the region including Poland, Romania and Bulgaria.

  • The EU has summoned Russia’s top diplomat in Brussels in protest of President Vladimir Putin’s “illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian territories. The move is part of a coordinated exercise with EU member states, Peter Stano, a foreign affairs spokesperson for the bloc, said.

  • Ukraine is offering the US full visibility into its list of intended Russian targets in the hopes of receiving a new set of powerful, long-range rocket systems, according to Ukrainian officials. The move essentially gives the US veto power over Ukrainian targeting of Russia and is intended to convince the Biden administration that Ukraine would not use these new weapons to strike inside Russian territory.

Hello everyone, it’s Léonie Chao-Fong still here to bring you all the latest from Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.

Ukraine is offering the US full visibility into its list of intended Russian targets in the hopes of receiving a new set of powerful, long-range rocket systems, according to Ukrainian officials.

The move essentially gives the US veto power over Ukrainian targeting of Russia and is intended to convince the Biden administration that Ukraine would not use these new weapons to strike inside Russian territory, sources told CNN.

The US has proved resistant to providing Ukraine with army tactical missile systems (ATACMS), surface-to-surface missiles that can fly about four times the distance of the rockets used by the Himars mobile systems the US began sending to Ukraine four months ago.

Washington has argued that Kyiv’s forces are doing well with the Himarks systems they currently have, and there are also concerns that providing ATACMS weapons would cross a red line in Moscow’s eyes.

One senior Ukrainian official said:

We essentially described exactly what specific targets we need to hit on our territory which are not reachable with what we have now. The categories of targets are clear and do not change.

The problem was for the US to “get over the psychological threshold and approve the ATACMS capability”, the official added.

EU summons Russian ambassadors over 'illegal annexation' of Ukrainian regions

The EU has summoned Russia’s top diplomat in Brussels in protest of President Vladimir Putin’s “illegal annexation” of four Ukrainian territories.

The move is part of a coordinated exercise with EU member states, Peter Stano, a foreign affairs spokesperson for the bloc, told AFP.

EU countries began to summon Russian envoys on Friday after Putin formally claimed four regions of Ukraine as Russian territory.

Stano told CNN:

In response to latest steps by Russia escalating even more its aggression against Ukraine – with sham referenda and illegal annexation of the Ukrainian territories – the EU summoned in coordinated manner the Russian ambassadors in the EU member states and to the EU institutions.

The coordinated move aims to “convey strong condemnation of these actions” and demand the “immediate halt to steps undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity and violating UN Charter and international law”, he added.

Qatar’s foreign ministry has said in a statement: “The state of Qatar is following with great concern the current developments in the Russian-Ukrainian crisis related to Russia’s announcement of the annexation of Ukrainian lands, and stresses the need to respect Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity within its internationally recognised borders, and to adopt dialogue as a way to resolve the crisis.”

Reuters reports Qatar added it was ready to contribute to international or regional efforts for an immediate peaceful resolution.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, has said he has thanked Canada for supporting Ukraine’s bid to join Nato in a call with his counterpart, Mélanie Joly. He tweeted:

In a call with Mélanie Joly, I thanked Canada for supporting Ukraine’s bid to join Nato, discussed further steps on this path. Mélanie affirmed Canada’s readiness to strengthen mine clearance support for Ukraine. We also discussed other security-related issues of mutual interest.

In a call with @MelanieJoly, I thanked Canada for supporting Ukraine’s bid to join NATO, discussed further steps on this path. Melanie affirmed Canada’s readiness to strengthen mine clearance support for Ukraine. We also discussed other security-related issues of mutual interest.

— Dmytro Kuleba (@DmytroKuleba) October 3, 2022

While the exact borders that Russia is attempting to set within occupied Ukraine as its new external Russian Federation border remains unclear, there is also scant information about what will happen to the citizenship of those within the four areas Russia is claiming.

Earlier today, Iryna Vereshchuk, minister of reintegration of temporarily occupied territories, said on Telegram: “A Russian passport is an enemy weapon and must be destroyed on our territory.”

She was announcing that a “draft law on criminal liability for forced Russian passporting” had been approved, which was “aimed primarily at punishing the organisers of hostile passporting and their accomplices”.

Russian state media Tass is reporting that as part of the provisions of annexation approved today by Russia’s lower house of parliament:

Citizens of Ukraine, other countries and stateless persons residing in new regions are recognised as citizens of Russia, except for those who within a month declare their desire to retain their existing citizenship or remain stateless.

Additionally, Tass is reporting that Russia’s deputy foreign minister Yevgeny Ivanov, when asked about the introduction of visas for citizens of Ukraine, told reporters on Monday: “There are no such plans.”

Ukraine’s military has said its forces recaptured the village of Torske near Lyman in the Donetsk region on Sunday.

Russian forces who have been forced to retreat towards Luhansk’s city of Kreminna are being hit “with fire” by Ukrainian missile units, artillery and air forces, according to Serhii Cherevatyi, a spokesperson for the eastern group of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Cherevatyi said:

For them (Russian occupiers), it is now very important to keep Kreminna. After overcoming Kreminna, the armed forces of Ukraine will go to Svatovo, Rubizhne, and further on they will be able to liberate the Luhansk region.

He added that Ukrainian troops would be able to take back Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk if they take back the city of Kreminna.

Peter Beaumont
Peter Beaumont

In the forest bordering the village of Zalissia, north-east of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, a yellow painted wooden stake has been driven in the sandy ground next to a tree trunk shredded by a mine.

A local man, Eduard, came into the forest to look for items looted from his home by Russian soldiers during their occupation of Zalissia early in the war amid the Kremlin’s failed offensive against Kyiv when this forest was the front line. He triggered an OZM “bounding” anti-personnel mine rigged to tripwire and was killed in the blast.

A member of a mine clearance team working north-east of Kyiv.
A member of a mine clearance team working north-east of Kyiv. Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian

While Russian trenches and foxholes are still visible among trees, these days the forest is busy with de-mining teams working with the British Halo Trust, a mine-clearing charity.

Further incidents in late September underlined the risk: an ambulance ran over a mine near Balakliya, and four people walking in a forest near Chernihiv died after tripping a mine.

A member of a mine clearance team working north-east of Kyiv
A member of a mine clearance team working north-east of Kyiv Photograph: Peter Beaumont/The Guardian

Even before Russia’s full-scale invasion earlier this year, de-miners were confronting a years-long effort to clear mines from Ukraine’s east. The country was ranked fifth in the world for civilian casualties caused by mines and in the top three for anti-vehicle mine incidents.

Local de-mining experts are warning that even if the war were to end tomorrow, it will take at least a decade to clear the threat.

Read the full story here:

A video shows Ukrainian soldiers raising the national flag in Myrolyubivka after liberating the small settlement in the Kherson region.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said that Kyiv’s forces have liberated Myrolyubivka and Arkhanhelske.

A man holds a banner that reads “We are with him. And you? For the sovereignty of Russia” outside the Russian State Duma building in Moscow after lawmakers approved the annexation of four Ukrainian territories into Russia.
A man holds a banner that reads ‘We are with him. And you? For the sovereignty of Russia’ outside the Russian state Duma building in Moscow after lawmakers approved the annexation of four Ukrainian territories into Russia. Photograph: Yuri Kochetkov/EPA

Sweden’s coastguard has said it can no longer see any leaks from the Nord Stream 1 pipeline in the Baltic Sea.

A smaller leak from the Nord Stream 2 was still visible during observations during an overflight on Monday morning, the coastguard said in a statement.

It said:

The larger leak is now no longer visible on the surface while the smaller one instead has increased slightly.

The smaller leak was approximately 30 metres in diameter, it added.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for the operator of the Nord Stream pipelines said the leaking from the Nord Stream 2 pipeline had stopped because an equilibrium had been reached between the gas and water pressure.

Meanwhile, the Russian gas company Gazprom said gas had stopped leaking from three ruptured Nord Stream gas lines under the Baltic.

It added that it might be possible to resume pumping through Nord Stream 2’s remaining single line:

If a decision is made to start deliveries through Nord Stream 2’s line B, natural gas will be pumped into the pipeline after the integrity of the system has been checked and verified by supervisory authorities.

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