Russian forces will be annihilated if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, says senior EU official as it happened – The Guardian

Russian forces will be 'annihilated' if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, says Borrell

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow today that its forces would be annihilated by the wests military response if president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, AFP reports.

At the opening of the Diplomacy Academy in Brussels, Borrell said:

Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the member states, and the United States and Nato are not bluffing neither.

Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also said Russia faces severe consequences if it launches a nuclear assault on Ukraine.

However the alliance has stopped short of threatening to use its nuclear arsenal to respond as non-member Ukraine is not covered by its self-defence clause.

Updated at 13.25EDT

Key events

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It is coming up to 9pm in Kyiv. Thats it from me, Joe Middleton, and the Russia-Ukraine war blog for today.

Here is a round-up of everything you might have missed:

The EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow that its forces would be annihilated by the wests military response if president Vladimir Putin used nuclear weapons against Ukraine, AFP reports. At the opening of the Diplomacy Academy in Brussels, Borrell said: Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian army will be annihilated. The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, also said Russia faced severe consequences if it launched a nuclear assault on Ukraine.

After retreating about 20km in the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely to be attempting to consolidate a new frontline west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence. Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end, where Ukrainian advances mean Russias flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.

The Moscow-installed head of Ukraines southern Kherson region, Volodymyr Saldo, has urged residents to leave the area and asked Russia to help evacuate people.

Just hours later Russia confirmed it would evacuate residents from Kherson. The Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on state television: The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country. We will provide everyone with free accommodation and everything necessary.

Ukraines state emergency service said a 12-year-old boy had been rescued after hours under rubble, after rockets hit a five-story residential building in Mykolaiv.

Ukraines power grid has been stabilised after Russian strikes on the country that in particular targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said Thursday.

A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit Thursday in shelling by Kyivs forces, the city governor said today. Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, denied Kyivs military was responsible and said Russia had tried to shell Ukraines second-largest city of Kharkiv on the border but something went wrong.

Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved, the foreign ministry said.

Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting on Thursday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.

The UN general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russias annexation of parts of Ukraine as 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine and the attempted illegal annexation announced last month of four regions by Russia president Vladimir Putin.

Russias foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Russian television Thursday that the vote was anti-Russian and that the west had used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries in order to force them to vote. He dismissed US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote.

Ukraines president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Ukraine currently had only 10% of what it needed in terms of air defences.

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, said that Russia would run out of supplies and armaments before the west did. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west that would ensure that the international community could continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.

The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told Russian state Tass news agency in an interview on Thursday.

Updated at 14.12EDT

Daniel Boffey reports for us from Kyiv:

Moscow has announced it will evacuate Kherson after an appeal from the Russian-installed head of the region, raising fears the occupied city at the heart of the south Ukrainian oblast will become a new frontline.

Marat Khusnullin, a Russian deputy prime minister, told state television on Thursday that residents would be helped to move away from the region in south Ukraine, which remains only partly occupied by invading troops due to a successful Ukrainian counterattack in recent months.

The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country, Khusnullin said.

The development followed a public request on the social media platform Telegram by Volodymyr Saldo, a former mayor of the port city, who was installed in April by the Russian forces as head of the wider Kherson region.

Read more: Russia announces Kherson evacuation, raising fears city will become frontline

Updated at 13.48EDT

Simon Smith is chair of the steering committee of the Ukraine Forum at Chatham House, and they write for us to argue that Putins latest campaign stems from desperation:

The Russian missile strikes on Kyiv and other cities in Ukraine over the past two days have opened a further deplorable chapter in Russias aggression against the country.

Yet we need to resist seeing it as a shocking new moment in Russias assault.

Each additional death brings new personal tragedy and heartbreak. But, in many respects, the wrecking of civilian lives and infrastructure is not new.

Its what millions of Ukrainians have been bravely living with for months.

These strikes and those that may well follow are more of the same: entirely in line with the vindictiveness and indifference to civilian suffering with which Ukrainians have become familiar over eight years under Russian attack.

Read more here: First Nazis, now terrorists: Putins latest campaign stems from desperation

Updated at 12.58EDT

Andriy Yermak, the head of the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency, has tweeted a picture and footage of 20 newly-released prisoners of war.

As we reported earlier, Ukraine and Russia said 20 soldiers on both sides had been released as part of a prisoner exchange, 40 soldiers in all.

In a follow-up post, Yermak said that 14 of the returned soldiers were from the Ukrainian armed forces, four were from the territorial defence forces, one from the national guard and one from the navy.

Updated at 12.50EDT

Russia said today it will evacuate residents from the occupied Ukrainian region of Kherson after a plea from a Kremlin-backed official, AFP reports.

The Russian deputy prime minister Marat Khusnullin said on state television:

The government took the decision to organise assistance for the departure of residents of the [Kherson] region to other regions of the country.

We will provide everyone with free accommodation and everything necessary.

As we reported earlier Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed head of the Kherson administration, posted a video on Telegram urging people to leave the region due to missile attacks.

He directly addressed Russian authorities and asked them to help organise this work.

The plea is a possible sign that Ukraines counteroffensive is continuing to make inroads in the south of the country.

It comes just a day after Kyiv said it had retaken five settlements in Kherson.

Kherson is one of the four regions in Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.

Updated at 13.15EDT

Young Ukrainians from Kyiv are organising repair together weekends to help villages devastated by Russian occupation by cleaning up and rebuilding homes for free.

Tetiana Burianova was traveling in Peru when the war broke out and rushed back to Ukraine to help out in any way she could. With her friends, she began collecting donations and organising repair events that now attract hundreds of young people from cities each weekend.

The Guardians Christopher Cherry reports from a liberated village where he meets locals finding it impossible to forgive a brutal occupation, and volunteers determined to build a better Ukraine amid the ruin.

Updated at 12.39EDT

Maksym Kozytsky, the head of the regional military administration in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, said today that Russia launched six rockets in the region.

He said that Ukraines air defence forces shot down four of them, but two of the rockets hit a target.

Kozytsky did not specify what was struck by the bombardment or if there were any casualties.

In a post on his Twitter and Telegram accounts, he said:

Today, the enemy launched 6 rockets on the territory of Lviv region. Unfortunately, there are two hits. Four rockets were shot down by soldiers of the Zahid PvK. Thanks to our air defence for the highly professional work.

Updated at 11.52EDT

EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell warned Moscow today that its forces would be annihilated by the wests military response if president Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons against Ukraine, AFP reports.

At the opening of the Diplomacy Academy in Brussels, Borrell said:

Putin is saying he is not bluffing. Well, he cannot afford bluffing, and it has to be clear that the people supporting Ukraine and the European Union and the member states, and the United States and Nato are not bluffing neither.

Any nuclear attack against Ukraine will create an answer, not a nuclear answer but such a powerful answer from the military side that the Russian Army will be annihilated.

Nato chief Jens Stoltenberg also said Russia faces severe consequences if it launches a nuclear assault on Ukraine.

However the alliance has stopped short of threatening to use its nuclear arsenal to respond as non-member Ukraine is not covered by its self-defence clause.

Updated at 13.25EDT

After retreating around 20km in the north of the Kherson sector in early October, Russian forces are likely attempting to consolidate a new front line west from the village of Mylove, according to British intelligence. Heavy fighting continues along this line, especially at the western end where Ukrainian advances mean Russias flank is no longer protected by the Inhulets River, the latest UK Ministry of Defence report reads.

The Moscow-installed head of Ukraines southern Kherson region, Vladimir Saldo, has urged residents to leave the area and asked Russia to help evacuate people.

Ukraines state emergency service said a 12-year-old boy has been rescued after hours under rubble after rockets hit a five-story residential building in Mykolaiv.

Ukraines power grid has been stabilised after Russian strikes on the country that in particular targeted energy infrastructure, causing power and hot water cuts, the national energy operator Ukrenergo said Thursday.

A residential building in the southern Russian city of Belgorod near the Ukraine border was hit Thursday in shelling by Kyivs forces, the city governor said today. Mykhaylo Podolyak, a senior Ukrainian presidential adviser, denied Kyivs military was responsible and said Russia had tried to shell Ukraines second-largest city of Kharkiv on the border but something went wrong.

Russia said it had summoned diplomats from Germany, Denmark and Sweden to complain that representatives from Moscow and Gazprom had not been invited to join an investigation into ruptures of the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Russia will obviously not recognise the pseudo-results of such an investigation unless Russian experts are involved, the foreign ministry said.

Vladimir Putin and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, did not discuss ways to resolve the conflict in Ukraine at their bilateral meeting on Thursday, the state-run RIA news agency reported, citing the Kremlin.

The United Nations general assembly on Wednesday overwhelmingly voted to condemn Russias annexation of parts of Ukraine as 35 nations abstained including China, India, South Africa and Pakistan. The resolution condemns the organisation by the Russian Federation of so-called referendums within the internationally recognised borders of Ukraine and the attempted illegal annexation announced last month of four regions by Russia president Vladimir Putin.

Russias foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told Russian television Thursday that the vote was anti-Russian and that the west had used methods of diplomatic terrorism against developing countries in order to force them to vote. He dismissed US claims that Washington did not persuade anyone to vote.

Ukraines President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine currently only has 10% of what it needs in terms of air defences.

UK defence secretary Ben Wallace said that Russia will run out of supplies and armaments before the west does. He said procurement processes were in place among allies in the west that will ensure that the international community will be able to continue arming Ukraine for years ahead.

The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, the deputy secretary of the Russian security council, Alexander Venediktov, told Russian state Tass news agency in an interview on Thursday.

Ukraine and Russia say 20 soldiers on both sides have been released as part of a prisoner exchange, 40 soldiers in all, Associated Press reports.

The Russian defence ministry said:

As a result of the negotiation process on the exchange today, 20 Russian servicemen were returned from the territory of Ukraine controlled by the Kyiv regime.

Ukraine also said its 20 soldiers have been freed from captivity in Olenivka, in the occupied territories of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. They are now undergoing medical checkups.

The head of the Ukrainian presidents office, Andriy Yermak, vowed on Telegram:

We will bring everyone back.

Updated at 10.47EDT

Philip Oltermann reports for us in Berlin:

Europes largest economy is still a teenager when it comes to foreign security policy, the German chancellor Olaf Scholzs chief of staff has said, asking for patience from western allies urging Germany to take a more proactive leadership in its support of Ukraine.

We are getting into a situation that Americans have known for decades: people want us to lead, said Wolfgang Schmidt, a longstanding ally of Scholz who also serves as the political point of contact for the countrys intelligence agencies.

We are in the teenager years in that role, he said, responding to criticism that Berlin has been slow to live up to the Zeitenwende or epochal turn on military and foreign policy Scholz had declared in response to Russias invasion of Ukraine.

Read more: Germany still a teenager on leading foreign security policy, says Scholzs top aide

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Russian forces will be annihilated if Putin uses nuclear weapons in Ukraine, says senior EU official as it happened - The Guardian