Russia-Ukraine war: medics killed by Russian strike during evacuation of hospital, says Kharkiv governor as it happened – The Guardian

Summary

It is 6pm in Kyiv. Here is everything you might have missed:

Four medics have been killed and two patients injured after Russian forces fired at a psychiatric hospital in the village of Strelechya, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, has said. The facility was in the process of being evacuated and medical staff were removing patients from the hospital while under heavy fire, Syniehubov said. He added on Telegram: During the evacuation, the Russians started a massive shelling. According to preliminary data, unfortunately, 4 medical workers died, 2 patients were injured.

Vladimir Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives, the chief of the defence staff has said. Adm Sir Tony Radakin said the conflict was likely to grind on for a long time, despite recent successes by Ukrainian military forces. Asked about the situation in Ukraine, he told the BBCs Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: At the very outset, we said that this was a strategic error by President Putin and strategic errors lead to strategic consequences. And in this instance, its strategic failure. Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives. He wanted to subjugate Ukraine, thats not going to happen.

Russia has reacted to its military setbacks in the past week by increasing its missile attacks on civilian infrastructure even if they do not have any military impact, according to the latest intelligence report from the British Ministry of Defence. It says in a post on Twitter that the move is intended to destroy the morale of the Ukrainian people.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of provoking fighting in Kherson after a video showed clashes in the centre of the occupied Ukrainian city on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian army is leading a counter-offensive to retake the southern city, which was seized by the Russian army in the first weeks of the invasion. Russian official media Vesti-Crimea broadcast a video on Saturday evening showing an exchange of fire around two armoured vehicles near Kherson train station.

Prosecutors in an area of Ukraine where Russian forces recently retreated in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive are accusing Russia of torturing civilians in one freed village. Prosecutors in the Kharkiv region said, in an online statement, that they had found a basement where Russian forces allegedly tortured prisoners in the village of Kozacha Lopan, near the border with Russia, Associated Press reports. They released images showing a Russian military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and alligator clips attached to it. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of using the Soviet-era radio telephones as a power source to electrocute prisoners during interrogation.

Beloved Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has posted a message on her Instagram account asking the countrys justice ministry to list her as a foreign agent alongside her husband, Maxim Galkin. The post called for an end to the deaths of our boys for illusory aims that make our country a pariah and weigh down the lives of its citizens. Pugachevas message comes a day after Galkin a comedian who has repeatedly spoken out against the war with Ukraine was designated a foreign agent by Russia for political activities. Russias ministry of justice says that his source of foreign funding is from Ukraine.

The US president, Joe Biden, urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, not to use tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in the wake of setbacks in Ukraine. Asked by CBS what he would say to Putin if he was considering using such weapons, Biden said: Dont. Dont. Dont. It would change the face of war unlike anything since world war two. Biden said the US response would be consequential, but declined to give detail.

A total of 165 ships with 3.7 m tonnes of agricultural products onboard have left Ukraine under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to unblock Ukrainian sea ports, the Ukrainian infrastructure ministry has said. The ministry said 10 ships with 169,300 tonnes of agricultural products were due to leave Ukrainian Black Sea ports, reports Reuters.

Russias invasion of Ukraine and a global food crisis aggravated by the war will be the focus of world leaders when they convene at the United Nations in New York this week. It would be naive to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace deal, said the UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres, before the high-level meeting of the 193-member UN general assembly, which starts on Tuesday. The chances of a peace deal are minimal, at the present moment.

The Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, has called for a special international tribunal after a mass grave was discovered in Izium, a town in north-eastern Ukraine. In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent, said Jan Lipavsk, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic. Ukrainian officials have discovered more than 440 bodies, some found with their hands tied behind their backs.

Satellite imagery has emerged of the recently discovered mass grave site near Izium. The images, taken from March to August this year and released by Maxar Technologies, show the entrance to the forest cemetery where many bodies have been discovered.

One of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants four main power lines has been repaired and is supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, the UN nuclear watchdog has said. Even though the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia, Europes biggest nuclear power plant, have been shut down, the plant needs electricity to keep them cool.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, told Putin on Saturday that todays time is not a time for war when the pair met during a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin told Modi he knew of Indias concerns about the conflict, echoing language he had used with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the day before. We will do our best to end this as soon as possible, Putin said, while accusing Kyiv of rejecting negotiations.

Speaking to reporters later, Putin vowed to continue his attack on Ukraine and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the countrys vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces targeted facilities in Russia. Putin said the liberation of Ukraines entire eastern Donbas region remained Russias main military goal and that he saw no need to revise it. We arent in a rush, he said, after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Samarkand.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, told leaders at the summit that efforts were being made to finalise the conflict in Ukraine through diplomacy as soon as possible. Putin told Erdoan, who has been a key broker in limited deals between Russia and Ukraine, that Moscow was keen to build closer ties with Turkey and was ready to significantly increase all exports to the country.

The security service of Ukraine said Russias federal security service (FSU) officers tortured residents in Kupiansk, a city in Ukraines Kharkiv region. The Kyiv Independent reports that when FSU officers were in then occupied Kupiansk, they tortured residents and threatened to send them to minefields and kill their families.

Updated at 11.23EDT

Key events

Please turn on JavaScript to use this feature

Its 11pm in Kyiv. Heres where things stand:

krainian forces are refusing to discard US-provided arms, with many reverse-engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russias invasion. Theyre not willing to scrap it, one soldier said, recalling artillery with shrapnel damage and sometimes completely worn out from firing round after round against Russian troops, Reuters reports.

The Ukrainian military said that Russia has deployed Iranian attack drones, the New York Times reported on Sunday. According to a Ukrainian military official who spoke to the New York Times, remnants of the Shahed-136 attack drones have been discovered on the ground during the counteroffensive that Ukraine launched in the northeastern regions of the country this month.

The Ukrainian military has carried out 20 airstrikes in the last 24 hours against Russian strongholds, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Kyiv Independent reported on Sunday that Ukraines Air Force has successfully targeted 15 Russian strongholds and four sites, as well as seven control points.

Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili levied heavy criticism against Russia on Sunday after the discovery of mass graves in Izium earlier this week. Zourabichvili condemned in the strongest terms the atrocities committed by Russia in Izium, adding that these war crimes must be answered by justice, the Kyiv Independent reports.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Sunday that the mass graves discovered in Ukraine was evidence of Russias war crimes in the country. Obviously the UK and Canada have been two of the strongest countries in standing up in support of Ukraine and pushing back against Russias illegal actions, Trudeau told reporters in London where he will be attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.

Ukrainian forces are refusing to discard US-provided arms, with many reverse-engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russias invasion.

Reuters reports:

Some members of a roughly 50-member repair team showed reporters images of damaged U.S.-provided arms, including M777 howitzers, that in the West would have long been considered beyond the scope of repair.

Not in Ukraine.

Theyre not willing to scrap it, one soldier said, recalling artillery with shrapnel damage and sometimes completely worn out from firing round after round against Russian troops.

But Ukrainians are managing to bring these weapons back into battle, thanks to guidance from U.S. forces and manufacturing prowess by Kyiv allowing it to reverse-engineer spare parts.

Since the program began in June, more than a dozen teleconference channels have been set up with over 100 Ukrainian contacts.

But priority support is being given to the M777s and to the high mobility artillery rocket systems (HIMARS), which have been central to Ukraines counter-offensive nearly seven months since Russian forces invaded.

Combat power for Ukraine is staying at the level it is because of Americas investment in the sustainment, the soldier said.

The Ukrainian military said that Russia has deployed Iranian attack drones, the New York Times reported on Sunday.

According to a Ukrainian military official who spoke to the New York Times, remnants of the Shahed-136 attack drones have been discovered on the ground during the counteroffensive that Ukraine launched in the northeastern regions of the country this month.

The weapon is a kamikaze drone carrying a warhead of about 80 pounds that can be launched from the back of a flatbed truck, the New York Times explained.

According to Colonel Rodion Kulagin, the commander of artillery operations in the Kharkiv operations, the drone drops out from the sky without any warning.

It blew the triple-seven in half, he told the Times, referring to the drone destroying an M777 howitzer supplied by the US to the Ukrainian military. Instead of firing 100 artillery shells, its easier to release one of these drones to search for a target, he added.

The New York Times also reported Kulagin explaining that the drone is accurate enough to target a self-propelled howitzer in an area close to the turret where gunpowder stored. This in turn creates secondary explosions.

Its a very serious problem, he said, adding that without any countermeasures, the drones will destroy all our military.

Updated at 15.37EDT

The Ukrainian military has carried out 20 airstrikes in the last 24 hours against Russian strongholds, according to the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The Kyiv Independent reported on Sunday that Ukraines Air Force has successfully targeted 15 Russian strongholds and four sites, as well as seven control points.

Georgian president Salome Zourabichvili levied heavy criticism against Russia on Sunday after the discovery of mass graves in Izium earlier this week.

Zourabichvili condemned in the strongest terms the atrocities committed by Russia in Izium, adding that these war crimes must be answered by justice, the Kyiv Independent reports.

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Sunday that the mass graves discovered in Ukraine was evidence of Russias war crimes in the country.

Obviously the UK and Canada have been two of the strongest countries in standing up in support of Ukraine and pushing back against Russias illegal actions, Trudeau told reporters in London where he will be attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth.

Those actions increasingly, clearly include war crimes, include absolutely unacceptable crimes, whether we think of what we found in Bucha or the discovery of mass graves in the reclaimed territories by Ukraine, he added.

There needs to be a proper investigation and transparency and Vladimir Putin, his supporters and the Russian military need to be held to account for the atrocities they have and are continuing to commit in Ukraine.

Updated at 13.41EDT

The first lady of Ukraine, Olena Zelenska, paid her respects to the Queen lying in state at Westminster Hall on Sunday, before a reception with the Princess of Wales at Buckingham Palace.

Updated at 13.43EDT

The top US general has cautioned that it is still unclear how Russia might react to the latest battlefield setbacks in Ukraine, calling for vigilance among US troops during a visit to a military base in Poland aiding Ukraines war effort.

The war is not going too well for Russia right now. So its incumbent upon all of us to maintain high states of readiness, alert, US army general Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Warsaw following a visit to a base hosting US troops.

Reuters was asked not to publish the name of the base or describe its location.

Milley said he was not suggesting US troops in Europe were at any increased threat, but said they had to be ready.

In the conduct of war, you just dont know with a high degree of certainty what will happen next.

Policy research organisation the Institute for the Study of War has published data suggesting Ukrainian forces are expanding positions east of the Oskil River and north of the Siverskyi Donets River that could allow them to envelop Russian troops holding the city of Lyman.

They say: The Russian defenders in Lyman still appear to consist in large part of Bars (Russian Combat Army Reserve) reservists and the remnants of units badly damaged in the Kharkiv oblast counteroffensive, and the Russians do not appear to be directing reinforcements to this area.

Updated at 12.42EDT

Jack Watling, a senior research fellow for land warfare at the Royal United Services Institute, has written an analysis piece for the Guardian on Russias underperforming military capability, and why it could lead to its downfall.

Russias military was designed to fight short, high-intensity wars. Without full national mobilisation, it is too small, its units lack the logistical enablement and its equipment is ill-suited to a protracted war. When the Russian military issued orders to its troops in the autumn of 2021, it estimated a need for them to be deployed for nine months. They are now reaching that limit. The Ukrainians, by contrast, have been organising their military since 2014 for precisely this kind of war.

Updated at 12.11EDT

Our reporters Shaun Walker and Pjotr Sauer have spoken to Ukrainian teachers resisting occupation, who say there is no way they could work for the Russians.

We have neither a moral nor legal right to demand heroism from people living under occupation. Their main goals should be to save lives and not voluntarily collaborate, said Ukraines education ombudsman. Others want to see all who collaborated punished.

Updated at 12.33EDT

It is 6pm in Kyiv. Here is everything you might have missed:

Four medics have been killed and two patients injured after Russian forces fired at a psychiatric hospital in the village of Strelechya, the governor of the Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, has said. The facility was in the process of being evacuated and medical staff were removing patients from the hospital while under heavy fire, Syniehubov said. He added on Telegram: During the evacuation, the Russians started a massive shelling. According to preliminary data, unfortunately, 4 medical workers died, 2 patients were injured.

Vladimir Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives, the chief of the defence staff has said. Adm Sir Tony Radakin said the conflict was likely to grind on for a long time, despite recent successes by Ukrainian military forces. Asked about the situation in Ukraine, he told the BBCs Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg programme: At the very outset, we said that this was a strategic error by President Putin and strategic errors lead to strategic consequences. And in this instance, its strategic failure. Putin is failing on all of his military strategic objectives. He wanted to subjugate Ukraine, thats not going to happen.

Russia has reacted to its military setbacks in the past week by increasing its missile attacks on civilian infrastructure even if they do not have any military impact, according to the latest intelligence report from the British Ministry of Defence. It says in a post on Twitter that the move is intended to destroy the morale of the Ukrainian people.

Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of provoking fighting in Kherson after a video showed clashes in the centre of the occupied Ukrainian city on Saturday evening. The Ukrainian army is leading a counter-offensive to retake the southern city, which was seized by the Russian army in the first weeks of the invasion. Russian official media Vesti-Crimea broadcast a video on Saturday evening showing an exchange of fire around two armoured vehicles near Kherson train station.

Prosecutors in an area of Ukraine where Russian forces recently retreated in the face of a Ukrainian counter-offensive are accusing Russia of torturing civilians in one freed village. Prosecutors in the Kharkiv region said, in an online statement, that they had found a basement where Russian forces allegedly tortured prisoners in the village of Kozacha Lopan, near the border with Russia, Associated Press reports. They released images showing a Russian military TA-57 telephone with additional wires and alligator clips attached to it. Ukrainian officials have accused Russian forces of using the Soviet-era radio telephones as a power source to electrocute prisoners during interrogation.

Beloved Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has posted a message on her Instagram account asking the countrys justice ministry to list her as a foreign agent alongside her husband, Maxim Galkin. The post called for an end to the deaths of our boys for illusory aims that make our country a pariah and weigh down the lives of its citizens. Pugachevas message comes a day after Galkin a comedian who has repeatedly spoken out against the war with Ukraine was designated a foreign agent by Russia for political activities. Russias ministry of justice says that his source of foreign funding is from Ukraine.

The US president, Joe Biden, urged his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, not to use tactical nuclear or chemical weapons in the wake of setbacks in Ukraine. Asked by CBS what he would say to Putin if he was considering using such weapons, Biden said: Dont. Dont. Dont. It would change the face of war unlike anything since world war two. Biden said the US response would be consequential, but declined to give detail.

A total of 165 ships with 3.7 m tonnes of agricultural products onboard have left Ukraine under a deal brokered by the United Nations and Turkey to unblock Ukrainian sea ports, the Ukrainian infrastructure ministry has said. The ministry said 10 ships with 169,300 tonnes of agricultural products were due to leave Ukrainian Black Sea ports, reports Reuters.

Russias invasion of Ukraine and a global food crisis aggravated by the war will be the focus of world leaders when they convene at the United Nations in New York this week. It would be naive to think that we are close to the possibility of a peace deal, said the UN secretary general, Antnio Guterres, before the high-level meeting of the 193-member UN general assembly, which starts on Tuesday. The chances of a peace deal are minimal, at the present moment.

The Czech Republic, which currently holds the EU presidency, has called for a special international tribunal after a mass grave was discovered in Izium, a town in north-eastern Ukraine. In the 21st century, such attacks against the civilian population are unthinkable and abhorrent, said Jan Lipavsk, the foreign minister of the Czech Republic. Ukrainian officials have discovered more than 440 bodies, some found with their hands tied behind their backs.

Satellite imagery has emerged of the recently discovered mass grave site near Izium. The images, taken from March to August this year and released by Maxar Technologies, show the entrance to the forest cemetery where many bodies have been discovered.

One of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plants four main power lines has been repaired and is supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid two weeks after it went down, the UN nuclear watchdog has said. Even though the six reactors at Zaporizhzhia, Europes biggest nuclear power plant, have been shut down, the plant needs electricity to keep them cool.

The Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, told Putin on Saturday that todays time is not a time for war when the pair met during a regional Asia summit in Uzbekistan. Putin told Modi he knew of Indias concerns about the conflict, echoing language he had used with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, the day before. We will do our best to end this as soon as possible, Putin said, while accusing Kyiv of rejecting negotiations.

Speaking to reporters later, Putin vowed to continue his attack on Ukraine and warned that Moscow could ramp up its strikes on the countrys vital infrastructure if Ukrainian forces targeted facilities in Russia. Putin said the liberation of Ukraines entire eastern Donbas region remained Russias main military goal and that he saw no need to revise it. We arent in a rush, he said, after the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting in Samarkand.

The Turkish president, Recep Tayyip Erdoan, told leaders at the summit that efforts were being made to finalise the conflict in Ukraine through diplomacy as soon as possible. Putin told Erdoan, who has been a key broker in limited deals between Russia and Ukraine, that Moscow was keen to build closer ties with Turkey and was ready to significantly increase all exports to the country.

The security service of Ukraine said Russias federal security service (FSU) officers tortured residents in Kupiansk, a city in Ukraines Kharkiv region. The Kyiv Independent reports that when FSU officers were in then occupied Kupiansk, they tortured residents and threatened to send them to minefields and kill their families.

Updated at 11.23EDT

Critical Threats and the Institute for the Study of War have created an interactive map that shows the progress Ukrainian military forces have made in taking back Russian-occupied territory.

Peter Pomerantsev is an author and senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and writes for us today to argue that Despite his defeats, Putin still shapes our perceptions. Lets fight him at his own game:

The Ukrainians have (again) done what nobody believed they could. They have (again) defeated the supposedly mighty Russia on the battlefield, shown up the underlying incompetence and moral rot of the Putin system.

It took them just six days to take back whole swaths of territory in north-eastern Ukraine that it took Russia six months to conquer. The Russian military, political and propaganda elites are all blaming each other: rifts that usually rumble under the surface are now visible to all. Putin looks shaken.

Now its time for us to act as well. Not just by increasing help to Ukraine on the battlefield (which is paramount), but also by advancing along the other fronts in this conflict: energy, information, finance and diplomacy.

Read more: Despite his defeats, Putin still shapes our perceptions. Lets fight him at his own game

Our colleague Luke Harding reports from Izium:

Standing in the gloom, Maksim Maksimov pointed to the spot where he was tortured with electric shocks. Russian soldiers took him from his cell in the basement of Iziums police station.

They sat him on an office chair and attached a zig-zag crocodile clip to his finger. It was connected by cable to an old-fashioned Soviet military field telephone.

And then it began. A soldier cranked the handle, turning it faster and faster. This sent an excruciating pulse through Maksimovs body.

I collapsed. They pulled me upright. There was a hood on my head. I couldnt see anything. My legs went numb. I was unable to hear in my left ear, he recalled. Then they did it again. I passed out. I came round 40 minutes later back in my cell.

Read more here: Izium: after Russian retreat, horrors of Russian occupation are revealed

Read the original post:

Russia-Ukraine war: medics killed by Russian strike during evacuation of hospital, says Kharkiv governor as it happened - The Guardian