Russia-Ukraine war: Russians being prepared for nuclear war, warns Zelenskiy; White House says no indication of immediate Russian plans – as it happened
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Russians are being prepared for nuclear warfare, warns Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russian officials have begun to “prepare their society” for the possible use of nuclear weapons in the war.
In an interview with the BBC, Zelenskiy said:
They begin to prepare their society. That’s very dangerous. They are not ready to do it, to use it. But they begin to communicate. They don’t know whether they’ll use or not use it. I think it’s dangerous to even speak about it.
The Ukrainian leader denied having called for strikes on Russia, urging instead for pre-emptive sanctions to be imposed on Moscow.
In a discussion with an Australian think tank on Thursday, Zelenskiy said he believed strikes were necessary to preclude any use of nuclear weapons.
He did not go into detail about what kind of strikes he meant but his remarks were denounced by the Kremlin as “an appeal to start yet another world war”.
Speaking to the BBC, Zelenskiy said the word he had used in Ukrainian had been misunderstood.
He said:
After that translation, the Russians did their way, how it’s useful for them, and began to retranslate it in other directions.
Zelenskiy called on the world to act now as Russia’s threats were a “risk for the whole planet”, adding:
All Putin is afraid of is not a nuclear strike. He’s afraid of his society, of his people.
Because only this people can replace him, strip him of his power and give it to another person.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russian officials have begun to “prepare their society” for the possible use of nuclear weapons in the war. In an interview with the BBC, Zelenskiy denied having called for strikes on Russia, urging instead for pre-emptive sanctions to be imposed on Moscow.
Russia has targeted Zaporizhzhia with explosive-packed “kamikaze drones” for the first time, as the death toll from a missile strike on an apartment building in the city on Thursday rose to 11. The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities, in the city. He said other missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person. On Monday, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani denied supplying the drones to Russia, calling the claims “baseless”.
In the north-eastern Kharkiv region where Ukrainian forces regained a large swathe of ground in September, the bodies of 534 civilians including 19 children were found after Russian troops left, Serhiy Bolvinov of the National Police in Kharkiv told a briefing. The total included 447 bodies found in Izium. He also said that investigators had found evidence of 22 sites being used as “torture rooms”.
Russia has reportedly sacked the commander of its eastern military district, Col Gen Alexander Chaiko, the news outlet RBC has reported. The reported departure of Chaiko marks the latest in a series of top officials to be fired after defeats and humiliations in the war in Ukraine, following reports that the commander of the western military district, Col Gen Alexander Zhuravlyov, had been replaced by Lt Gen Roman Berdnikov on Monday.
Joe Biden has warned the world could face “Armageddon” if Vladimir Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon to try to win the war in Ukraine. The US president made his most outspoken remarks to date about the threat of nuclear war, saying it was the closest the world had come to nuclear catastrophe for 60 years. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” he said.
The US does not have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons, the White House said. Asked about Biden’s comments, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters: “He was reinforcing what we have been saying, which is how seriously ... we take these threats.”
The 2022 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. Putin should face an “international tribunal”, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties said after the award. Writing on Facebook, Oleksandra Matviychuk called on the Russian president, the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, and other “war criminals” to face an international tribunal in order to “give the hundreds of thousands of victims of war crimes a chance to see justice”. Matviychuk also called for Russia to be excluded from the UN security council “for systematic violations of the UN charter”.
Ukrainian sources are attempting to clarify what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meant yesterday when he talked about “preventive strikes” being necessary to stop Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov seized on the comments, interpreting them as a call for Nato to use nuclear weapons against Russia, and said the comments showed why Russia’s “special military operation” within Ukraine’s borders had been necessary. The adviser to Zelenskiy, Serhii Nykyforov, said: “Colleagues, you have gone a little too far with your nuclear hysteria and now you hear nuclear strikes even where there are none. The president spoke about the period before 24 February. Then it was necessary to apply preventive measures to prevent Russia from starting the war. Let me remind you that the only measures that were about then were preventive sanctions.”
A member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle directly confronted the Russian president over mistakes and failings in the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post has reported, citing US intelligence.
The headquarters of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has claimed to have captured three settlements from Ukrainian forces in Donetsk.
At least five people were killed and as many injured after Ukrainian forces struck a bus while shelling a strategically important bridge in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
The office of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has issued a brief read-out after he held a call with his Russian counterpart. The pair discussed the latest developments in Ukraine, and Erdoğan repeated Ankara’s willingness to do its part to peacefully resolve the war.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has congratulated Putin on his 70th birthday, applauding him for his “distinguished leadership and strong will” in the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries. In the birthday message, Kim spoke of Putin’s achievements in “building powerful Russia” and said the Russian leader was “enjoying high respects and support from the broad masses of people”.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, will travel to Russia early next week for talks on setting up a protection zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the agency said.
The UN nuclear watchdog had previously said Grossi would travel to Kyiv and Moscow this week. He was in Kyiv on Thursday.
Russians are being prepared for nuclear warfare, warns Zelenskiy
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said Russian officials have begun to “prepare their society” for the possible use of nuclear weapons in the war.
In an interview with the BBC, Zelenskiy said:
They begin to prepare their society. That’s very dangerous. They are not ready to do it, to use it. But they begin to communicate. They don’t know whether they’ll use or not use it. I think it’s dangerous to even speak about it.
The Ukrainian leader denied having called for strikes on Russia, urging instead for pre-emptive sanctions to be imposed on Moscow.
In a discussion with an Australian think tank on Thursday, Zelenskiy said he believed strikes were necessary to preclude any use of nuclear weapons.
He did not go into detail about what kind of strikes he meant but his remarks were denounced by the Kremlin as “an appeal to start yet another world war”.
Speaking to the BBC, Zelenskiy said the word he had used in Ukrainian had been misunderstood.
He said:
After that translation, the Russians did their way, how it’s useful for them, and began to retranslate it in other directions.
Zelenskiy called on the world to act now as Russia’s threats were a “risk for the whole planet”, adding:
All Putin is afraid of is not a nuclear strike. He’s afraid of his society, of his people.
Because only this people can replace him, strip him of his power and give it to another person.
The Economist’s Oliver Carroll writes, in light of the recent story that Ukrainian troops have reported outages of communication devices powered by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service:
White House: US has no indications Russia preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons
The US does not have indications that Russia is preparing to imminently use nuclear weapons, the White House said.
President Joe Biden warned earlier that the risk of a nuclear “Armageddon” is at its highest level since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was “not joking” when he talked about using tactical nuclear, biological or chemical weapons after suffering setbacks in Ukraine, Biden said.
Asked about Biden’s comments, White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters:
He was reinforcing what we have been saying, which is how seriously ... we take these threats.
Ukrainian troops report outages of Musk Starlink devices
Ukrainian troops have reported outages of their Starlink communication devices while fighting on the frontline, according to Ukrainian officials and soldiers.
Thousands of terminals by Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite broadband service have been delivered to Ukraine to help troops operate drones, receive vital intelligence updates and communicate with each other.
The disruptions have hindered efforts to liberate territory from Russian forces, with some of the outages resulting in a “catastrophic” loss of communication in recent weeks, the Financial Times cited one senior Ukrainian government official as saying.
Many of the outages were reported as troops breached the frontline into Russian-controlled territory and some during pitched battles, according to the official.
They were acute in the south around the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, but also took place along the frontline in eastern Kharkiv, Donetsk and Luhansk, the Ukrainian official said.
Another Ukrainian official said the connection failures were widespread and prompted panicked calls from soldiers to helplines.
The FT reports that the disruptions underline Starlink’s outsized role in Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion, and comes after Musk angered Kyiv when he asked Twitter users to weigh in on his ideas to end Russia’s war.
The Center for Civil Liberties was informed that it was one of the recipients of the 2022 Nobel peace prize during a phone call with Olav Njølstad of the Norwegian Nobel committee on Friday, minutes before the public announcement of the award.
The moment Ukraine rights group finds out it has won the Nobel peace prize – video
It is now 6pm in Moscow and Kyiv. These are the main developments so far today:
Russia has targeted Zaporizhzhia with explosive-packed “kamikaze drones” for the first time, as the death toll from a missile strike on an apartment building in the city on Thursday rose to 11. The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities, in the city. He said other missiles also struck the city again, injuring one person. On Monday, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani denied supplying the drones to Russia, calling the claims “baseless”.
In the north-eastern Kharkiv region where Ukrainian forces regained a large swathe of ground in September, the bodies of 534 civilians including 19 children were found after Russian troops left, Serhiy Bolvinov of the National Police in Kharkiv told a briefing. The total included 447 bodies found in Izium. He also said that investigators had found evidence of 22 sites being used as “torture rooms”.
Russia has reportedly sacked the commander of its eastern military district, Col Gen Alexander Chaiko, the news outlet RBC has reported. The reported departure of Chaiko marks the latest in a series of top officials to be fired after defeats and humiliations in the war in Ukraine, following reports that the commander of the western military district, Col Gen Alexander Zhuravlyov, had been replaced by Lt Gen Roman Berdnikov on Monday.
Joe Biden has warned the world could face “Armageddon” if Vladimir Putin uses a tactical nuclear weapon to try to win the war in Ukraine. The US president made his most outspoken remarks to date about the threat of nuclear war, saying it was the closest the world had come to nuclear catastrophe for 60 years. “We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban missile crisis,” he said. “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well,” Biden said, referring to the Russian president. “He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.”
The 2022 Nobel peace prize has been awarded to human rights advocate Ales Bialiatski from Belarus, the Russian human rights organisation Memorial and the Ukrainian human rights organisation Center for Civil Liberties. Putin should face an “international tribunal”, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties said after the award. Writing on Facebook, Oleksandra Matviychuk called on the Russian president, the Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko, and other “war criminals” to face an international tribunal in order to “give the hundreds of thousands of victims of war crimes a chance to see justice”. Matviychuk also called for Russia to be excluded from the UN security council “for systematic violations of the UN charter”.
Ukrainian sources are attempting to clarify what President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meant yesterday when he talked about “preventive strikes” being necessary to stop Russia using tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Russia’s foreign minister Sergey Lavrov seized on the comments, interpreting them as a call for Nato to use nuclear weapons against Russia, and said the comments showed why Russia’s “special military operation” within Ukraine’s borders had been necessary. The adviser to Zelenskiy, Serhii Nykyforov, said: “Colleagues, you have gone a little too far with your nuclear hysteria and now you hear nuclear strikes even where there are none. The president spoke about the period before 24 February. Then it was necessary to apply preventive measures to prevent Russia from starting the war. Let me remind you that the only measures that were about then were preventive sanctions.”
A member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle directly confronted the Russian president over mistakes and failings in the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post has reported, citing US intelligence.
The headquarters of the armed forces of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has claimed to have captured three settlements from Ukrainian forces in Donetsk.
At least five people were killed and as many injured after Ukrainian forces struck a bus while shelling a strategically important bridge in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, Russia’s Tass news agency has reported.
The office of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has issued a brief read-out after he held a call with his Russian counterpart. The pair discussed the latest developments in Ukraine, and Erdoğan repeated Ankara’s willingness to do its part to peacefully resolve the war.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has congratulated Putin on his 70th birthday, applauding him for his “distinguished leadership and strong will” in the latest sign of deepening ties between the two countries. In the birthday message, Kim spoke of Putin’s achievements in “building powerful Russia” and said the Russian leader was “enjoying high respects and support from the broad masses of people”.
Russia sacks another top military commander – report
Russia has reportedly sacked the commander of its eastern military district, Col Gen Alexander Chaiko, the news outlet RBC has reported.
The reported departure of Chaiko marks the latest in a series of top officials to be fired after defeats and humiliations in the war in Ukraine.
RBC reports that Lt Gen Rustam Muradov has been appointed to head the eastern military district, which covers troops based in Russia’s far east. The eastern military district is one of five that make up Russia’s armed forces.
There was no official confirmation of the change from the Kremlin or the defence ministry, although the head of Muradov’s native Dagestan region congratulated him on his appointment.
On Monday, RBC reported that the commander of the western military district, Col Gen Alexander Zhuravlyov, had been replaced by Lt Gen Roman Berdnikov.
The news of Zhuravlyov’s departure came shortly after dramatic Russian losses in north-east Ukraine last month and the recapture by Ukraine of Lyman in Donetsk region.
Here are some of the latest images from Ukraine and beyond that we have been sent over the newswires.
Ukrainian soldiers clean the muzzle of a howitzer D-30 near Siversk. Photograph: Inna Varenytsia/AP
Administrator of the United States Agency for International Development (Usaid) Samantha Power lays flowers at the memorial to soldiers in Kyiv. Photograph: Future Publishing/Ukrinform/Getty Images
A big screen showing Russian President Vladimir Putin reads: “Happy birthday to President Vladimir Putin from the Serb brethren!”, in Belgrade, Serbia. The posters are signed by a Pro-Russian rightwing group. Photograph: Darko Vojinović/AP
Ukrainian soldiers take a knee as their comrades carry coffins during a funeral ceremony in Lviv. Photograph: Yuriy Dyachyshyn/AFP/Getty Images
Russian citizens drafted during the partial mobilisation begin their military training in Rostov, Russia. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
Every vote will count next week when the UN general assembly gathers to vote on a resolution to condemn Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territories, the German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, has said.
The international community must “make clear to Russia: these areas belong to Ukraine”, Reuters reports that Baerbock said in Berlin after hosting talks with Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, her counterpart from Pakistan.
Russia targets Zaporizhzhia with 'kamikaze drones' for first time
Lorenzo Tondo
Russia has targeted Zaporizhzhia with explosive-packed “kamikaze drones” for the first time, as the death toll from a missile strike on an apartment building in the city rose to 11.
The regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, said Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones damaged two infrastructure facilities in the city. He said other missiles also struck the city, injuring one person.
With its army losing ground to Ukraine’s counteroffensive, Moscow has started to deploy drones to attack Ukrainian targets. According to Ukrainian military officials, “kamikaze drones” are cheaper and less sophisticated than missiles but have proved effective at causing damage to targets on the ground. The Shahed-136 drones are able to remain airborne for several hours and circle over potential targets before being flown into enemy troops, armour or buildings and exploding on impact.
On Monday, the Iranian foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanani denied supplying the drones to Russia, calling the claims “baseless”. However, the Ukrainian military said its forces had shot down more than 20 drones over the last 24 hours and that most were Iranian-made.
“I am convinced that if Russia did not use mercenary groups on such a massive scale, there would be no question of the success that the Russian army has achieved so far,” Marat Gabidullin, a former Wagner commander who was once in charge of 95 mercenaries in Syria, told CNN.
In touch with former comrades now fighting in Ukraine, Gabidullin said that Russia’s use of mercenaries has ramped up as the Kremlin’s execution of its war had fallen into disarray.
“The Russian army cannot handle [the war] without mercenaries,” according to Gabidullin, adding that there was “a very big myth, a very big obfuscation about a strong Russian army”.
At least 5,000 mercenaries tied to the Wagner group are operating with Russian forces in Ukraine, Andrii Yusov, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s defence intelligence agency who has been monitoring Wagner in Ukraine, told CNN.
Yusov also said that Wagner is increasingly being used to patch holes in the Russian front line. That has led to significant logistical challenges, he says, with the need to supply Wagner troops with ammunition, food and support for extended operations, all while Ukraine has upped its attacks on Russia’s logistics.
Bodycam footage purportedly from Wagner fighters in August passed to CNN by the Ukrainian defence ministry shows mercenaries complaining of a lack of body armor and helmets. In another video a fighter complains about orders to attack Ukrainian positions when his unit is out of ammunition.
A member of Vladimir Putin’s inner circle directly confronted the Russian president over mistakes and failings in the war in Ukraine, the Washington Post has reported, citing US intelligence.
The individual, whom the Post did not name, reportedly expressed concern to Putin about the mismanagement of the war effort and mistakes being made by Russia’s military leaders.
An unnamed western intelligence official told the paper:
Since the start of the occupation we have witnessed growing alarm from a number of Putin’s inner circle. Our assessments suggest they are particularly exercised by recent Russian losses, misguided direction and extensive military shortcomings.
Another senior official said:
There are a lot of people who are convinced this isn’t going well or the right course of action.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, acknowledged there had been disagreements over the war but added that it was “all part of the usual working process”.
Anna, a Russian energy sector worker, describes how her husband fled Russia for Kazakhstan following Putin’s mobilisation announcement and explains why the couple have decided to make a new life in Turkey:
My husband left Russia for Kazakhstan five days after Putin’s mobilisation announcement with just a backpack carrying his toothbrush, warm clothes, peanuts, chocolate bars and water.
We had been against the war from the beginning, attending anti-war protests in Moscow but after the partial mobilisation, my husband started looking for a way to leave – we were worried he could be drafted at any time because he has an engineering background. Needing him for military purposes was a horrible thought for us.
At the border, it was almost all [Russian] men – and volunteers from a Kazakh border town saved the day by cooking food for them. It was late and very cold and Dmitriy paid a driver $200 to get him across the border. It took 12 hours. The driver ended up taking a total of six people – it was a great money-making opportunity and as the night went on, the price to cross the border by car rose to $1,000.
Now he’s in a hotel in Uralsk and plans to fly to Turkey in the next couple of weeks – flights out of Kazakhstan were so expensive that it was cheaper to stay in a hotel there for three weeks than to fly immediately. He is making friends there. People are happy to meet fellow Russians. Everyone is friendly but also depressed, trying to keep it together.
Nobel peace prize winner: Putin should face international tribunal
Vladimir Putin should face an “international tribunal”, the head of Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties said after the human rights organisation was awarded a Nobel peace prize.
Writing on Facebook, Oleksandra Matviychuk called on the Russian president and his Belarusian counterpart, Alexander Lukashenko, and other “war criminals” to face an international tribunal in order to “give the hundreds of thousands of victims of war crimes a chance to see justice”.
Matviychuk also called for Russia to be excluded from the UN security council “for systematic violations of the UN charter”.
The Center for Civil Liberties was established in 2007 and has done extensive work documenting Russian war crimes during the seven month-long conflict in Ukraine.
Matviychuk said she was “delighted” the organisation was awarded the Nobel prize with “our friends and partners at Memorial and Viasna”.
Russian diplomats in the US will hold a “telephone conversation” with two Russian men who fled to Alaska to avoid conscription to fight in Ukraine, Russian state media has reported.
The two Russians crossed the Bering strait by boat to avoid being drafted into the military and landed on a remote Alaskan island earlier this week, where they have appealed for asylum, according to reports from the region.
The Russian embassy in Washington “is aware of the situation with the detained Russian citizens in the state of Alaska”, Nadezhda Shumova, the head of the consular department of the Russian embassy in Washington, was cited by Russian state-owned news agency Tass as saying.
