Summary
We are now closing this live blog.
Here is a summary of today’s events:
Ukrainian forensic experts have so far exhumed 146 bodies, mostly civilians at the mass burial site in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said on Monday. Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said the exhumed bodies included two children.
The Kremlin has rejected allegations that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province as a “lie”.
Ukraine has recaptured a village close to the eastern city of Lysychansk, in a small but symbolic victory that means Russia no longer has full control of the Luhansk region – one of Vladimir Putin’s key war aims.
Ukraine’s first lady Olena Zelenska said it was a “great honour” to be present at the Queen’s state funeral, “on behalf of all Ukrainians”.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Russia-backed separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine, has called on his fellow separatist leader of Luhansk province to combine efforts aimed at preparing a referendum on joining Russia.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may cause long-term grain prices to rise by 7% and expanded production elsewhere would lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions, a study finds.
Russia’s foreign ministry has summoned the Canadian ambassador and issued a protest over attacks on the Russian embassy in Ottawa, it said.
The Kremlin has said beefing up ties with Beijing is a top policy goal, a Russian security official said during a visit to China.
Germany’s Die Linke could split into two parties over the Ukraine war, as the ailing leftwing outfit’s indecisive stance over economic sanctions against Russia triggered a series of high-profile resignations.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit Saudi Arabia and meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a Gulf trip, his spokesman said, as Germany rushes to secure energy supplies.
The German central bank said it was increasingly likely that Europe’s largest economy would shrink for a “prolonged” period as Russia throttled energy supplies to the continent.
Germany’s defence minister Christine Lambrecht said her country will provide Ukraine with four additional self-propelled howitzers and ammunition.
Thirteen people were killed in artillery shelling on Monday in the east Ukrainian separatist-held city of Donetsk, the city’s Russian-backed mayor said.
Russian troops struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region early on Monday but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said.
The Kremlin has rejected allegations that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province as a “lie”.
Russia is urging Uefa to ban the manager of Ukraine men’s national team after he expressed a wish to fight Vladimir Putin’s invading forces, the Guardian has revealed.
The US president, Joe Biden, has warned Vladimir Putin that the use of nuclear or other non-conventional weapons against Ukraine would prompt a “consequential” response from the US.
Russia is highly likely to have lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to around 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the UK’s ministry of defence said.
Russia was one of a small group of countries excluded from the Queen’s state funeral in London today that included Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is “increasingly relying on irregular volunteer and proxy forces rather than conventional units,” in its latest update on the Russian campaign.
On Sunday, Ukrainian civilians were fleeing heavy fighting as Russia’s armed forces tried to hold off a further dramatic advance by Ukrainian troops in the north-east of the country.
Ukrainian military said on Sunday its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the areas of the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson in south where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east, Reuters reports.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, while in Nikopol, further west, several dozen residential buildings, gas pipelines and power lines were hit, regional governors said on Sunday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed there would be no let-up in fighting to regain territory lost to Russia.
Ukrainian forces are refusing to discard worn-out US-provided arms, with many reverse-engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion.
The Ukrainian military said Russia has deployed Iranian attack drones, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
The Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has spoken out against the war in Ukraine and the “death of our boys for illusory goals”.
The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, has criticised Russia after the discovery of mass graves in Izium last week.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said the mass graves discovered in Izium were evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.
Denis Pushilin, head of the Russia-backed separatist Donetsk region of Ukraine, has called on his fellow separatist leader of Luhansk province to combine efforts aimed at preparing a referendum on joining Russia.
Reuters reports that in a video posted on social media, he told Luhansk People’s Republic leader Leonid Pasechnik in a phone call that “our actions should be synchronised”.
Germany’s defence minister Christine Lambrecht said her country will provide Ukraine with four additional self-propelled howitzers and ammunition.
Lambrecht said the 10 howitzers already supplied by Germany and eight from the Netherlands “have proven themselves in battle.”
She said:
Ukraine is full of praise of the system and has expressed a desire for more howitzers.
In order to further support Ukraine in its brave fight against the brutal Russian attack, Germany will grant this request.”
Lambrecht said the Panzerhaubitze 2000 model howitzers recently underwent refurbishment.
Russia no longer has full control of Luhansk region after Ukraine captures village
Ukraine has recaptured a village close to the eastern city of Lysychansk, in a small but symbolic victory that means Russia no longer has full control of the Luhansk region, one of Vladimir Putin’s key war aims.
Luhansk’s governor Serhiy Haidai said Ukraine’s armed forces were in “complete control” of Bilohorivka. “It’s a suburb of Lysychansk. Soon we will drive these scumbags out of there with a broom,” he said, adding: “Step by step, centimetre by centimetre, we will liberate our entire land from the invaders.”
Video footage shared on Telegram showed Ukrainian soldiers patrolling on foot down a ruined street. Russian forces have occupied all of Luhansk province for the past two-and-a-half months. After a long and grinding battle Ukraine’s general staff decided to retreat in July from the cities of Sievierdonetsk and Lysychansk.
Over the past 12 days Ukrainian regiments in the north-east have mounted a stunning counteroffensive, liberating more than 300 settlements across the Kharkiv region, and forcing Russian units to flee in disarray. The reclaimed area is half the size of Wales, and goes right up to the Russian border.
There were unconfirmed reports on Monday of Ukrainian troops advancing into Lysychansk. There now seems little prospect that the Kremlin will be able to take control of the whole of the Donbas, which includes Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. In March, Putin said this was the goal of his “special military operation” in Ukraine, after his failed attempt to seize the capital Kyiv.
Over the weekend Russian troops shelled the city of Kupiansk from new, hastily constructed defensive positions just east of the Oskil River. Hundreds of people were evacuated. Ukraine said it took control of all of the city on Friday, crossing in amphibious vehicles over a pontoon bridge to the river’s left bank.
Ukrainian officials say 200 Russian soldiers died in a strike on Sunday when a missile hit a former bus shelter where they were based, in the frontline city of Svatove.
According to the Institute for the Study of War, Russia has failed to send reinforcements. It is now under pressure and vulnerable to a further counter-offensive, the thinktank said.
Governor Haidai said the leaders of the self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic were beginning to panic. There have been numerous reports of snatch squads detaining men on the street and drafting them into the army. Mobile communications and the internet have been jammed, to prevent people learning about Moscow’s military setbacks, he claimed.
On Monday, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, accused the Kremlin of reckless behaviour after a shell landed 300 metres from a nuclear power plant in the southern Mykolaiv region. The missile damaged buildings and blew out windows. Three power lines were temporarily knocked out at the Pivdennoukrainsk facility.
This video published by the President’s Office shows the latest shelling near the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant in Mykolaiv Oblast.
— The Kyiv Independent (@KyivIndependent) September 19, 2022
The missile landed just 300 meters away from the plant, damaging its premises and three power lines. pic.twitter.com/qi1Wm3Ht5C
You can read the full report here.
Updated
More on the mass grave in Izium.
Reuters reports that Ukrainian forensic experts have so far exhumed 146 bodies, mostly civilians at the mass burial site in eastern Ukraine, the regional governor said on Monday.
Oleh Synehubov, governor of the Kharkiv region, said the exhumed bodies included two children.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said around 450 bodies are believed to have been buried at the site in a forest on the outskirts of Izium, which was recently recaptured by Ukrainian forces during a counter-offensive in the Kharkiv region.
A hearing in Moscow to decide on the future of the Jewish Agency’s activities in Russia has been postponed for four weeks after lawyers for the charity, which facilitates immigration of Jewish people to Israel, asked for time to submit amendments to the agency’s scope of operations.
Russia’s justice ministry first recommended in June that the Jewish Agency - a quasi-governmental body - be shut down for violating Russian privacy laws. A hearing in August was delayed by the Basmanny city court to 19 September, and delayed again today for another four weeks.
Israel has been caught in a delicate balancing act since Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine in February: the country relies on Moscow to facilitate its military operations next-door in Syria, but has also faced pressure from its western allies to impose sanctions and forceful diplomatic action.
Israel’s caretaker prime minister, Yair Lapid, has warned that closing the Jewish Agency’s offices would be a severe blow to bilateral relations.
About 24,000 Russians have arrived in Israel since the start of the war, and another 35,000 are waiting for paperwork to be processed, according to the Jewish Agency.
Around 165,000 people with Jewish heritage were estimated to live in Russia at the beginning of 2022.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine may cause long-term grain prices to rise by 7% and how expanded production elsewhere would lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions.
Russia and Ukraine together export about 28% of the world’s wheat supply.
Researchers in the United States and Uruguay modelled the likely impact of the conflict on wheat and maize prices over the coming 12 months, looking at a variety of scenarios for the study published in Nature Food.
One model found that if Russian grain exports were halved and Ukrainian exports significantly reduced during that time, maize would be 4.6% more expensive and wheat 7.2% more expensive - even assuming that other exporters could step in and plug the gap.
The researchers said the price increase would persist as long as exports remained restricted, Agence France-Press reports.
To close the supply shortfall, the study found that other major producers would need to expand their grain-growing areas significantly.
Were all grain exports from Ukraine to cease, Australia would need to expand its wheat area by 1%, China by 1.5%, the European Union by 1.9% and India by 1.2%, according to the model.
This land-use change would lead to just over a billion tonnes of additional carbon dioxide equivalent added to the atmosphere, the study said.
Lead author Jerome Dumortier, a researcher at the O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs in Indianapolis in the US, said:
The cropland expansion resulting from the war in Ukraine is occurring at the expense of more carbon emissions,” said United Nations chief Antonio Guterres warned in July that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had combined with the lingering trade impacts of Covid-19 to create an “unprecedented global hunger crisis”.
Figures from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization show food prices are currently more than 10% higher than they were a year ago.
Although Moscow and Kyiv reached an agreement in July to resume some grain exports, there are fears that the conflict could lead to years of elevated food prices.
Dumortier said that it was not currently clear whether other grain producers were able to meet global demand, meaning prices could rise even further than predicted in the models.
“There are drought conditions in South America, Europe, and China, and export restrictions from various countries,” he told AFP.
“Given those hindrances to full adjustment, commodity prices may be higher than what is estimated in the paper.”
Ukraine’s first lady said it was a “great honour” to be present at the Queen’s state funeral, “on behalf of all Ukrainians”.
Olena Zelenska, president Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s wife, was among hundreds of heads of state and dignitaries from around the world gathered in Westminster Abbey for the service on Monday.
She represented her nation at the ceremony on behalf of her husband, as he continues to organise the fightback against Russian invaders, PA News reports.
Zelenska said the Queen’s attention to Ukraine “was an important signal of support”.
She wrote on Twitter:
She wished us better times and shared our desire for freedom. We will always remember it with deep gratitude.”
On Sunday, Zelenska visited Westminster Hall for the Queen’s lying in state to pay her respects to the Queen.
She was pictured bowing her head as she stood alongside Ukrainian prime minister Denys Shmyhal and Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK Vadym Prystaiko.
Earlier she met the Princess of Wales at Buckingham Palace.
Zelenska travelled to the UK after her husband last week signed a book of condolence for the Queen.
The UK’s ambassador in Kyiv, Melinda Simmons, said she was “deeply honoured” by the president’s gesture.
She added:
Grateful to the president for taking the time to do this given all else that is happening in (Ukraine) at this time.”
Ukrainian troops have been taking part in a major counter-offensive against Russia’s forces.
Zelenskiy appeared to be a fan of the Queen, having been given a biography of the Queen by Boris Johnson during the then-prime minister’s visit to Kyiv in June.
Russia’s foreign ministry has summoned the Canadian ambassador and issued a protest over attacks on the Russian embassy in Ottawa, it said on Monday.
Reuters reports that the ministry said an unknown person threw a Molotov cocktail on to the grounds of the Russian embassy in Ottawa.
The ministry also said “aggressive” demonstrators had blocked an entrance to the consular section of the embassy.
Updated
Here is a summary of events so far:
The Kremlin has said beefing up ties with Beijing is a top policy goal, a Russian security official said on Monday during a visit to China.
Germany’s Die Linke could split into two parties over the Ukraine war, as the ailing leftwing outfit’s indecisive stance over economic sanctions against Russia triggered a series of high-profile resignations this week.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit Saudi Arabia and meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a Gulf trip, his spokesman said on Monday, as Germany rushes to secure energy supplies.
The German central bank said on Monday it was increasingly likely that Europe’s largest economy would shrink for a “prolonged” period as Russia throttled energy supplies to the continent.
Thirteen people were killed in artillery shelling on Monday in the east Ukrainian separatist-held city of Donetsk, the city’s Russian-backed mayor said.
Russian troops struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region early on Monday but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said.
The Kremlin has rejected allegations that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province as a “lie”.
Russia is urging Uefa to ban the manager of Ukraine men’s national team after he expressed a wish to fight Vladimir Putin’s invading forces, the Guardian has revealed.
The US president, Joe Biden, has warned Vladimir Putin that the use of nuclear or other non-conventional weapons against Ukraine would prompt a “consequential” response from the US.
Russia is highly likely to have lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to about 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the British military said on Monday.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to the small group of countries excluded from the Queen’s funeral in London today including Belarus, Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says Russia’s president Vladimir Putin is “increasingly relying on irregular volunteer and proxy forces rather than conventional units,” in its latest update on the Russian campaign.
The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson in the south, where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east.
On Sunday, Ukrainian civilians were fleeing heavy fighting as Russia’s armed forces tried to hold off a further dramatic advance by Ukrainian troops in the north-east of the country.
Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the areas of the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson in south where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east, Reuters reports.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region over the past day while in Nikopol, further west, several dozen residential buildings, gas pipelines and power lines were hit, regional governors said on Sunday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed there would be no let-up in fighting to regain territory lost to Russia.
In an intelligence update, Britain’s defence ministry said Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure, including a power grid and a dam, had intensified.
Ukrainian forces are refusing to discard worn-out US-provided arms, with many reverse-engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion.
The Ukrainian military said Russia has deployed Iranian attack drones, the New York Times reported on Sunday.
The Ukrainian military has carried out 20 airstrikes in the past 24 hours against Russian strongholds, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
The Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has spoken out against the war in Ukraine and the “death of our boys for illusory goals”.
The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, levelled heavy criticism against Russia on Sunday after the discovery of mass graves in Izium last week.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Sunday that the mass graves discovered in Izium were evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine.
A selection of recent pictures from the agencies
Updated
My colleagues Luke Harding and Isobel Koshiw report on the Ukrainian recapture of Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region, with liberated Ukrainians telling of life under occupation.
Until last week, a portrait of Vladimir Putin hung on the wall of the mayor’s office in the town of Shevchenkove, Kharkiv region.
There was a Russian flag. Around a cabinet table, a pro-Kremlin “leader”, Andrey Strezhko, held meetings with colleagues. There was a lot to discuss. One topic: a referendum on joining Russia. Another: a new autumn curriculum for Shevchenkove’s two schools, minus anything Ukrainian.
Strezhko’s ambitious plans were never realised. On 8 September, Ukraine’s armed forces launched a surprise counteroffensive. They swiftly recaptured a swathe of territory in the north-eastern Kharkiv region, including Shevchenkove. Most residents greeted the soldiers with hugs and kisses. Strezhko disappeared. He is believed to have fled across the Russian border, along with other collaborators.
Shevchenkove’s acting military administrator, Andrii Konashavych, pointed to the chair where the pseudo-mayor had sat in the council building. On the wall was a portrait of Taras Shevchenko, Ukraine’s national poet who gives his name to the town. What happened to the Putin photo? “We tore it up,” Konashavych said. Why was there no picture of President Zelenskiy? “Presidents come and go. Shevchenko is eternal,” he replied.
Read the full report here.
The Kremlin said beefing up ties with Beijing is a top policy goal, a Russian security official said on Monday during a visit to China.
Nikolai Patrushev, secretary of the national security council chaired by Russian president Vladimir Putin, described the “strengthening of comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation with Beijing as an unconditional priority of Russia’s foreign policy.”
During a meeting with Guo Shengkun, a top official of China’s Communist party, Patrushev said:
In the current conditions, our countries must show even greater readiness for mutual support and development of cooperation.”
After the talks in the Chinese city of Nanping, Patrushev’s office said in a statement that the parties agreed to:
…expand information exchanges on countering extremism and foreign attempts to undermine the constitutional order of both countries in order to derail independent policies of Russia and China serving their national interests.”
The Chinese and Russian officials also emphasized a need to expand cooperation on cybersecurity and bolster contacts between their law enforcement agencies on fighting terrorism.
The statement didn’t offer any further details of prospective cooperation.
Putin met with Chinese president Xi Jinping last week in Uzbekistan, their first encounter since the Russian leader invaded Ukraine in February.
A Chinese government statement issued after the meeting said Xi promised “strong support” for Russia’s “core interests.”
Germany’s Die Linke could split into two parties over the Ukraine war, as the ailing leftwing outfit’s indecisive stance over economic sanctions against Russia triggered a series of high-profile resignations this week.
The German Left party’s future has hung in a precarious balance since it snuck into the national parliament last autumn under a special provision for parties that win three or more constituency seats.
Should three of its 39 delegates resign from the party, Die Linke would lose its status as a parliamentary group and attached privileges over speaking times and committee memberships.
Party insiders say such resignations are a matter of when, not if, after a week of vicious public in-fighting over a speech in which the former co-leader Sahra Wagenknecht accused the German government of “launching an unprecedented economic war against our most important energy supplier”.
Read the full report here.
The Associated Press has a preview of this week’s meeting of the UN general assembly:
Facing a complex set of challenges that try humanity as never before, world leaders convene at the United Nations this week under the shadow of Europe’s first major war since World War II — a conflict that has unleashed a global food crisis and divided major powers in a way not seen since the Cold War.
The many facets of the Ukraine war are expected to dominate the annual meeting, which convenes as many countries and peoples confront growing inequality, an escalating climate crisis, the threat of multiple famines and an internet-fuelled tide of misinformation and hate speech — all atop a coronavirus pandemic that is halfway through its third year.
For the first time since the United Nations was founded atop the ashes of World War II, European nations are witnessing war in their midst waged by nuclear-armed neighbouring Russia.
Its invasion not only threatens Ukraine‘s survival as an independent democratic nation but has leaders in many countries worrying about trying to preserve regional and international peace and prevent a wider war.
The UN secretary-general, António Guterres, said the strategic divides — with the west on one side and Russia and increasingly China on the other — are “paralysing the global response to the dramatic challenges we face”.
He pointed not only to the devastation in Ukraine from nearly seven months of fighting but to the war’s impact on the global economy.
Escalating food and energy prices are hitting the world’s poorest people hardest, and nations are “being devoured by the acids of nationalism and self-interest” instead of working together and resolving disputes peacefully, two principles that lie at the heart of the UN charter and underpin everything the United Nations tries to do.
German chancellor Olaf Scholz will visit Saudi Arabia and meet Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman as part of a Gulf trip, his spokesman said on Monday, as Germany rushes to secure energy supplies.
Scholz, whose two-day trip will also take him to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, will become the latest Western leader to meet with the crown prince.
Bin Salman has been regarded as a pariah in the West due to his suspected role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018.
But he is being courted again as Europe and its allies urgently seek fresh sources of fossil fuels after Russia cut gas supplies amid soaring tensions over its invasion of Ukraine.
Agence France-Press reports:
Scholz, accompanied by a business delegation, will visit Saudi Arabia on Saturday, where he will meet with the crown prince and - if his health permits it - King Salman, government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.
He did not go into detail about the reasons for Scholz’s Gulf visit but said he would be “very surprised” if the topic of energy was not discussed.
The spokesman also offered assurances that “the murder of Mr Khashoggi will certainly figure in discussions”.
It is the latest sign of bin Salman’s international rehabilitation - in July, French President Emmanuel Macron held talks with him in Paris, and US President Joe Biden visited the kingdom.
On Sunday, Scholz will head to the UAE and meet with President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, and in the afternoon will hold talks with Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani.
German economy minister Robert Habeck already visited Qatar and the UAE in March in an effort to find alternatives to Russian gas, which Germany has traditionally depended on heavily.
Russia’s decision to cut off supplies has triggered an energy crisis in Europe, with consumers and businesses facing soaring bills as winter approaches.
Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine have sentenced an employee of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) - the world’s largest regional security organisation - to 13 years in jail on treason charges, Russian news agencies reported Monday.
“A panel of judges found Dmitry Pavlovich Shabanov guilty … and sentenced him to 13 years in prison,” the RIA Novosti news agency reported, quoting the supreme court of the self-proclaimed Lugansk People’s Republic (LNR).
Shabanov, who was detained in April, is accused of passing confidential information to foreign intelligence services, Agence France-Presse reports.
According to separatist authorities, Shabanov was recruited in 2016 by a former officer of Ukraine’s SBU security service and an agent in Ukraine of the US Central Intelligence Agency.
Between August 2021 and April 2022, he collected “information on the movements of military equipment as well as units of the Lugansk People’s Army” and “sent them to the CIA agent”, the separatists said.
The OSCE has “unequivocally” condemned the charges against Shabanov and Mikhail Petrov, another OSCE staffer detailed in April, describing the allegations as “totally unacceptable so-called ‘legal proceedings’”.
The OSCE mission, which has been deployed in the conflict zone since 2014, left the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk in the wake of Russia’s offensive in Ukraine earlier this year.
Updated
Here is what we know so far regarding the more than 440 graves that have been uncovered in a forest near Izium in eastern Ukraine.
According to Agence France-Presse (AFP), some of the bodies recovered had their hands tied. Others showed signs of having suffered violence.
Last week, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, announced the discovery of a mass grave in Izium after it was recaptured from the Russians.
At one burial site, more than 440 graves dating between March and September 2022 were discovered.
Investigators have exhumed the bodies of at least 17 Ukrainian soldiers from one site. A cross over the grave bore the inscription: “Ukrainian army, 17 people. Izium morgue.”
The authorities say there are more than 440 tombs because the last number entered on the crosses is 445. Some of the crosses are made from varnished wood and also carry names and dates.
Investigators say about 100 bodies have been exhumed.
Ukrainian officials suspect that some of the dead were tortured by Russian forces during their occupation of the north-east Kharkiv region.
At least two of the bodies recovered were found with their hands tied, AFP journalists said. One of the two “had their hands tied, their jaw broken and two stab wounds in the back”, a member of the Kharkiv prosecutor’s office told AFP on condition of anonymity.
The remains have been identified as that of a pro-Ukrainian volunteer fighter, the official added.
Civilians who died during fighting in March for control of the city have also been exhumed.
Around 10 teams – each of around four people, including representatives of the prosecutor’s office – have been at work investigating following the discovery of the graves.
Emergency service workers in white overalls were handling the exhumations.
Kharkiv prosecutor Yevgen Sokolov, who is leading the investigation, said he did not have an exact number for those thought to have suffered violent deaths. Of the bodies so far exhumed, he said “most have wounds from shelling and explosions”.
Others had suffered “injuries from sharp objects and showed signs of violent death”, he said. Sokolov said one combatant had had “his hands tied behind his back” and another was found with “rope around the neck and broken limbs”. He also said a body was exhumed “with multiple stab wounds”.
“At this point, we don’t have bodies with bullets in their skulls but there is still a lot of work to be done,” he said.
If the weather remained mild, he estimated it would take another week to finish exhuming the bodies.
Updated
Europe’s imports of thermal coal in 2022 could be the highest in at least four years and may rise further next year, analysts said on Monday, highlighting the extent of the energy crisis following sanctions on Russia, Reuters reports.
European imports of thermal coal this year could rise to about 100m tonnes, the most since 2017, according to Noble Resources International Pte Ltd, while commodities pricing agency Argus expects shipments to reach a four-year high.
“Europe is going back in time,” Rodrigo Echeverri, head of research at Noble, told a conference.
Updated
European governments have outlined new measures on how they will cope with potential energy shortages this winter, with Russian gas flows still running at severely reduced rates amid the Ukraine war.
Reuters reports that Spain has drawn up plans that could force energy-intensive industries to shut at peak demand times.
France said it was preparing to send gas to Germany from October, while Berlin said Europe’s powerhouse was still in talks on state aid for ailing utility Uniper.
Russia, which had supplied about 40% of the European Union’s gas before its February invasion of Ukraine, has said it closed the Nord Stream 1 pipeline – once one of Europe’s major gas supply routes – because western sanctions hindered operations.
European gas prices have more than doubled from the start of the year amid a decline in Russian supplies.
The sharp drop in Russian fuel exports has left governments scrambling to find energy resources, but also to warn that power cuts could happen, amid fears of recession.
In France, exports of natural gas to Germany could start around 10 October, the head of France’s CRE energy regulator said, following an announcement by president Emmanuel Macron that the two EU neighbours would help each other with electricity and gas flows amid the crisis.
CRE chief Emmanuelle Wargon told FranceInfo radio:
Gas was (until now) only flowing from Germany to France, so we did not have the technical tools to reverse the flows and we did not even have a method to regulate prices.”
Wargon added that “exceptional” measures this winter could include localised electricity cuts if the winter is cold and EDF’s plans to repair corrosion-hit nuclear reactors are delayed.
“But there will be no gas cuts for households. Never,” she said.
Spanish industry minister Reyes Maroto said that obliging energy-intensive companies to close down during consumption peaks is an option on the table this winter if required.
The companies would be compensated financially, she said adding there is no need to impose such closures now.
And Finns were warned they should be prepared for power outages.
National grid operator Fingrid said:
As a result of great uncertainties, Finns should be prepared for power outages caused by a possible power shortage in the coming winter.”
Finnish power retailer Karhu Voima Oy said it had filed for bankruptcy due to a sharp rise in electricity price rises.
Updated
German finance minister Christian Lindner said on Monday that he was still looking at ways to ensure gas prices remained affordable for people while awaiting recommendations from a group of experts.
When asked about a possible cap on gas prices Lindner said:
We have developed this commission, but proposals within the federal government are also being considered further, so it has not been completely outsourced.”
Updated
German economy likely to shrink for 'prolonged' period, Bundesbank warns
The German central bank said on Monday it was increasingly likely that Europe’s largest economy would shrink for a “prolonged” period as Russia throttled energy supplies to the continent.
In its monthly report, the Bundesbank said:
The signs of a recession for the German economy are multiplying.”
It also warned of a “broad-based and prolonged decline in economic output”.
The likely slump was above all down to “supply-side constraints”, namely reduced deliveries of energy in the wake of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Agence France-Presse reports.
Moscow has drastically reduced it supplies of gas to Europe and kept the Nord Stream pipeline shut since the end of August, heaping pressure on Germany’s economy.
Germany had been highly reliant on Russian energy imports with 55% of its gas coming from Russia before the outbreak of the war.
The economy would likely shrink “slightly” in the third quarter of the year, the Bundesbank said, before a “marked” drop over the last three months of 2022 and the beginning of 2023.
The Russian gas supply stop meant that the situation regarding gas markets was “very tense”, it said.
Germany could “avoid formal rationing” of the fuel, but necessary reductions in consumption would lead companies to limit or pause production, the central bank predicted.
Updated
Thirteen civilians killed after shelling in separatist-held city of Donetsk
Thirteen people were killed in artillery shelling on Monday in the east Ukrainian separatist-held city of Donetsk, the city’s Russian-backed mayor said.
Reuters reports that in a statement posted on the Telegram messenger app, Donetsk’s separatist mayor Alexei Kulemzin said that 13 civilians including two children had been killed in the strike on Donetsk’s Kuybyshevsky district.
He said that the number of wounded was being confirmed.
Donetsk city has been controlled by the Russian-backed Donetsk People’s Republic since 2014.
The Ukrainian army continues to hold positions on Donetsk’s outskirts, and the city has come under artillery fire repeatedly in recent months.
The Guardian is unable to verify battlefield reports.
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The Kremlin has rejected allegations that Russian forces had committed war crimes in Ukraine’s Kharkiv province as a “lie”.
About 450 bodies, most of which Ukraine says are those of civilians, have been found in mass graves near Izium after Russian troops were this month forced out of the Kharkiv region, much of which they had controlled since the first weeks of their military campaign in Ukraine.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said investigators at the site had found evidence of torture, including bodies with hands tied, and accused Russian troops of committing war crimes.
Asked on Monday about Zelenskiy’s statements, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “It’s the same scenario as in Bucha. It’s a lie, and of course we will defend the truth in this story.”
Russia previously rejected claims that its troops had committed war crimes in Bucha, outside Kyiv, after evidence of civilians being killed while the town was controlled by Russian troops came to light after Russia’s withdrawal at the end of March. (Via Reuters)
Last week, Zelenskiy accused Russia of “leaving death everywhere” after the discovery of the Izium site. Men in white overalls began digging out bodies last Friday as part of a mass exhumation at the site, reporters with the Reuters news agency said, and 20 white bodybags could be seen. Reuters reported that several bodies had rope tied around their necks and hands.
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Ukraine’s atomic energy operator, Energoatom, has described the Russian missile strike on the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant – see earlier post here – as an act of “nuclear terrorism”. (Via AP)
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Russia is urging Uefa to ban the manager of the Ukraine men’s national team after he expressed a wish to fight Vladimir Putin’s invading forces, the Guardian can reveal.
The Football Union of Russia has written to the governing body accusing Oleksandr Petrakov of discriminating against Russians and failing to remain politically neutral.
Denis Rogachev, the deputy secretary general of the FUR, cited comments carried in two newspapers – Italy’s Corriere dello Sport and Russia’s Sport Express – as evidence of Petrakov’s guilt.
In a letter to Uefa’s control, ethics and disciplinary body, Petrakov is accused of breaching codes of conduct by calling for Russians to be banned from international sport and talking about his hopes of joining the armed forces.
Full story here.
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The US president, Joe Biden, used an interview with CBS’s 60 Minutes programme on Sunday night to warn Vladimir Putin that the use of nuclear or other non-conventional weapons against Ukraine would prompt a “consequential” response from the US.
When asked what he would tell Putin if the Russian leader was mulling such a move, he said: “Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.”
Biden praised the Ukrainians for their gritty fight against the Russian invasion and said: “They’re defeating Russia”.
Asked how to define victory for Kyiv, he said: “Winning the war in Ukraine is to get Russia out of Ukraine completely.”
But given the scale of human suffering and destruction inflicted in resisting the Russian onslaught, “it’s awful hard to count that as winning”, he added.
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Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant struck
Reuters has more information on the Russian strike on the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the early hours of Monday:
Russian troops struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in Ukraine’s southern Mykolaiv region early on Monday but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Ukraine’s state nuclear company Energoatom said.
A blast took place 300 metres away from the reactors and damaged power plant buildings shortly after midnight, Energoatom said in a statement. The attack has also damaged a nearby hydroelectric power plant and transmission lines.
Energoatom said:
Currently, all three power units of the PNPP (Pivdennoukrainsk Nuclear Power Plant) are operating normally. Fortunately, there were no casualties among the station staff
It published two photographs showing a crater it said was caused by the blast. In one of the pictures a man stood in the crater to give a sense of its size.
Commenting on the strike on the Telegram messaging app, Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said:
The invaders wanted to shoot again, but they forgot what a nuclear power plant is. Russia endangers the whole world. We have to stop it before it’s too late.
There was no immediate Russian reaction to Ukraine’s accusations.
The Mykolaiv region has been under constant rocket attack by Russian forces in recent weeks.
Another Ukrainian nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia - which is Europe’s largest and lies about 250km (155 miles) east of the Mykolaiv site - was shut down earlier this month due to Russian shelling, prompting concerns about a possible nuclear disaster.
Russia and Ukraine have blamed each other for shelling at the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is held by Russian forces but operated by Ukrainian staff. The shelling has damaged buildings and disrupted power lines.
The UN nuclear watchdog said this weekend one of the four main power lines at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear facility had been repaired and was once again supplying the plant with electricity from the Ukrainian grid.
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Russian troops have struck the Pivdennoukrainsk nuclear power plant in the southern Mykolaiv region, but its reactors have not been damaged and are working normally, Reuters reports.
According to Ukraine’s state nuclear company, Energoatom, a blast early on Monday took place 300 metres from the reactors and damaged power plant buildings. The attack has also damaged a nearby hydroelectric power plant and transmission lines.
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Russia is highly likely to have lost at least four combat jets in Ukraine within the last 10 days, taking its attrition to about 55 since the beginning of its invasion, the British military said on Monday.
There is a realistic possibility that the increase in losses was partially a result of the Russian air force accepting greater risk in a move to provide close air support to Russian ground forces under pressure from Ukrainian advances, the defence ministry said in its daily intelligence on Twitter.
Russian pilots’ situational awareness is often poor, it said. “There is a realistic possibility that some aircraft have strayed over enemy territory and into denser air defence zones as the frontlines have moved rapidly.” (Via Reuters)
Latest Defence Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine - 19 September 2022
— Ministry of Defence 🇬🇧 (@DefenceHQ) September 19, 2022
Find out more about the UK government's response: https://t.co/yCVZk0byX5
🇺🇦 #StandWithUkraine 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/264kqpPpTW
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Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has added to the small group of countries excluded from the Queen’s funeral in London today, as AFP reports:
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin – under a travel ban to the UK due to sanctions – had already said he would not attend.
But not inviting any Russian representative to the Queen’s funeral was “particularly blasphemous towards Elizabeth II’s memory” and “deeply immoral”, the foreign ministry spokeswoman in Moscow said on Thursday.
Russia and Belarus have embassies in London and their presidents sent King Charles III messages of condolences.
Other countries with no invitations are Myanmar, Syria, Venezuela and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
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Good morning. This is Sam Jones taking over now from my colleague Virginia.
Ukrainians flee shelling of Kupiansk as Russian forces try to slow advances
On Sunday, Ukrainian civilians were fleeing heavy fighting as Russia’s armed forces tried to hold off a further dramatic advance by Ukrainian troops in the north-east of the country.
As Luke Harding and Isobel Koshiw report, cars packed with families streamed out of the city of Kupiansk, which Ukraine recaptured just over a week ago as part of a stunning counter-offensive. Kupiansk, a strategic railway junction, sits on either side of the river. It is on the new frontline after Ukrainian forces on Friday crossed to the right bank. They are now poised to push further into Luhansk province, which the Kremlin and its local proxies have controlled entirely since June, and partly since 2014. Here’s the full story.
Russian pop star speaks out against war in Ukraine
The Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has spoken out against the war in Ukraine and the “death of our boys for illusory goals”.
The remarks are the first time that the pop star, an icon in Russia, has publicly criticised the conflict.
Addressing the Russian justice ministry, Pugacheva told her 3.4 million Instagram followers: “I am asking you to include me on the foreign agents list of my beloved country.” Read more here.
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Milley: “Not going too well for Russia”
The top US general on Sunday said it was still unclear how Russia might react to the latest battlefield setbacks in Ukraine and called for vigilance among US troops as he visited a base in Poland aiding Ukraine’s war effort, Reuters reported.
“The war is not going too well for Russia right now. So it’s 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.
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 don’t know with a high degree of certainty what will happen next.”
Some recent images from Kharkiv, Ukraine.
Russian attacks in east and south repelled, says Ukraine military
Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the areas of the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson in south where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east, Reuters reports.
It said Ukrainian troops had advanced to the eastern bank of the Oskil River in Kharkiv region.
“From yesterday, Ukraine controls the east bank,” it said on Telegram. Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the neighbouring Luhansk region, said this meant the “de-occupation” of his region was “not far away”.
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The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says Russia president Vladimir Putin is “increasingly relying on irregular volunteer and proxy forces rather than conventional units,” in its latest update on the Russian campaign.
“Putin’s souring relationship with the military command and the Russian (MoD) may explain in part the Kremlin’s increasing focus on recruiting ill-prepared volunteers into ad-hoc irregular units rather than attempting to draw them into reserve or replacement pools for regular Russian combat units,” the ISW said.
Russian President Vladimir #Putin is increasingly relying on irregular volunteer and proxy forces rather than conventional units and formations of the #Russian Federation Armed Forces.https://t.co/FnqcLd1RQo pic.twitter.com/9mwlzs8RwA
— ISW (@TheStudyofWar) September 19, 2022
Welcome
Welcome to our live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Virginia Harrison and I’ll be with you for the next hour or so.
It’s just after 8am in Kyiv and these are the main developments:
The Ukrainian military said on Sunday that its forces repelled attacks by Russian troops in the Kharkiv region in the east and Kherson in the south, where Ukraine launched counteroffensives this month, as well as in parts of Donetsk in the south-east. It said Ukrainian troops had advanced to the eastern bank of the Oskil River in Kharkiv region. “From yesterday, Ukraine controls the east bank,” it said on Telegram.
Five civilians were killed in Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region over the past day while in Nikopol, further west, several dozen residential buildings, gas pipelines and power lines were hit, regional governors said on Sunday.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, vowed there would be no let up in fighting to regain territory lost to Russia. “Perhaps it seems to some of you that after a series of victories we now have a lull of sorts,” he said in his nightly address on Sunday. “But there will be no lull. There is preparation for the next series ... For Ukraine must be free. All of it.”
In an intelligence update, Britain’s defence ministry said Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure, including a power grid and a dam, had intensified. “As it faces setbacks on the front lines, Russia has likely extended the locations it is prepared to strike in an attempt to directly undermine the morale of the Ukrainian people and government,” it said on Sunday.
Ukrainian forces are refusing to discard worn-out US-provided arms, with many reverse-engineering spare parts to continue the counteroffensive against Russia’s invasion. “They’re 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.
The Ukrainian military said 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 north-eastern regions of the country this month.
The Ukrainian military has carried out 20 airstrikes in the past 24 hours against Russian strongholds, according to the general staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. The Kyiv Independent reported on Sunday that Ukraine’s Air Force had successfully targeted 15 Russian strongholds and four sites, as well as seven control points.
The Russian singer Alla Pugacheva has spoken out against the war in Ukraine and the “death of our boys for illusory goals”. The remarks are the first time that the pop star, an icon in Russia, has publicly criticised the conflict. Addressing the Russian justice ministry, Pugacheva told her 3.4 million Instagram followers: “I am asking you to include me on the foreign agents list of my beloved country.”
The Georgian president, Salome Zourabichvili, levelled heavy criticism against Russia on Sunday after the discovery of mass graves in Izium last 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 reported.
The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, said on Sunday that the mass graves discovered in Izium were evidence of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine. “Obviously the UK and Canada have been two of the strongest countries in standing up in support of Ukraine and pushing back against Russia’s illegal actions,” Trudeau told reporters in London.
