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Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia continuing ‘massive, forced deportations’; Kremlin’s missile stocks diminishing, UK says | Ukraine

Russia continues ‘massive, forced deportations’, says think tank

Russia continues to conduct “massive, forced deportations” of Ukrainians that “likely amount to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign”, according to a US-based think tank.

In its latest assessment of the conflict, the Institute for the Study of War notes that Russian officials have “openly admitted to placing children from occupied areas of Ukraine up for adoption with Russian families”.

It adds: “Russian authorities may additionally be engaged in a wider campaign of ethnic cleansing by depopulating Ukrainian territory through deportations and repopulating Ukrainian cities with imported Russian citizens.”

Key events

In case you missed it last night, Elon Musk has said SpaceX will continue to provide Starlink satellite internet over Ukraine.

Musk, who runs SpaceX alongside electric car manufacturer Tesla, had earlier said the company had spent $80m providing the service for free, and that it couldn’t continue doing so indefinitely.

The US military had confirmed it was communicating with Musk about funding the network.

But on Saturday night, Musk tweeted: “The hell with it… even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Mykhailo Podolyak, an advisor to President Zelensky, replied to the post with a Star Wars reference.

“You were supposed to destroy the Sith… So you did…” he said. “Thank you for joining the right side. Ukraine appreciates that.”

The hell with it … even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 15, 2022

Norway has arrested a Russian national carrying a drone and camera equipment after he was seen taking photos of an airport in the far north, the second such arrest in a week.

Agence France-Presse reports that Norway is on high alert following accounts of mysterious drone sightings close to offshore oil and gas drilling platforms run by the country’s major energy producer.

Last month’s Nord Stream gas pipeline blasts in the Baltic Sea are widely assumed to be the result of sabotage.

The 51 year-old Russian man, whose name was not disclosed, was arrested on Friday on suspicion of flying a drone in Norway, to which he confessed.

Along with several other Western nations, Norway has banned Russian nationals from overflying its territory, with breaches punishable by up to three years in jail.

In a statement, police in the northern town of Tromso:

Police have confiscated a large amount of photography equipment, including a drone and a cache of memory cards.

Russia continues ‘massive, forced deportations’, says think tank

Russia continues to conduct “massive, forced deportations” of Ukrainians that “likely amount to a deliberate ethnic cleansing campaign”, according to a US-based think tank.

In its latest assessment of the conflict, the Institute for the Study of War notes that Russian officials have “openly admitted to placing children from occupied areas of Ukraine up for adoption with Russian families”.

It adds: “Russian authorities may additionally be engaged in a wider campaign of ethnic cleansing by depopulating Ukrainian territory through deportations and repopulating Ukrainian cities with imported Russian citizens.”

Russia ‘probably unable to replenish missile stocks’, says UK intelligence

Russian is “probably incapable of producing advanced munitions at the rate they are being expended”, according to the latest update from the UK ministry of defence.

The ministry said attacks like those launched across Ukraine on Monday, in which Russia fired some 80 cruise missiles, represent a “further degradation of Russia’s long-range missile stocks, which is likely to constrain their ability to strike the volume of targets they desire in future”.

Andrei Nikiforov, a lawyer from St Petersburg, was one of the hundreds of thousands of Russians mobilised since last month to hold the frontlines in his country’s faltering war in Ukraine. On 25 September he received his call-up papers. By 7 October, just two weeks later, he was dead.

“We don’t know what happened,” said Alexander Zelensky, the head of the Nevsky Collegium of Lawyers, of which Nikiforov was a member. Zelensky and a member of Nikiforov’s family confirmed his call-up and death. “All we have is a date and a place.”

That place was Lysychansk, one of the most dangerous spots near the frontlines.

The first coffins are now returning to Russia from Ukraine, bringing the remains of ordinary Russians who at first were promised a quick “special military operation” and now have been drafted to go and fight in a war. Their deaths may mark another inflection point for Russia in the conflict, where at least half a million men have been drafted or fled their homes to avoid it.

Andrew Roth in Moscow has the full story:

Russian death toll reaches 65,000, Ukraine military says

The estimated number of Russians killed since the start of the war has reached 65,000, according to the Ukrainian military.

This morning’s update from the general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces said the death toll had risen by 300 over the last 24 hours.

It added that the number of tanks lost had reached 2,529, and that 5,193 armored personnel vehicles had also been destroyed.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the situation in eastern Ukraine is “the most difficult” near the town of Bakhmut, a few days after pro-Russian forces announced they were moving closer to the city.

“A very severe situation persists in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions” in the Donbas, the Ukrainian president said in his daily address on Saturday.

The most difficult is near Bakhmut, like in previous days. We are still holding our positions.

Agence France-Presse also reported that Zelenskiy’s comments came after Russian-backed separatist forces in the Donetsk region of Ukraine’s said on Thursday that they had captured two nearby villages, Opytine and Ivangrad.

Russian troops have for weeks been pummelling Bakhmut, a wine-making and salt-mining city that used to be populated by 70,000 people, in the hope of capturing the city.

A woman crosses the Bakhmutka River on a makeshift wooden bridge next to a destroyed bridge in Bakhmut, eastern Ukraine, after Russian attacks. Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

Shelling from Ukrainian forces damaged the administration building in the city of Donetsk, the Russian-backed administration of the city said on Sunday.

Reuters reported it saying on the Telegram messaging app that the main entry into the building was hit and several nearby cars damaged.

There was no immediate reaction from Ukraine to the attack on the eastern city, which is the capital of the Donetsk region and is controlled by Russian-backed forces.

No civilians were killed in the attack at a military base in Russia’s Belgorod region, but many soldiers were killed or wounded, the governor of Belgorod region said early on Sunday.

Vyacheslav Gladkov was quoted by Reuters as saying on the Telegram messaging app:

A terrible event happened on our territory, on the territory of one of the military units.

Many soldiers were killed and wounded … There are no residents of the Belgorod region among the wounded and killed.

Gladkov did not say how many soldiers were killed. The Russian state news agency RIA cited the defence ministry as saying 11 people were killed and 15 wounded.

Some Russian independent media outlets reported that the number of casualties was higher than the official figures.

Russian attack on fellow troops followed ‘argument over religion’, says Ukraine

An adviser to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said the two Russian volunteers who opened fire on fellow volunteers at a military base had carried out the attack after an argument over religion.

At least 11 people were killed and 15 wounded in the shooting at a military training ground in the Belgorod region in south-western Russia on Saturday, the Russian defence ministry has said. The two attackers were shot dead.

Reuters reported that Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Zelenskiy, said in a YouTube interview that the attackers were from the Central Asian nation of Tajikistan and had opened fire on the others after an argument over religion.

Tajikistan is predominantly Muslim, while around half of Russians follow various branches of Christianity. The Russian ministry had said the attackers were from a nation in the Commonwealth of Independent States, which groups nine ex-Soviet republics, including Tajikistan.

Reuters was not immediately able to confirm the comments by Arestovych, a prominent commentator on the war.

The independent Russian news website Sota Vision said the attack occurred in the small town of Soloti, close to the Ukrainian border and about 105km (65 miles) south-east of Belgorod.

The Russian state media outlet RIA cited a defence ministry statement as saying:

During a firearms training session with individuals who voluntarily expressed a desire to participate in the special military operation [against Ukraine], the terrorists opened fire with small arms on the personnel of the unit.

The attack took place a week after an explosion damaged a bridge in Crimea linking to Russia.

Russians in the military call-up are dispatched in Moscow to combat coordination areas earlier this month
Russians in the military call-up are dispatched in Moscow to combat coordination areas earlier this month. Photograph: Anadolu Agency/Getty Images

Summary

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. Here’s a rundown on the latest news and overnight developments as it just passes 9.30am in Kyiv.

  • At least 11 people were killed and 15 wounded at a military training ground in south-west Russia’s Belgorod region when two volunteers opened fire on other troops, the Russian defence ministry said. The shooters were nationals from a former Soviet republic and had been shot dead after Saturday’s shooting, the ministry said, calling it a terrorist attack. Baza, a Russian news site with close ties to police, said the attack occurred at 10am local time during shooting practice.

  • Elon Musk has announced his company SpaceX will continue to pay for Starlink satellite internet in Ukraine, a day after suggesting he could not keep funding the project. “The hell with it,” the billionaire tweeted on Saturday. “Even though Starlink is still losing money & other companies are getting billions of taxpayer $, we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

  • Russia has continued to try to hit Ukrainian’s energy infrastructure but Vladimir Putin’s forces did not appear to have enjoyed any significant success. One missile seriously damaged a key energy facility in the region around Ukraine’s capital, however, and 10 missiles and four drones hit locations in the south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

  • Ukrainian forces have repelled Russian attacks near 11 settlements, the Kyiv Independent has reported. According to the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, Russian forces were attempting to advance near the settlements of Novosadove, Yakovlivka, Berestove, Bakhmut, Bakhmutske, Opytne, Krasnohorivka, Nevelske, Pervomaiske, Mariinka, and Pobieda.

  • France will train up to 2,000 Ukrainian soldiers on its territory, France’s minister for the armed forces told Le Parisien newspaper in an interview on Saturday. Sebastien Lecornu said soldiers would “be taken into our units for several weeks”, and that France would also provide Ukraine with Crotale air defence systems, without specifying how many.

  • Iran has reiterated that it rejects accusations it has supplied Russia with weapons “to be used in the war in Ukraine”, its foreign ministry said. The topic is due to be discussed by EU foreign ministers in a meeting in Luxembourg on Monday. In a statement, the Iranian foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, “emphasised that the Islamic republic of Iran has not and will not provide any weapon to be used in the war in Ukraine”.

  • Ukraine’s Ministry of Defence has revealed the identity of the “Ghost of Vinnytsia” who had replaced the “Ghost of Kyiv”, which turned out to be propaganda. The pilot, named as Vadym, has been Ukraine’s poster fighter in the past few weeks after multiple reports of Russian losses in Ukrainian skies.

  • A fuel depot in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, caught fire after shelling on Saturday, its governor said, without specifying the shelling’s origin.

  • The Russian foreign ministry has confirmed the re-equipping of Belarusian Su-25 aircraft to carry nuclear weapons, according to the Belarusian Hajun project.

  • Ukrainian troops have launched an offensive in Kherson oblast, the Kyiv Independent reported, while it has not been confirmed by Ukraine.

  • Dane Partridge, a 34-year-old man from Idaho who fought as a volunteer soldier in Ukraine, died on Tuesday from injuries sustained during a Russian attack in Luhansk, AP reported.



Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia continuing ‘massive, forced deportations’; Kremlin’s missile stocks diminishing, UK says | Ukraine Source link Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia continuing ‘massive, forced deportations’; Kremlin’s missile stocks diminishing, UK says | Ukraine

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