Russia-Ukraine war live: Russia launches 36 rockets in ‘massive attack’; power outages in central and western Ukraine after shelling | Ukraine

Iran on Saturday strongly condemned a call by France, Germany and Britain for the United Nations to probe accusations that Russia has used Iranian-origin drones to attack Ukraine, its foreign ministry said.

Ukraine says that Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones. If found to be true, the allegations would be in breach of UN security council resolution 2231.

A letter, seen by Reuters, was circulated to UN security council members by the three countries, known as the E3.

Foreign ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani said Friday’s call by the E3 group of countries was “false and baseless” and that it was “strongly rejected and condemned”.

Both Tehran and Moscow deny the accusations.

Daniel Boffey

As she was driven by her son out of Dudchany, a small village in the north-east of the Kherson region a few days ago, Rosaliya Kovalchuk, 72, glimpsed something from the backseat that will haunt her forever.

“Hanging from the branches of a tree were guts from a man’s belly,” Kovalchuk said, pausing as she sought to collect her emotions. “A military car had been blown up. I think he was Russian from the boots and the uniform.”

Dudchany, one of the stepping stones down the Dnipro river to Kherson city, the regional capital 77 miles to the south-west, is at the centre of fierce fighting that the west says could be pivotal in the outcome of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.

Kovalchuk and her friend and neighbour Anna Koval, 72, who lives two doors down on the village’s Pushkina Street, recounted their sorrow from the gym of a school in the city of Kryvyi Rih, north of Kherson, where 70 beds have been laid out for refugees. They arrived on 11 October. “We sit and we pray,” said Koval, weeping as she gripped an icon of the virgin Mary.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said that Russia launched 36 rockets in a “massive attack” on Ukraine.

In a post on Telegram he said that most of the missiles fired overnight were shot down by the country’s air defence systems.

Russia has been targeting critical infrastructure such as power stations and water supply systems in Ukraine in recent weeks.

Zelensky added:

To all energy workers and services that are currently working at the sites of impact and restoring our infrastructure. You are our heroes!

Dan Sabbagh

Dan Sabbagh reports from Kyiv:

For some it was a rude awakening. Those arriving at Kyiv’s busy central station on Monday morning suddenly found themselves in the middle of an unexpected and unwanted drone war, hammered by the sounds of panicked last-ditch gunfire from the ground that failed to stop five terrifying explosions in two hours.

It was the second Monday in a row the centre of Kyiv had been targeted, and the first time the capital had been hit by Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones.

The Russians had been aiming for a power plant a block from the station, but instead hit buildings and people elsewhere. Five died, including a pregnant woman, when a civilian apartment building was hit.

Read more: In Kyiv, the home front is back and winter is looming

Hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire, as Ukrainian air defence tried to shoot down drones and incoming missiles.

Russia has intensified its strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country, Associated Press reports.

Ukraine‘s air force said in a statement today that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” hours after air raid sirens blared across the country. It said that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from air and sea.

The governor of the Kyiv region, Oleksiy Kuleba, said the country was being “massively attacked” by Russian forces.

Posting on Telegram, Kubela said that the Kyiv area was on its third air alert of the day due to Russian shelling.

He said:

Since the very morning, the enemy has been massively attacking Ukraine.

The Kyiv region continues to defend the capital. Air defense forces shot down several enemy objects.

The danger has not passed. The air alert continues. I ask everyone to stay in shelters and keep calm!

The Japanese prime minister, Fumio Kishida, warned today that Russia using nuclear weapons would be seen as an “act of hostility against humanity”.

Kishida, who leads the only country ever hit with a nuclear bomb, described President Vladimir Putin’s sabre rattling as “deeply disturbing”.

In comments reported by AFP, he said:

Russia’s act of threatening the use of nuclear weapons is a serious threat to the peace and security of the international community and absolutely unacceptable.

Kishida will host leaders from the G7 countries in May next year in Hiroshima where a nuclear bomb was dropped by the US military in August 1945. The city of Nagasaki was hit three days later.

It is just past 1pm in Kyiv. Here is what you might have missed:

• Russian military forces carried out another missile attack targeting energy facilities in western Ukraine, the country’s power grid operator said today. In a message on Telegram, Ukrenergo said that the “scale of damage is comparable or may exceed the consequences of the attack on October 10-12”. It said that repair crews are starting to repair the facilities after the rocket attack, but that restrictions are in place as they try to restore the electricity supply.

• Ukrainian forces have bombarded Russian positions in the occupied Kherson region, targeting resupply routes across a major river while inching closer on Friday to a full assault on the key city. Associated Press reported that Russian-installed officials were said to be desperately trying to turn Kherson city – a prime objective for both sides because of its key industries and major river and sea port – into a “fortress” while attempting to evacuate tens of thousands of residents.

• Russian forces are continuing to reinforce crossing points over the Dnieper River and have finished building a barge bridge alongside the damaged Antonovskiy Bridge in Kherson in Ukraine’s south, the UK Ministry of Defence says. The ministry said using civilian barges probably provided Russia “additional material and logistics benefits” after losing significant amounts of military bridging equipment and engineering personnel during the war with Ukraine.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged the west to warn Russia not to blow up a hydroelectric dam that would flood a large part of southern Ukraine, as the Ukrainian president’s forces prepared to push Moscow’s troops from the occupied city of Kherson. In a television address, Zelenskiy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the huge Nova Kakhovka dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir, and were planning to blow it up. “Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster.”

• A Russian-appointed official in Kherson has denied Kyiv’s allegations that Moscow’s forces have started mining the dam. Citing state-owned news agency RIA, Reuters reported that Kirill Stremousov said Zelenskiy’s claims it had started mining the dam were “false”.

• The office of Volodymyr Zelenskiy has vowed it will “not succumb to peace by coercion”, threatening to hit back harder if Russia destroys the hydroelectric dam in Kherson.

• A team from the International Monetary Fund held productive discussions with Ukrainian authorities this week and will work in coming weeks on their request for enhanced program monitoring in the wake of Russia’s invasion, the IMF mission’s chief says. Gavin Gray said IMF staff met with Ukrainian authorities for four days in Vienna and discussed their findings with the finance minister, Serhiy Marchenko, and the governor of Ukraine’s national bank, Andriy Pyshnyi.

• The Pentagon confirmed a phone call between the US defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu. It said Austin “emphasised the importance of maintaining lines of communication” with Shoigu. Russia’s defence ministry said of the call: “Topical issues of international security, including the situation in Ukraine, were discussed.”

• The Pentagon also published a readout of Austin’s call with the Ukrainian defence minister, Oleksii Reznikov. The US defence secretary pledged “unwavering US commitment” to supporting Ukraine against Russia.

• The UK, France and Germany have called for a UN investigation into accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones in Ukraine. If found to be true, the allegations would be in breach of UN security council resolution 2231. A letter, seen by Reuters, was circulated to UN security council members by the three countries, known as the E3.

• The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said the US would consider every means to advance diplomacy with Russia if it saw an opening, but at the moment Moscow showed no sign of willingness to engage in meaningful talks. Reuters reported Blinken as saying: “Every indication is that far from being willing to engage in meaningful diplomacy, President Putin continues to push in the opposite direction.”

Pjotr Sauer

Pjotr Sauer reports:

Piet Ploeg felt a glimmer of hope that justice would, at last, be served when he read the news that the prominent Russian nationalist Igor Girkin may be returning to the battlefield in Ukraine.

Ploeg’s brother, sister-in-law and nephew were killed alongside 295 other passengers and crew when the plane they boarded in Amsterdam on 17 July 2014 was shot down over Ukraine’s separatist-held territory of Donetsk by what international investigators believe was a Russian-made surface-to-air missile.

Dutch prosecutors say Girkin, who was a commander of the Kremlin-backed separatist forces during Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of Ukraine in 2014, helped supply the missile system used to shoot down the plane.

“We have to be realistic. The chances aren’t huge that Holland will get him. Ukraine first needs to capture him alive and then hand him over to us,” said Ploeg, who chairs the MH17 Disaster Foundation, a Dutch organisation that helps relatives of those killed in the downing of the flight.

Read more: ‘Get Igor Girkin’: hopes MH17 suspect could be captured fighting in Ukraine