Russia-Ukraine war live: Russian officials to discuss revoking key nuclear treaty; two killed in shelling in southern Ukraine

The UN has voiced deep concern over Moscow’s “mass conferral” of Russian passports in Ukrainian territory it controls.

AFP reports:

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, said residents who do not take up Russian citizenship were being denied access to essential public services and were at greater risk of arbitrary detention.

“One and a half years after the Russian Federation’s full-scale armed attack on Ukraine, we continue to bear witness to blatant and unabated violations of human rights,” said UN deputy human rights chief Nada Al-Nashif.

In Russian-controlled territory, “we have observed with deep concern a policy of mass conferral of Russian citizenship on residents”, she told the Human Rights Council in a debate on OHCHR’s latest report on rights in Ukraine.

“Individuals who opt not to accept Russian passports find themselves ensnared in a web of exclusion, denied access to essential public services such as social security and healthcare,” she said.

“This also heightens the risk of arbitrary detention for those who resist.”

Russia had for years been issuing passports to Ukrainians in the eastern Donbas areas held by pro-Moscow separatists as well as annexed Crimea.

But since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in February 2022, the passport drive has become more aggressive.

The Kremlin reportedly believes Russia’s presidential and parliamentary elections should be held on schedule, irrespective of the war in Ukraine.

Interfax news agency quoted presidential spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, as saying:

We proceed from President (Vladimir) Putin’s statement … (where he) emphasised the need to comply with all the requirements of democracy, the constitution and, accordingly, to hold these elections.

Peskov was responding to comments by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close Putin ally who was quoted on Saturday as saying that Russia should either postpone the presidential election due to the war in Ukraine or allow only one candidate – Putin.

Russia is scheduled to hold the next presidential election in 2024 and the next parliamentary election in 2026.

More US senators are welcome to visit China and it is hoped the legislatures of the two countries will have more exchanges, Chinese state media reported China’s president, Xi Jinping, as saying on Monday.

Xi made the remarks during a meeting with a US congressional delegation led by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, in Beijing, Reuters reports.

China and the US economies are deeply integrated and can benefit from each other’s development, Xi said.

On Friday, Biden said it is possible that he may meet with Xi next month in San Francisco, though nothing had been officially set up.

Washington has provided over $40bn to supply Kyiv with dozens of tanks, thousands of rockets and millions of rounds of ammunition that Ukraine has used to defend itself since Russia invaded in February 2022.

Beijing, meanwhile, has maintained close economic and diplomatic ties with Russia since the invasion.

Poland is to hold crucial elections this week. Experts say they are set to be won by the governing populists, putting the country on a potential collision course with Ukraine and the EU.

The latest polls show the Law and Justice (PiS) party at 32 to 34 percent, a few points ahead of the Civic Coalition (KO) led by former EU chief Donald Tusk.

But the ultimate result is likely to hinge on which of the two can build a governing coalition.

While Law and Justice is set to get the most votes in the parliamentary elections for the third time in a row, it appears set to fall short of a majority, AFP reports.

The most obvious partner is the far-right Confederation party, which wants Poland to stop aid to Ukraine and has criticised the rights of Ukrainian refugees.

But the opposition’s ratings have been going up in the most recent polls and a coalition of three opposition parties may have more chance of forming a government.

You can read more about the key players in the upcoming Polish elections here:

• The UN rights office said on Monday it was concerned there was no system to return Ukrainian children taken to Russia since Moscow’s invasion of the country last year and that some of those who did come back had reported mistreatment. Ukrainian authorities say they have identified and verified almost 20,000 children who have been taken to Russia during the war. Ukraine has repatriated more than 400 children so far but says it does not know exactly how many more there are because it does not have access to Russia or swathes of occupied territory in the south and east.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appealed at the Nato parliamentary assembly for the international rule of law to unite and deal with terrorism, comparing the attack by what he called a “terrorist organisation” on Israel with the similar tactics used by Russia, which he said was a “terrorist state”. Speaking via video link he said that Hamas and Russia had used the same tactics, and that Israeli journalists who had been in Ukraine and witnessed the aftermath of atrocities there were now seeing the same thing happen in their home nation.

• In what might be considered coded criticism aimed at Republicans in the US Congress, Zelenskiy said: “This is not the time to withdraw from the international arena into internal disputes. This is not the time to stay silent”. Ulraine’s president added that people should not pretend that terrorism on one continent would not affect the rest of the world.

• Speaking at the same event, Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, made an appeal to the west not to get “war fatigue”, saying: “Brave Ukrainian men and women are fighting on the battlefield. They are the face of right against wrong, of good against evil. We must be with Ukraine to the bitter end. None of us can claim war fatigue while Ukraine continues its tireless fight.”

• Russia has claimed to have thwarted five attacks by Ukrainian armed forces near Lyman and Torske. Russian forces in occupied Luhansk claim to have killed 50 members of Ukrainian service personnel in the process.

• Ukraine has claimed its armed forces repelled a Russian attack in Novoprokopivka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and had “partial success” in nearby Verbove.

That is it from me, Martin Belam, for now. I will be back later on. I’m handing you over to my colleague Yohannes Lowe.

The UN rights office said on Monday it was concerned there was no system to return Ukrainian children taken to Russia since Moscow’s invasion of the country last year and that some of those who did come back reported mistreatment.

Ukrainian authorities say they have identified and verified almost 20,000 children who have been taken to Russia during the war.

Ukraine has repatriated more than 400 children so far but says it does not know exactly how many more there are because it does not have access to Russia or swathes of occupied territory in the south and east.

“OHCHR remains gravely concerned that there is no established system to return Ukrainian children who were transferred to other regions in Russian-occupied territory or to the Russian Federation,” Nada Al-Nashif, UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, told the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Reuters reports she added “Among the children who reunited with their family after relatives travelled to the Russian Federation to retrieve them, some described experiencing or witnessing psychological or physical violence by educational staff there.”

Moscow has repeatedly denied forcibly taking Ukrainian children, saying it moved children found in orphanages or without parental care to Russia for their own safety and placed as many of as possible with relatives there. Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting the children/

The international criminal court has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.

Here are some of the latest images sent to us over the news wires of Ukrainian service personnel at an undisclosed location in Donetsk.

Russia has claimed to have thwarted five attacks by Ukrainian armed forces, according to a report from Tass. It writes that the media officer for Russia’s central group of troops, who are positioned in occupied Luhansk, claimed Russia had repelled the attacks near Lyman and Torske, killing 50 members of Ukrainian armed forces in the process. The claims have not been independently verified.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has appealed at the Nato parliamentary assembly for the international rule of law to unite and deal with terrorism, comparing the attack by what he called a “terrorist organisation” on Israel with the similar tactics used by Russia, which he said was a “terrorist state”.

Speaking via video link, he said the world could agree on a set of definitions of terrorism, saying that it was clear that: “Do not rape women. Do not kill. Do not consider children as trophies. Do not fill villages and towns with blood. Do not shoot civilians in cars” should be the basis.

He said that Hamas and Russia had used the same tactics, and that Israeli journalists who had been in Ukraine and witnessed the aftermath of atrocities there were now seeing the same thing happen in their home nation.

In what might be considered coded criticism aimed at Republicans in the US congress, Zelenskiy said: “This is not the time to withdraw from the international arena into internal disputes. This is not the time to stay silent,” adding that people should not pretend that terrorism on one continent would not affect the rest of the world.

Ukraine’s president linked Iran to the invasion of Ukraine and the attack on Israel, saying Iran “can’t say it has nothing to do with what is going in Ukraine” if it sells Shahed drones to Russian, and that it can’t claim “it has nothing to do with what is going in Israel” if its officials claim to support Hamas.

Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark, has made an appeal to the west not to get “war fatigue” over Ukraine.

Speaking at the Nato parliamentary assembly in Copenhagen, she said: “Brave Ukrainian men and women are fighting on the battlefield. They are the face of right against wrong, of good against evil. This [invasion] is a threat to the ideas our alliance is built on – freedom, democracy, the rule of law.”

She continued “We must be with Ukraine to the bitter end. None of us can claim war fatigue while Ukraine continues its tireless fight. Let us decide that war fatigue will not take place in our transatlantic community.”

In her speech, Frederiksen claimed the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had miscalculated, thinking that Nato’s words of support to Ukraine would “remain just that, words.”.

She said, instead, “Ukrainian soldiers are fighting with our weapons, our tanks, our missiles, and soon Ukraine will also fly our F-16s.”

Frederiksen also appealed to representatives of other Nato nations to broaden the coalition that is supplying fighter jets and the required training for pilots.

Suspilne reports that explosions have been heard in Kherson. This is not unusual, as the city is opposite the Russian-occupied portion of Kherson region and is frequently under fire. There was an air alert in place in the region earlier this morning, but it was lifted about an hour ago.

The Nato parliamentary assembly is meeting in Copenhagen today. We are expecting the subject of Ukraine to be high on the agenda, with the session being addressed by Volodymyr Zelenskiy. As well as Ukraine’s president, the chair of Ukraine’s parliament, Ruslan Stefanchuk, is expected to speak, and it will also be addressed by Mette Frederiksen, the prime minister of Denmark. We will bring you any key lines that emerge. Zelenskiy is due to speak in about an hour’s time.

In Ukraine, Suspilne is reporting that armed forces repelled a Russian attack in Novoprokopivka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and had “partial success” in nearby Verbove. It cited the general staff of Ukraine’s armed forces.

Monday’s intelligence briefing from the UK’s Ministry of Defence has its focus on Russia’s relationship with Iran.

It claims “international isolation has forced Russia to redirect its foreign policy efforts towards previously less-desirable partnerships to gain diplomatic, economic and military support”, asserting that Russia is now producing Iranian-designed drones in Russia under licence.

It adds “Iran recently claimed that Russia had invested $2.76bn (£2.26bn / €2.61bn) into Iran in 2022-23. Economic ties are highly likely to deepen as Russia seeks to mitigate sanctions.”

Russian forces shelled southern Kherson region and other parts of Ukraine on Sunday, killing at least two people and injuring a dozen more, Ukrainian officials said.

Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of Kherson region, said a man had died in Russian shelling in the northern part of the region. Prokudin had earlier reported that a dozen people were wounded in attacks on different localities.

Russian troops abandoned the city of Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River in the region late last year but now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank.

In northeastern Kharkiv region, governor Oleh Synehubov said a man had died in shelling near the Russian border.

After the Kremlin said last week that Russia could look into revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), Russia’s Duma council will meet today to discuss this very matter.

Last week, Moscow signalled it may revoke the treaty – noting that the US has signed the treaty but not ratified it – further fuelling concerns that Moscow might resume nuclear tests.

By revoking the ratification, the US said, Moscow wants to increase pressure on Washington and its allies to halt arms supplies and other aid to Ukraine.

The CTBT has been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178 but it cannot go into force until eight specific holdouts have signed and ratified it. China, Egypt, Iran, and Israel have signed but not ratified it. North Korea, India and Pakistan have not signed.

Although the US signed but did not ratify the treaty, it has observed a moratorium on nuclear weapons test explosions since 1992 that it says it has no plans to abandon.

On Thursday, President Vladimir Putin held out the possibility of resuming nuclear testing, raising concerns of a new nuclear arms race among Russia, the US and China.

Hello and welcome to our continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Russia’s Duma Council is set to meet today to look at revoking ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), further fuelling concerns that Moscow might resume nuclear tests.

Elsewhere, Russian forces shelled southern Kherson region and other parts of Ukraine, killing at least two people and injuring a dozen more, Ukrainian officials said on Sunday.

More on both of those stories shortly – first, here are the other major developments today:

• Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has expressed his “solidarity” with Israel in a call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday. “I spoke with Netanyahu to affirm Ukraine’s solidarity with Israel, which suffers from a brazen large-scale attack, and to express condolences for the multiple victims,” Zelenskiy said on social media.

• Zelenskiy drew parallels between Israel and the war in Ukraine by stating that “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable”. He said his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid any Ukrainians in Israel. Officials have estimated that about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Israel. While having sent tons of humanitarian aid, Netanyahu has consistently refused to supply weapons to Kyiv.

• Over the summer, Ukraine has “almost certainly liberated at least 125 sq km of territory” in an eastern area of the country, according to a British intelligence update by the Ministry of Defence. The Velyka Novosilka sector west of the Donetsk oblast town of Vuhledar has “become relatively quiet over the last four weeks” the MoD said.

• Ukraine’s air force expects a record number of Russian drone attacks on its soil this winter, its spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat said on Sunday, as Kyiv girds for a second winter of mass bombardment of its energy facilities. Ihnat said that data for September showed the use by Russia of Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drones would smash last year’s figure.

• UN and local investigators are searching for answers in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv after one of the deadliest airstrikes of the war. The strike on Thursday turned the sole cafe and store in the village to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other top officials in Kyiv. Only six people in the cafe survived.

• Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, says that current violence between Hamas and Israel is useful for Russia in diverting the world’s attention and works in their favour. Duda argued in an interview with private broadcaster Polsat News on Sunday that conflict in the Middle East distracts international scrutiny away from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and may result in new migration pressures on Europe.