Kremlin responds to claim Kyiv may be given nuclear weapons

Russian forces have captured the village of Kopanky in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv area, the Interfax information company cited Russia’s defence ministry as saying on Tuesday.

The ministry additionally mentioned Russian forces had downed three Ukrainian drones close to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant in southeastern Ukraine.

Lieutenant Basic Alexander Sanchik has been appointed appearing commander of Russia’s “South” group of forces, the RBC information outlet cited nameless sources as saying on Tuesday.

The transfer follows the dismissal of the earlier commander of the group, one of many massive military models concerned in Russia’s marketing campaign in Ukraine.

A Russian court docket has ordered the arrest of Catherine Norris Trent, a reporter for the France24 information channel, on a cost of crossing illegally into its western Kursk area, state information company TASS mentioned on Tuesday.

It mentioned she had entered the area with the Ukrainian army to be able to file a report.

Russia has launched prison instances towards plenty of Western journalists who’ve reported from Kursk, the place Ukrainian troops broke throughout the border on 6 August and have carved out a slice of Russian territory.

The proceedings have been launched in absentia, and the orders imply the reporters can be arrested in the event that they set foot inside Russia.

Russia opposes merely freezing the battle in Ukraine as a result of Moscow wants a “strong and long-term peace” that resolves the core causes for the disaster, President Vladimir Putin’s overseas intelligence chief mentioned on Tuesday.

Sergei Naryshkin, the top of Russia’s International Intelligence Service (SVR), mentioned that Russia had the initiative on the battlefield.

Naryshkin mentioned Russia was categorically against the “freezing of the battle”, including that Russia needed a long-term peace. Russia is open for talks, Naryshkin mentioned.

Dialogue within the West about arming Ukraine with nuclear weapons is “completely irresponsible”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned on Tuesday.

The New York Instances reported final week that some unidentified Western officers had steered that US President Joe Biden may give Ukraine nuclear weapons, although there have been fears such a step would have critical implications.

Peskov mentioned the feedback had been solely attributed to nameless sources, and people making them don’t really feel “a shred of accountability”. The West ought to hear fastidiously to Russian President Vladimir Putin, he mentioned.

Earlier, senior Russian safety official Dmitry Medvedev mentioned that if the West provided nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow may contemplate such a switch to be tantamount to an assault on Russia, offering grounds for a nuclear response.

Russian forces are advancing in Ukraine on the quickest price because the early days of the 2022 invasion, taking an space half the dimensions of London over the previous month, analysts and battle bloggers say.

The battle is coming into what some Russian and Western officers say might be its most harmful part after Moscow’s forces made a few of their greatest territorial beneficial properties and the US allowed Kyiv to strike again with US missiles.

“Russia has set new weekly and month-to-month data for the dimensions of the occupied territory in Ukraine,” unbiased Russian information group Agentstvo mentioned in a report.

The Russian military captured nearly 235 sq km (91 sq miles) in Ukraine over the previous week, a weekly file for 2024, it mentioned.

Russian forces had taken 600 sq km (232 sq miles) in November, it added, citing information from DeepState, a bunch with shut hyperlinks to the Ukrainian military that research fight footage and supplies entrance line maps.

Russia started advancing sooner in japanese Ukraine in July simply as Ukrainian forces carved out a sliver of its western area of Kursk. Since then, the Russian advance has accelerated, in response to open supply maps.

Russia at the moment controls 18 per cent of Ukraine together with all of Crimea, simply over 80 per cent of Donbas, which contains of Luhansk and Donetsk, and greater than 70 per cent of the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson areas, as nicely just below 3 per cent of the Kharkiv area, in response to open supply maps.

Neither facet publishes correct information on their very own losses although Western intelligence estimates to casualties to quantity a whole bunch of hundreds killed or injured, whereas swathes of japanese and southern Ukraine have become wastelands.

Josep Borrell has mentioned “you can’t approve the court docket when it goes towards Putin and oppose it when it goes towards Netanyahu”, referring to the Worldwide Felony Courtroom (ICC).

The feedback from the Vice President of the EU Fee comes after some international locations rejected the court docket’s warrant for the Israeli prime minister’s arrest.

Senior Russian safety official Dmitry Medvedev has mentioned that if the West provided nuclear weapons to Ukraine then Moscow may contemplate such a switch to be tantamount to an assault on Russia, offering grounds for a nuclear response.

The New York Instances reported final week that some unidentified Western officers had steered that US President Joe Biden may give Ukraine nuclear weapons, although there have been fears such a step would have critical implications.

“American politicians and journalists are severely discussing the implications of the switch of nuclear weapons to Kyiv,” Medvedev, who served as Russia’s president from 2008 to 2012, mentioned on Telegram on Tuesday.

Medvedev mentioned that even the specter of such a switch of nuclear weapons might be thought-about as preparation for a nuclear battle towards Russia.

“The precise switch of such weapons may be equated to the fait accompli of an assault on our nation,” below Russia’s newly up to date nuclear doctrine, he mentioned.

A person charged with Donald Trump’s tried assassination was apparently messaging British-trained Afghan commandos about recruitment to the Ukraine battle simply three days earlier than he was arrested at a Florida golf course.

Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested on 15 September after allegedly aiming a robust AK-47-style assault rifle by the bushes at Trump Nationwide Golf Membership in West Palm Seashore.

The 58-year-old former roofing contractor from North Carolina had turn into fanatical about supporting Ukraine’s proper to defend itself from Russia’s invasion. He was mentioned to have contacted the Ukraine’s Worldwide Legion with concepts that Ukrainian army personnel described as “delusional”.

In messages linked to Routh’s Whatsapp quantity and seen by The Unbiased and investigative newroom Lighthouse Studies, there are discussions with Afghan particular forces about how you can get to Ukraine to struggle.

The extraordinary revelation highlights the desperation of those Afghan commandos who had been paid for and skilled by the British to struggle the Taliban however had been left deserted after Kabul fell in 2021.

Holly Bancroft and Might Bulman have the total report:

A Russian man was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in jail Monday after being discovered responsible of excessive treason for a video he despatched to Ukraine’s safety providers, the newest in a sequence of espionage instances involving the battle.

The Volgograd District Courtroom mentioned Nikita Zhuravel had been “in disagreement with the political course of the Russian Federation” and entered into correspondence with a consultant from Ukraine’s safety providers on-line and carried out duties for him. It didn’t give particulars on the duties.

Zhuravel is already serving a 3 1/2-year sentence for burning a Quran in entrance of a mosque, which was handed down in February.