Russia has previously ordered civilians out of a pocket it controls on the west bank of the Dnipro River, where Ukrainian forces are advancing to capture the city of Kherson. Officials based in Russia said on Tuesday that they are now extending that order to a 15km buffer zone along the east bank as well. Ukraine says the evacuations involve forced expulsions from occupied territories, a war crime. Russia, which claims it has annexed the region, says it is moving civilians to safety because of a threat that Ukraine may use unconventional weapons.
Consequential first line
Moscow has accused Kyiv of planning to use a so-called “dirty bomb” to spread radioactivity or blow up a dam to flood towns and villages in Kherson province. Kyiv says accusations that it would use such tactics on its soil are absurd, but that Russia may be planning such actions itself to incriminate Ukraine. The mouth of the great Dnieper river has become one of the most important front lines in the war in recent weeks, with Ukrainian forces advancing to drive Russian troops from their only pocket on the west bank. Russia has thousands of troops there and is trying to shore up the region. Ukraine’s advance has slowed in recent days, with commanders citing weather and tougher terrain. In the city of Kherson on Tuesday, the streets were virtually empty, with most shops and businesses closed. A handful of people on a pier boarded a ferry to cross to the east bank of the Dnipro, although a few men still fished peacefully amid the distant noise of artillery fire. A Ukrainian artilleryman sits in a military truck at a front-line position near the city of Bakhmut on Monday. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) Some residents remained defiant, despite orders to leave. “Why should I leave? … Why? I will stay here until the end,” said Ekaterina, a shopkeeper, referring to the house she said her ancestors built “with their own hands”.
Dirty bomb inspections.
Meanwhile, experts from the United Nations nuclear energy agency inspected two sites in Ukraine on Tuesday that Russia identified in unsubstantiated claims that Ukrainian authorities were planning to detonate radioactive “dirty bombs” in their own invading country. International Atomic Energy Agency Director-General Rafael Grossi said inspections for evidence of the so-called dirty bomb, requested by Kyiv after the unsubstantiated Russian claims, would be completed soon. The International Atomic Energy Agency said the sites investigated were “subject to IAEA safeguards and regularly visited by IAEA inspectors”, whose mission is to detect undeclared nuclear activities and materials related to the development of dirty bombs. “The IAEA inspected one of the two sites a month ago and no undeclared nuclear activities or materials were found there,” the agency said in a statement on Monday. The UN’s atomic watchdog also had observers on the ground at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Fighting near Europe’s largest nuclear power plant has raised concerns of a potentially catastrophic leak there. The Ukrainian president’s office said on Tuesday that cities and towns around the plant suffered heavier shelling between Monday and Tuesday. In Nikopoli, a city that overlooks the plant from the large Dnieper River, more than a dozen apartment buildings, a kindergarten and several private businesses were damaged, the office said.
Conscription targeting indigenous minority, EU says
The European Union accused Moscow on Tuesday of launching a new program of illegally recruiting men in Crimea, which Russia seized in 2014, to fight in its forces. The EU statement said Moscow was disproportionately recruiting members of Crimea’s indigenous Tatar minority to fight in its war. Russia, which launched its “special military operation” in Ukraine in February, said it had completed the mobilization ordered in September by President Vladimir Putin, saying it had called up 300,000 reservists and no more were needed. But the Kremlin said Tuesday that Putin would not issue a new decree formally ending the mobilization. This raised concern that it could restart without warning. Ukrainian soldiers rest in an underground bunker in Bakhmut on Monday. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) Thousands of Russian men have fled abroad to escape conscription. Activists and reports from Russian media and the Associated Press said many of the mobilized reservists were inexperienced, told to stock up on basic items such as medical kits and jackets, and received no training before being sent to fight. Some were killed within days of the call.
“This is what the barbarian horde does”
Russia fired four missiles overnight at the Ukrainian port of Mykolaiv, demolishing half an apartment building. Reuters saw rescuers pulling the body of an elderly woman from the rubble. As rush hour began, passers-by walked past a two-story school, the front of which had been severed by the force of another missile blast that left a huge crater. “This is what the barbarian horde is doing,” said Irena Siden, 48, the school’s deputy principal, standing in front of the collapsed building as workers began sweeping away the rubble. A woman reacts next to the body of her neighbor found under the rubble of a residential home destroyed by a Russian missile attack in Mykolaiv on Tuesday. (Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters) Russia launched a massive barrage of missiles at Ukrainian cities on Monday in what Putin called retaliation for an attack on the Russian Black Sea fleet over the weekend. Ukraine said it shot down most of those missiles, but some had hit power stations, knocking out electricity and water supplies. “We couldn’t do just that,” Putin told a televised news conference.
40% of the energy infrastructure was destroyed
So far, Russia has destroyed about 40 percent of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, affecting 16 regions, according to the Ukrainian government. Russia is likely to continue the war well into the winter, hoping to weaken Western support for Ukraine and “freeze Europe into submission,” according to a report issued this week by the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank. think tank based in Washington. Across the capital, Kyiv, residents are stocking up on heaters, blankets, warm clothes and power banks to charge electronics. While most say they are willing to bear the brunt of blackouts for the sake of the war, the frequency and fluidity of the outages is taxing. This photo taken on Monday shows a burnt residential building after a shelling in Bakhmut. (Dimitar Dilkoff/AFP/Getty Images) Putin also suspended cooperation with a program backed by Turkey and the United Nations to escort cargo ships carrying grain out of the war zone. The three-month program had ended the de facto Russian blockade of Ukraine, one of the world’s biggest grain producers, and averted a global food crisis. Russia’s suspension of cooperation had raised international fears that a food crisis could return, but so far the Russian blockade has not been lifted, with 12 ships able to leave Ukraine on Monday carrying grain. Another three set sail on Tuesday. Administrators of the UN-backed program said the missions had been agreed by Ukrainian, Turkish and UN delegations and that Russia’s delegation had been informed, an apparent sign of a willingness to proceed without Moscow’s cooperation. Putin said Russian strikes on Ukrainian infrastructure and a decision to freeze participation in a Black Sea grain export program were responses to a drone attack on Moscow’s fleet in Crimea that he blamed on Ukraine. A dog stands near Russian tanks damaged in recent battles near the newly recaptured village of Kamianka, Kharkiv region, on Sunday. (Efrem Lukatsky/The Associated Press)
