Ukraine troops move past Lyman which was annexed , but doesn’t have any Russian’s there….
Ukraime troops move deeper into the Donbas region another place Russia says it has annexed but admits maybe no longer under their control…
This while special teams recover the bodies of Russian soldiers that did not run away or give up….
The Nordstream leaks are closed off by sea water?
(It actually isn’t pushing natural gas thru anymore)
The European Union joins President Biden in loaning the Ukraine Billions more dollars to get back on its feet….
Here’s what we know:
A reclaimed village provides a glimpse of the toll of a sweeping counteroffensive in the east. Kremlin-installed officials said they had also lost ground in the south, as Moscow acknowledged that the borders of the territory it has illegally annexed were in flux.
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The Kremlin, after trumpeting annexation, admits it doesn’t know where the borders are.
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Ukraine’s forces show no sign of slowing down after the capture of Lyman.
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A Russian court set Brittney Griner’s appeal hearing for Oct. 25.New
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Elon Musk weighs in on how to end the war in Ukraine.New
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The director general of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant has been released from detention, the U.N. nuclear agency says.
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Pentagon sees promise in the progress Ukraine has made on the battlefield.New
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A pipeline attack has a town in northern Germany on edge….
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Following their capture over the weekend of Lyman, a strategic rail hub and gateway to the eastern Donbas region, Ukrainian forces showed no sign of stopping, pushing eastward toward the city of Lysychansk, which Russia seized over the summer following weeks of bloody fighting. Any loss of territory in the industrial Donbas region is a heavy blow to Mr. Putin and undermines the case for the war he launched in February, which has focused on seizing and incorporating the region.
The Kremlin reflected the disarray of its forces on the ground, where territory was rapidly changing hands, acknowledging that it did not yet know what new borders Russia would claim in parts of Ukraine it recently annexed in a move Kyiv and Western leaders decried as illegal.
“In terms of the borders, we’re going to continue to consult with the population of these regions,” Mr. Putin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, told reporters on Monday.
Mr. Putin had meant for Monday to be a triumphant day in Moscow, where the lower house of Russia’s rubber-stamp Parliament, the State Duma, voted unanimously to ratify Mr. Putin’s proclaimed annexation of four Ukrainian regions after sham referendums there. Events on the battlefield threatened to make a mockery of such declarations. Adding to the sense of chaos was a Russian conscription effort, begun two weeks ago, that has drawn opposition in Russia and spurred at least 200,000 Russians to leave the country.
Ukraine’s advances extended a run of success its forces have enjoyed for weeks in the northeast against Russian troops, some ill-equipped and wearing flip-flops, who have made hasty retreats from areas they captured after heavy fighting over the summer. The Russian setbacks have amplified unusually public criticism of the war effort from some allies of Mr. Putin, even as the Kremlin pressed ahead with its widely discredited annexation plans….
Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
Key developments
- Five Azov fighters who were recently released by Russia were reunited with family members in Turkey on Monday, Andriy Yermak, Zelensky’s chief of staff, confirmed. In his Monday address, Zelensky vowed to “do everything” to reunite Ukrainians still being held by Russia with their family.
- The director of the Zaporizhzhia power plant, Ihor Murashov, was released from detention,Ukraine’s nuclear operator Energoatom confirmed in a statement on Monday. The agency thanked the International Atomic Energy Agency Director General Rafael Grossi for his efforts to secure the release of Murashov, who was detained on Friday. In his nightly address on Sunday, Zelensky called Murashov’s detention “frank Russian terror.”
- Russia’s so-called annexation treaties unanimously passed the rubber-stamp lower house, the State Duma, on Monday. The upper house, Russia’s Federation Council, is expected to formalize the annexation, a violation of international law, on Tuesday. Western leaders have denounced last month’s orchestrated annexation votes in the regions as a “sham.”
- The Kremlin said Russia would “consult” with the populations of Zaporizhzhia and Kherson to determine the exact borders of the territories Moscow hopes to absorb as its own. Presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a news conference that the outcome in those regions “will depend on the will of the people living there.”
- Elon Musk took aim at the Russia-Ukraine war via a Twitter poll that set off a firestorm online, drawing in Ukrainian diplomats, Russian officials, fans of the billionaire entrepreneur and even a couple of presidents.Ukraine’s ambassador to Germany, Andrij Melnyk, tweeted back at Musk, “F— off is my very diplomatic reply to you.”
Battleground updates
- Ukrainian forces pushed Russians back 20 miles along the west bank of the Dnieper River over the weekend, part of an initiative to retake Kherson. The strategic city has been under Russian control for months.
- Russian officials are probably struggling to provide training and find officers to lead new units amid Russian President Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilization, the British Defense Ministry said Monday, noting dysfunction in the effort’s first week. “Local officials are likely unclear on the exact scope and legal rationale of the campaign,” it said.
- In his Monday briefing, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said, “With numerically superior tank units in the direction of Zolota Balka and Oleksandrivka, the enemy managed to forge deep into our defenses,” the Associated Press reported. The Defense Ministry of Ukraine said later Monday that Zolota Balka, a village in Kherson, “has been liberated.”
- Rockets struck the city of Zaporizhzhia and two nearby villages early Monday, the regional governor, Oleksandr Starukh, reported on Telegram. The strikes injured one person and damaged a rehabilitation center for children with special needs, he said. The Washington Post could not immediately verify this claim.
- Parts of the Mykolaiv region remain under “constant fire,” regional governor Vitaliy Kim saidMonday on Telegram, reporting shelling in multiple towns in the past 24 hours. The strikes did not injure or kill anyone, Kim said, but civilian infrastructure, including a train station, was hit.
- Pro-Kremlin proxies and propagandists are becoming increasingly vocal in their criticism of Russia’s military in the wake of the Lyman retreat. Some are blaming the setbacks on Russian military failures to properly supply and reinforce troops, the Institute for the Study of War think tank wrote on Monday, and are no longer concealing their disappointment with the conduct of the partial mobilization….