Ukraine-Russia latest: Brazil urged to arrest Putin as Zelensky issues new North Korea warning

A Russian missile attack on the southern city of Mykolaiv overnight on Oct. 15 killed a woman and injured 16 others, the region’s governor said.

Russian forces hit the city with a S-300 anti-aircraft missiles at around 2:30am, The Kyiv Independent reported.

Residential buildings, cars, an industrial facility, restaurant complex and shops were all damaged, according to governor Vitalii Kim.

The Mykolaiv region, which neighbours the Kherson region, has suffered regular Russian attacks. Three Shahed-type drones were downed in the region overnight on October 15, Kim said.

Iran has denied providing ballistic missiles for Russia, condemning the sanctions by the EU and Britain on Tehran.

The EU agreed to impose sanctions on seven people and seven organisations on Monday, including Iran Air, Saha Airlines, Mahan Air and Iran’s deputy defence minister Seyed Hamzeh Ghalandari.

The UK added nine designations to its Iran sanctions regime.

A spokesperson for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, Esmaeil Baghaei, said in a post on X on Tuesday: "Some European countries and the UK have unfortunately claimed without evidence that Iran has militarily intervened in this conflict which is totally refuted.”

Last month, the US said it had shared intelligence with allies that Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran for its war in Ukraine.

Jared Leto is facing backlash from Ukraine after he praised Russia during a Thirty Seconds to Mars concert on 11 October.

The 52-year-old actor and musician made the comments during a gig in the Serbian capital in Belgrade as part of his band’s Seasons Tour, which he promoted by climbing the Empire State Building in November 2023.

Speaking to the crowd in Serbia, Leto asked them if there were many Russians in attendance, which was met with enthusiastic cheers.

Read the full report from Greg Evans:

Kyiv’s forces are holding firm as Russian troops attempt to break through their lines in the Kursk region for a fifth straight day, Volodymyr Zelensky said.

“For five days now, the Russians have been trying to break through our defence in the Kursk region. Our guys are standing firm and counterattacking,” the Ukrainian president said on X after holding a meeting with Ukraine’s top commander.

Ukraine pressed past Russia’s western region’s border on 6 August and rapidly secured control of 1,300 sq km (501.93 square miles), with over 100 settlements. The initial advance has stalled, and Moscow said it took back several settlements last week.

Ukrainian General Staff said on Facebook the Kursk operation was going on while Moscow’s troops continued hitting Russian territories with guided bombs.

The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov has said it is not clear if Russian president Vladimir Putin will be attending the G20 Summit in Brazil next month.

On being asked if a decision had been made on whether Mr Putin would attend the meeting of the world’s 20 leading economies, Mr Peskov said: “No. When a decision is made, we will let you know.”

Ukrainian officials said they have intelligence inputs indicating Mr Putin may attend the G20 summit in Brazil next month, and called on authorities there to carry out a warrant for his arrest if he showed up.

Brazil sent the Russian president a standard invitation for the 18 to 19 November meetings in Rio de Janeiro of the G20 group but has received no indication he planned to attend, according to two Brazilian government officials.

Russia has claimed it captured a small village in southern Ukraine as it probes for weaknesses along the war’s roughly 1,000km (600 mile) front line.

Levadne is a tiny settlement in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, southwest of the Donetsk region where Russia has concentrated the bulk of its recent offensive operations.

Eastern areas of Ukraine are currently are the main focus of Moscow’s military effort before winter arrives.

In Moscow, the defence ministry said Russian troops took Levadne in the Zaporizhzhia region. Levadne was seized by the Russians early during the war but was recaptured by Ukrainian forces during a counteroffensive in the summer of 2023.

A French citizen was sentenced to three years in prison after being convicted in a Russian court of collecting military information.

Laurent Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June and previously admitted failing to register as a “foreign agent” before gathering information on the Russian army.

In his remarks, Vinatier stated that he recognised guilt and asked the judge for clemency, saying in Russian: “I’m asking the Russian Federation to forgive me for failing to observe Russian laws.”

His lawyers asked the court to sentence him to a fine in the trial, which was fast-tracked following Vinatier’s guilty plea.

Vinatier’s arrest came as tensions rose between Paris and Moscow, after French president Emmanuel Macron raised the possibility of deploying French troops in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military says its defence forces shot down 12 Russian drones overnight.

Russian forces fired 17 drones, seven S-300/400 anti-aircraft guided missiles from Crimea and two Kh-59 guided air missiles against Chernihiv region and Sumy region from Kursk, the Ukraine Air Force said on Telegram this morning.

“As a result of anti-aircraft combat, 12 enemy UAVs were shot down in the Mykolaiv, Kyiv, Odesa, Poltava, Chernihiv, Kirovohrad and Cherkasy regions,” it said.

Military recruiters in Ukraine hunted down men for conscription in targeted raids at restaurants, shopping centres and a rock concert over the weekend, videos show. Kyiv has stepped up efforts to conscript men into the military ahead of a winter battle with the Russian forces.

The recruiters were seeing forcibly pulling a young man towards a recruitment desk who kept shouting “get away from me!” outside the Palace of Sports in Kyiv. He had gone to attend rock band Okean Elzy’s performance.

People present on the spot captured the incident on their phones and shouted “Shame! Shame on you!” at the recruiters.

According to the eyewitnesses, police checked all the men’s documents and those who refused to show or whose documents were not eligible, were dragged away.

Local reports said raids were also conducted in clubs and restaurants across other Ukrainian cities, including Kharkiv and Dnipro in eastern and central Ukraine.

Ukraine has intensified its conscription drive this year. A new law came into effect this spring stipulating that those eligible for military service must input their information into an online system or face penalties.

Russian president Vladimir Putin may attend the G20 summit in Brazil next month, Ukraine’s top prosecutor has said.

Ukrainian prosecutor general Andriy Kostin told Reuters he had called on Brazilian authorities to carry out Putin’s arrest warrant from the International Criminal Court if he landed on South American soil.

The arrest warrant was issued for Putin in March 2023, around a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. He is accused of the war crime of deporting children.

Russia has dismissed the warrant as “null and void”, denying allegations of war crimes.

Kostin said he had “information that Putin may attend the G20 summit in Brazil” and reminded Brazil “it’s an obligation for the Brazilian authorities as a state party of the Rome Statute to arrest him if he dares to visit”.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov was asked on Monday whether a decision had been made on whether Putin would attend the meeting of the world’s leading 20 economies. He said: “No. When a decision is made, we will let you know.”