Ukraine-Russia latest: Kremlin accuses NATO of stoking nuclear tensions as drill with 2,000 troops launched

Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman has urged international organisations to respond to a claim that several Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in the Russian region of Kursk, where Kyiv had launched an incursion in August.

DeepState, a Ukrainian battlefield analysis site close to Ukraine’s Defence Ministry, said Russian troops shot and killed nine Ukrainian “drone operators and contractors” on October 10 after they had surrendered.

Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram that he sent letters to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross regarding the claim, calling it “another crime committed by the Russians”.

Earlier this month, the Prosecutor General’s Office of Ukraine said Russian troops had killed 16 captured Ukrainian soldiers in the partially occupied Donetsk region.

There was no immediate response from Russian officials.

The late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny was taunted by prison guards who hid sweets in his pockets in a bid to ‘undermine’ his hunger strike, his prison diaries have revealed.

Defiant journal entries from the 47-year-old, who survived Novichok poisoning in 2020 before he was imprisoned in Russia, have laid bare his final years – including 24 days spent on hunger strike over his access to medical treatment.

He died in February inside a remote Russian penal colony north of the Arctic Circle known as Polar Wolf.

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Ukraine caught Moscow by surprise on 6 August by bursting across the border into the Kursk region, in the first invasion of Russian sovereign territory since World War Two.

Russia has been trying for more than two months to eject the Ukrainian forces. Earlier on Sunday, the defence ministry in Moscow said it was pursuing offensive operations at several dozen locations in the region.

As of early September, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said his forces controlled more than 1,300 sq km (500 sq miles) of Kursk, including 100 settlements. On Saturday he said Russian forces had tried to oust Ukrainian troops “but we are holding the designated lines”.

Russia said its forces had taken back several villages last week.

Russian glide bombs have struck a concentration of Ukrainian troops near the border of Russia’s western Kursk region, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday.

It said the attack was directed against “a strongpoint and concentration of Ukrainian Armed Forces personnel”, and the bombs were delivered by a Russian Su-34 warplane.

Reuters could not independently verify the strike, and the defence ministry’s brief statement did not give any details on the impact.

BBC iPlayer viewers are encouraging others to watch the nuclear war film Threads, often described as one of the most harrowing movies ever made.

The 1984 film was made for BBC TV by The Bodyguard director Mick Jackson and Kes writer Barry Hines, with Jackson wanting to focus on the scientific ramifications of a nuclear attack and its fallout.

Threads was first aired on BBC Two on 23 September 1984 at the height of the Cold War, when nuclear tensions were as prevalent a talking point as they are today.

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"Remember when an appearance, virtual or real, by the president of Ukraine was the hottest of hot-ticket events in London? When MPs and peers jostled for a standing-room-only place in parliament to see and hear him? When the one-time TV actor turned democratically elected president turned war leader drew rapt attention with his gritty determination and allusions to Churchill? Well, those heady days of Britain reliving its finest hour by association are over."

With the US election less than a month away, and his support dwindling across Europe, the Ukraine president is in a last-ditch race against time to shore up support, writes Mary Dejevsky.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has hailed the country’s “very close” relationship with Iran in the first meeting with his newly-appointed counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian.

The sanctioned leaders held an inaugural meeting on the sidelines of a regional summit in Ashgabat, the capital of the Central Asian country Turkmenistan, to discuss - among other topics - the ongoing situation in the Middle East.

“We are actively working together in the international arena and our assessments of events taking place in the world are often very close,” Putin said during the meeting.

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The Treasury has investigated more than 50 UK-linked companies for breaching Russian oil sanctions, but is yet to hand out a single fine.

The government had opened 60 investigations into suspected breaches of restrictions on the sale of Russian oil since December 2022.

Some 52 of those investigations have involved companies with a link to the UK, of which 37 were still ongoing in August.

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Military chiefs are considering sending British troops to Ukraine to train soldiers and boost Kyiv’s recruitment efforts, it has emerged.

Ministry of Defence (MoD) sources confirmed to The Independent that discussions are ongoing about whether to send troops to the country to support it amid Russia’s ongoing invasion.

There is already a small number of British medical personnel in Ukraine, delivering training and mentoring to the country’s armed forces.

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