Ukraine-Russia war live: Zelensky says Putin ‘afraid’ as Moscow’s Satan II fails

Russia has hit a high-rise apartment block in Ukraine‘s northeastern city of Kharkiv during an attack with guided bombs, killing at least three people and injuring 15 more, the regional governor said. 

Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov said on Telegram that Russia attacked at least four districts in the afternoon.

State repression has worsened in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, a UN expert has said, warning of arbitrary imprisonment and risks for more than 1,000 political prisoners.

“The country is now governed by a State-sponsored system of fear and punishment, including the use of torture, with absolute impunity,” UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council,

The Bulgarian former Amnesty International investigator said in a report on Russia’s rights record that oppression had intensified since the February 2022 Ukraine war began, with the number of political prisoners up to more than 1,300.

Many were jailed on fabricated charges, she said, noting a priest’s seven-year sentence for a prayer against the war.

“They risk anything from death, like (opposition leader Alexei) Navalny, or really their health being completely taken away from them,” she said on Monday ahead of her speech, noting greater use of torture and solitary confinement.

Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the 2022 war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media.

Russian forces in eastern Ukraine advanced at their fastest rate in two years in August, according to multiple open source maps, even though a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region sought to force Moscow to divert troops.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s primary tactical goal is currently to take the whole of the Donbas region in south-eastern Ukraine. Russia controls just under a fifth of Ukraine, including about 80% of the Donbas.

Russian forces have been pushing westwards at key points along some 150 km (93 miles) of the front in the Donetsk region, with the logistics hub of Pokrovsk a key target. They captured nearby Ukrainsk on 17 September and were now entering the hilltop town of Vuhledar, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Pokrovsk.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had defeated Ukrainian units at a series of settlements including Vuhledar, which Russians call Ugledar, and that the Eastern Grouping of Russian forces had improved their tactical positions. It gave no further details on Vuhledar.

Unverified video on Russian state media showed Vuhledar, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.

The Kremlin has warned Israeli strikes on Lebanon had the potential to completely destabilise the Middle East and widen the conflict there.

Israel struck Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon and the Iran-backed group attacked military facilities in northern Israel on Tuesday, a day after hundreds were killed in Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah targets.

Asked about the Israeli strikes, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call: “This is an event that is potentially extremely dangerous when it comes to the expansion of the conflict, to the complete destabilisation of the region. Of course, this is of extreme concern to us.”

In a separate statement, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Moscow condemned what she called “indiscriminate” strikes on Lebanon that target civilians.

“It is urgent to stop the spiral of violence before the situation spirals completely out of control. We call for an immediate cessation of hostilities,” she said.

Russia has deepened ties with Hezbollah patron Iran since the start of its “special military operation” in Ukraine. It has questioned the proportionality of Israel’s bombing of Gaza and the number of civilians killed, straining ties with Israel.

The RS-28 Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile is designed to deliver nuclear warheads to strike targets thousands of miles away in the United States or Europe, but its development has been dogged by delays and testing setbacks.

The 35-metre-long RS-28 Sarmat, known in the West as Satan II, has a range of 18,000 km (11,000 miles) and a launch weight of over 208 tonnes.

Russian media say it can carry up to 16 independently targetable nuclear warheads as well as Avangard hypersonic glide vehicles, a new system that Putin has said is unmatched by Russia’s enemies.

Since the start of the conflict, President Vladimir Putin has said repeatedly that Russia has the biggest and most advanced nuclear arsenal in the world, and warned the West not to cross a threshold that could lead to nuclear war.

Putin said in October 2023 that Russia had almost completed work on the missile.

The Kremlin have continued to show a public disinterest in peace talks unless it involves the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank has said.

ISW analysts noted that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed reports that Ukraine invited Russia to attend Ukraine’s second peace summit but that the Kremlin had not demonstrated any interest in participating.

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov recently said there is “no alternative” to Russian victory in Ukraine, reiterating Russia’s unwillingness to negotiate on terms other than Ukrainian “capitulation”.

“ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is not interested in good faith peace negotiations with Ukraine and that the Kremlin will only invoke the concept of ‘peace plans’ and ‘negotiations’ to prompt the West to pressure Ukraine into preemptive concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the situation report from the ISW said.

 World leaders will open their annual meeting at the UN General Assembly under the shadow of increasing global divisions, major wars in Gaza, Ukraine and, Sudan and the threat of an even larger conflict in the wider Middle East. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres previewed his opening “State of the World” speech to presidents, prime ministers, monarchs and ministers at Sunday’s “Summit of the Future,” saying “our world is heading off the rails — and we need tough decisions to get back on track.” He pointed to conflicts “raging and multiplying, from the Middle East to Ukraine and Sudan, with no end in sight” and to the global security system, which he said is “threatened by geopolitical divides, nuclear posturing, and the development of new weapons and theaters of war.”

At last year’s UN global gathering, Ukraine and its president, Volodymyr Zelensky, took center stage. Mr Zelensky will be in attendance this year.