Russia-Ukraine latest updates: Russia, US officials hold call

Canadian Defence Minister Anita Anand’s appearance at a democracy forum was disrupted by a protester who stood before the stage holding a “STOP THE WAR” sign, prompting Anand to take a break in the middle of the programme as the protester refused to leave.

“Thank you for sharing that with me and I want to say that the aid that we have sent to Ukraine is aid that is in support of democracy, and sovereignty and rules-based international order – that same order that has kept you, everyone in this room, and our country, safe since the end of the second world war,” Anand said.

The protester, however, refused to leave and event host Martin Regg Cohn, a Toronto Star columnist, warned that she was getting too close to the minister’s personal space.

“I’m going to take a break, Martin. Thank you so much,” said a clearly uncomfortably Anand before she walked off the stage.

The defence minister, who announced a new military aid package for Ukraine earlier this month, retook the stage about 10 minutes later.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he has seen no evidence Russia is interested in ending its aggression toward Ukraine and that Moscow was instead pushing in the opposite direction.

Washington would consider every means to advance diplomacy with Russia if it sees an opening, Blinken added during a news conference.

People in Russia’s Belgorod region are being asked to work and study from home again because of the eight-month-old war in neighbouring Ukraine.

When Putin imposed martial law on four Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine in response to battlefield reverses, he also placed several Russian border regions including Belgorod on a “medium alert”.

In a statement on Telegram, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said he was recommending firms in the city of Belgorod and close to the border find ways to allow staff to work from home.

There have been a number of attacks in recent weeks on power facilities and other infrastructure in the regional capital and near to the province’s 400-kilometre (250-mile) frontier with Ukraine, as well as on fuel and ammunition depots.

Belgorod’s schools and colleges had already been told to close for two weeks. Gladkov said that, when they returned, those in the city and nine border regions should operate by distance learning until December 1.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “deliberately delaying” the export of grain from Ukrainian ports bound for countries in Africa and Asia.

“Today, more than 150 ships are in a queue to fulfil contractual obligations for the supply of our agricultural products,” Zelenskyy said in a video address.

“This is an artificial queue. It arose only because Russia is deliberately delaying the passage of ships.”

He did not specify what was causing the delay.

The European Union will give Kyiv 1.5 billion euros a month in 2023 as Ukraine fights back Russia’s invading troops, the head of the bloc has said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU had given Ukraine 19 billion euros this year.

“It is very important for Ukraine to have a predictable and stable flow of income,” she said, adding that Kyiv estimated its monthly needs at 3-4 billion euros “for the basics”.

The EU chief told a news conference the bloc would finance 1.5 billion euros per month of that, with the rest expected to come from the US and international institutions.

“That will give a total of 18 billion for the next year — an amount Ukraine can count on and where there is a stable and reliable, predictable flow of income.”

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, European countries that previously accepted Russian nationals have made it significantly difficult to travel freely across the continent and have retracted a 2007 visa deal which allowed Russian citizens to travel for business and leisure.

But, now the 27-member bloc is considering an outright European ban on Russian tourists.

More here on the EU’s travel ban.

The possibility of nuclear war is being felt across nearby countries like Poland and Romania, which would be vulnerable in the case of a radiological disaster.

In Poland, fighting around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has led to the government handing out potassium iodide tablets to local fire stations to be provided to residents in case of an emergency.

More on nuclear war fears here.

A team from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has held “productive” discussions with Ukrainian authorities in Vienna this week and will continue work in the coming weeks on Ukraine’s request for enhanced programme monitoring, the IMF mission chief has said.

Gavin Gray said IMF staff met Ukrainian authorities and discussed their findings with Finance Minister Serhiy Marchenko and Governor of the National Bank of Ukraine Andriy Pyshnyi.

He added that Russia’s invasion had caused tremendous human suffering and had a severe economic impact, with the fiscal deficit rising to unprecedented levels.

But IMF officials were encouraging Ukraine to refrain from measures that erode tax revenues.

With Vladimir Putin’s recent warning that Russia will use “all available means” to defend itself, there has been increased chatter about whether the Russian president will use nuclear weapons. But just how likely is that, and what does it mean to start a nuclear war in 2022?

In this episode: 

• Alex Gatopoulos (@alexgatopoulos), Al Jazeera defence editor
• Gerhard Mangott (@gerhard_mangott), professor of International Relations, University of Innsbruck

Ukraine’s energy minister says he sees no progress towards a deal involving Russia, Ukraine and the UN nuclear watchdog on resolving the situation at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant.

Herman Halushchenko was asked by the Reuters news agency if he saw progress towards a deal and said, “Not at this stage”.

Meanwhile, Rafael Grossi, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, held talks in Moscow and Kyiv in an effort to secure an agreement on a safety and security protection zone around the plant.

Moscow’s Shoigu has held a phone call with his Washington counterpart Lloyd Austin, the Russian defence ministry said, in a rare talk between the two countries since the start of the Ukraine conflict.

“Topical issues of international security, including the situation in Ukraine, were discussed,” the ministry said on Telegram without providing further details.

Putin has been open to negotiations with Ukraine “from the very beginning” and “nothing has changed”, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

His comments came after Turkey’s Erdogan said his Russian counterpart’s stance had softened.

Peskov said: “If you remember, President Putin tried to initiate talks with both NATO and the United States even before the special military operation.

“Putin was open to negotiations when a document was almost agreed on between Russian and Ukrainian [negotiators]. So in that respect, nothing has changed. The position of the Ukrainian side has changed … Ukrainian law now prohibits any negotiations.”

As Russia evacuates residents from Kherson amid Ukrainian forces advancing, what does the situation look like on the ground?

Al Jazeera has four maps, which it updates daily, charting the latest developments of the war.

After unexplained blasts in the Nord Stream pipelines, the Kremlin said the “truth” behind the leaks would “surprise” Europeans if made public.

Dmitry Peskov said Moscow was working “intensely” to be included in an international probe.

“Work is underway through diplomatic channels,” Peskov said.

“But so far, it is running into a wall of unwillingness to get to the bottom of the truth together, which will surely surprise many in European countries if it was to be made public.”

He gave no further details.

Western nations have accused Russia of sabotaging the pipelines.

A Russian-installed official in the Kherson region says Ukrainian allegations of mining the Nova Kakhovka dam are “false”, Moscow’s state-owned news agency RIA reported.

RIA quoted Kirill Stremousov, the deputy head of the Moscow-installed regional Kherson administration, as denying Zelenskyy’s suggestions that Russia is planning to blow up the dam to flood parts of the Kherson region, where its troops are under pressure from Ukrainian advance.

Ukraine is shooting down 85 percent of Iranian-made “kamikaze” drones fired by Russia but needs support to prevent Tehran from selling Moscow ballistic missiles, an air force spokesperson has said.

“If we take the last two weeks and the results in taking down drones, our air defence is 85% effective,” Yuriy Ihnat told a briefing.

“Now we’ve learned to recognise them and shoot them down more effectively.”

Meanwhile, Tehran denies supplying Shahed-136 drones to Moscow and the Kremlin denies its forces have used Iranian drones to attack Ukraine.

But the US has accused Iran of being directly involved and said its military trainers were helping Russian forces use drones in Crimea.

Since October 10, Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian energy facilities and critical infrastructure, leaving Ukraine suffering electricity blackouts.

European Union leaders have again failed to reach a decision to cap gas prices, saying in the early hours of Friday morning that they will keep examining options to put a ceiling on costs.

The EU is struggling with high energy prices and has raised the prospect of a continent-wide recession after Russia cut gas flows following its invasion of Ukraine.

At a summit in Brussels on Thursday that ran late into the night, EU leaders eventually backed proposals made by the European Commission this week to launch an alternative price benchmark for liquefied natural gas and voluntary joint gas buying. But laws to make this happen will need to be negotiated over the coming weeks.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on Western nations to warn Russia against blowing up a dam that would flood a swath of southern Ukraine.

In a television address, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had planted explosives inside the massive Nova Kakhovka dam, which holds back an enormous reservoir that dominates much of southern Ukraine, and were planning to blow it up to cover their retreat.

“Now everyone in the world must act powerfully and quickly to prevent a new Russian terrorist attack. Destroying the dam would mean a large-scale disaster,” he said.

Russia had accused Kyiv earlier this week of planning to attack the dam.

Sergei Surovikin, the commander of Russian forces in Ukraine, said Ukrainian troops had already used US-supplied HIMARS missiles against it in what Ukrainian officials called a sign Moscow could be planning to blow it up and blame Kyiv.

However, neither side has produced evidence to back up their allegations.

Turkey’s Erdogan says Putin appears to be “much softer and more open to negotiations” on ending the war in Ukraine than in the past.

“We are not without hope,” he said of the possibility of negotiations.

Erdogan commented late on his return from a trip to Azerbaijan, the Hurriyet newspaper and other media reported.

The Turkish leader also said he is optimistic a UN and Turkish-brokered deal that allowed the shipment of millions of tonnes of Ukrainian grain to world markets can be extended.

“There is no obstacle concerning extending the shipping agreement,” Erdogan said.

“But if there is a blockage, there is no obstacle in us overcoming it.”

The Kremlin says it does not expect the United Kingdom to use “political wisdom” in choosing its next leader following Liz Truss’s announcement that she was stepping down as prime minister.

Asked about the possible return of Boris Johnson to the top post, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “We do not expect insight and political wisdom from anyone in the countries of the collective West, let alone Britain. Especially in Britain, where people do not choose the person at the head of the executive branch, who appears as a result of internal party shake-ups.”

Former Prime Minister Boris Johnson, an outspoken supporter of Ukraine, was removed in July after a wave of scandals.

At the time, Russian media and officials celebrated the news of his departure.

Russia has likewise warmly welcomed news of Truss’s imminent departure.

Bye, bye @trussliz, congrats to lettuce

— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) October 20, 2022