Social media video by Ukrainian military commander shows smoke in Avdiivka

Video posted on social media by Maskym Zhorin, a Ukrainian military commander, showed smoke pouring from the shells of shattered, abandoned apartment buildings in the eastern town of Avdiivka. Empty streets were littered with rubble and smashed installations, Reuters reports.

Kyiv says Moscow has redirected many soldiers and large amounts of equipment to the Avdiivka area, showing it can hit back over four months into a Ukrainian counteroffensive in the east and south that has encountered stiff Russian resistance.

Ukrainian special operations forces said Kyiv’s troops had “foiled the plans of the crazed enemy, repelled all attacks and held their positions”.

Avdiivka, which is home to a big coking plant in the south-west of the Donetsk region and lies just northwest of the Russian-held city of Donetsk, has become a symbol of resistance, holding out against Russian troops who invaded Ukraine in February 2022, and helping ensure Moscow has been unable to gain full control of the region even though it says it has annexed it.

Ukrainian forces had been defending Avdiivka since long before last year’s invasion, holding the line against Russian-backed militants who took control of territory in east Ukraine in 2014 after Russian forces seized Crimea. Just over 1,600 residents of a pre-war population of 32,000 remain, but shelling ruled out a mass evacuation, Barabash said.

The attack on Avdiivka is one of the few big offensives Moscow has launched in months as its troops focus on holding back Kyiv’s counteroffensive, which has made slow progress through vast Russian minefields and heavily fortified trenches.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had inflicted damage on Ukrainian forces in areas including Avdiivka but gave few details.

Oleksandr Shtupun, a spokesperson for Ukraine’s southern group of forces, said Russia saw Avdiivka as an opportunity to win a significant victory and “turn the tide of fighting”.

He said:

Today the capture or encirclement of Avdiivka is probably the most it can achieve at this stage.

Smoke rises from the area in the direction of Avdiivka, as seen from Donetsk this week. Photograph: Alexander Ermochenko/Reuters

Ukraine claims it thwarted Russian saboteur group crossing border into Sumy

Ukraine claims it has thwarted an attempt overnight by a Russian saboteur group to cross its north-eastern border in the Sumy region, Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the armed forces of Ukraine, said on Thursday.

“The saboteurs tried to cross the state border of Ukraine and intended to move further towards one of the civilian critical infrastructure facilities,” Reuters reports he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The eight-member group was repelled by Ukrainian fire, he said, adding that there were no losses among Ukrainian troops.

Ukraine identifies suspected informers in deadly wake strike in Hroza

Ukraine’s security service on Wednesday said it had identified two suspected informers who allegedly helped Russia strike at a wake last week, killing more than 50 people.

AFP reports:

The SBU named two local men now living in Russia, saying they were suspected of giving information that led to a missile attack on the village of Hroza in the Kharkiv region, one of the deadliest strikes of the war.

On 5 October, a missile hit a large gathering at a cafe for the wake of a Ukrainian soldier, killing 55.

The SBU said the suspects handed over details knowing that local civilians would “surely die” in an attack.

The SBU named the suspects as 30-year-old Volodymyr Mamon and his 23-year-old brother Dmytro Mamon, who have both fled to Russia.

Dmytro was a traffic policeman, while Volodymyr was a police escort driver under the occupying authorities, according to documents posted by the SBU.

The security service posted phone messages from Volodymyr Mamon asking about the wake’s location and the dead man’s military service.

Russia seeks return to UN human rights council

Good morning and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine.

Russia will seek to return to the UN human rights council on Tuesday, just days after a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian village of Hroza killed more than 50 people.

Moscow was booted from the Geneva-based body after it invaded Ukraine last year but will be considered in a vote by the general assembly for a new seat for the 2024-26 term.

The vote will take place by secret ballot, testing Russia’s contention that it has private support in developing countries weary of the west’s billions of dollars in support to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has accused Moscow of wanting to trigger war in the Middle East to undermine world unity and “thus help Russia destroy freedom in Europe”.

In other developments:

• The US army said Congress needed to approve additional funding quickly to ensure the Pentagon’s munitions production and acquisition plans can meet the needs of Israel and Ukraine simultaneously. The army secretary, Christine Wormuth, made the comments as the US House of Representatives is in effect paralysed as Republicans work to select a new speaker.

• At the White House, John Kirby, the spokesperson for the national security council, emphasised that the US government had existing funding to support Israel for the time being. “If we need – and it’s an ‘if’, but – if we need to go back to Capitol Hill for additional funding support for Israel, we will absolutely do that,” Kirby said. “We are a large enough, big enough, economically viable and vibrant enough country to be able to support both [Israel and Ukraine].”

• Zelenskiy said it was in Russia’s interests to stoke war in the Middle East “to create a new source of pain and suffering that would weaken global unity, create divisions and help Russia in undermining freedom in Europe”. In his nightly video address, he added that Russian propagandists were “gloating” at developments.

• Grieving families have begun burying their loved ones in the eastern Ukraine village of Hroza, which was targeted by Russian missiles in an attack that killed more than 50 people last week. About 30 graves have been dug for burial at the cemetery in the small village, which now numbers about 330 inhabitants, down from 500 when the conflict began.

• The top UN trade official, Rebeca Grynspan, met Russian officials in Moscow on Monday for talks aimed at enabling the “unimpeded access” to global markets for grain and fertiliser from Russia and Ukraine, a UN spokesperson said.

• Zelenskiy will visit neighbouring Romania on Tuesday, his first trip to the Nato member country since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, the Romanian presidency has said.

• Russian lawmakers have been given 10 days to study the possibility of revoking Moscow’s ratification of a treaty banning nuclear tests, the state Duma, the lower house of parliament, said in a statement. The chamber’s international affairs committee will need to conclude its work by 18 October, the statement said.

• Zelenskiy has replaced the commander of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Forces, which have played an important role in helping defend the country since Russia’s invasion. A presidential order published on Monday announced the appointment of Maj Gen Anatoliy Barhylevych as the new commander.

• The UN rights office warned that there is no system to return Ukrainian children taken to Russia since Moscow’s invasion of the country last year, and that some of those who did come back had reported mistreatment. Ukrainian authorities say they have identified and verified almost 20,000 children who have been taken to Russia during the war.

• Zelenskiy has appealed at the Nato parliamentary assembly for the international rule of law to unite and deal with terrorism, comparing the attack by what he called a “terrorist organisation” on Israel with the similar tactics used by Russia, which he said was a “terrorist state”.

• Ukraine’s parliament registered a draft law on Monday that would allow a ban on activities of the Moscow-linked Ukrainian Orthodox Church.
  The church has been accused by Kyiv of undermining Ukraine’s unity and collaborating with Russia following Moscow’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, charges that it denies.

UN concerned ‘no established system’ to return Ukrainian children from Russia

The UN rights office said on Monday it was concerned there was no system to return Ukrainian children taken to Russia since Moscow’s invasion of the country last year and that some of those who did come back reported mistreatment.

Ukrainian authorities say they have identified and verified almost 20,000 children who have been taken to Russia during the war.

Ukraine has repatriated more than 400 children so far but says it does not know exactly how many more there are because it does not have access to Russia or swathes of occupied territory in the south and east.

“OHCHR remains gravely concerned that there is no established system to return Ukrainian children who were transferred to other regions in Russian-occupied territory or to the Russian Federation,” Nada Al-Nashif, UN deputy high commissioner for human rights, told the UN human rights council in Geneva.

Reuters reports she added “Among the children who reunited with their family after relatives travelled to the Russian Federation to retrieve them, some described experiencing or witnessing psychological or physical violence by educational staff there.”

Moscow has repeatedly denied forcibly taking Ukrainian children, saying it moved children found in orphanages or without parental care to Russia for their own safety and placed as many of as possible with relatives there. Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting the children/

The international criminal court has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia’s children’s rights commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.

Summary of the day so far

• Four people including a nine-year-old girl have been injured in a rocket strike on Konstantinivka on Sunday morning, according to the acting governor of Donetsk.

• A 27-year-old woman and her nine-month-old baby are among those wounded in a Russian attack on the Kherson region in southern Ukraine, according to its governor, Oleksandr Prokudin. The woman and the infant were hospitalised with moderate wounds, he said, adding that a 33-year-old Red Cross medic was also wounded. Several houses and gas pipelines were damaged in the attack.

• UN and local investigators are searching for answers in the village of Hroza in Kharkiv following one of the deadliest air strikes of the war. The strike on Thursday turned the sole cafe and store in the village to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other top officials in Kyiv. Only six people in the cafe survived.

• Ukraine’s armed forces report that about 580 Russian troops have been killed during fighting over the last day. Posting its latest overnight summary of casualties, the Ukrainian military claims Russia has suffered 282,280 losses since the start of the war on 24 February last year.The figures have not been independently verified and are still being updated.

• Poland’s president, Andrzej Duda, says that current violence between Hamas and Israel is useful for Russia in diverting the world’s attention and works in their favour. Duda argued in an interview with private broadcaster Polsat News on Sunday that conflict in the Middle East distracts international scrutiny away from Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and may result in new migration pressures on Europe.

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has spoken about the situation in Israel, drawing parallels with the war in Ukraine by stating that “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable”. He said his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid any Ukrainians in Israel. Officials have estimated that about 15,000 Ukrainian refugees have fled to Israel. While having sent tons of humanitarian aid, Netanyahu has consistently refused to supply weapons to Kyiv.

• A United Russia party official in the Russian-held town of Nova Kakhovka in the Kherson oblast was killed in a car explosion on Saturday, the Russian-installed regional governor said. Vladimir Malov, executive secretary of the town branch of Russia’s governing United Russia party, died in hospital, Vladimir Saldo said in a post on his Telegram channel. Kyiv has not claimed responsibility.

• Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former leader, has called for a civil war in the US, as he said a civil war would be the only thing that could stop “America’s manic passion for sparking conflicts everywhere on the planet”.

• Train traffic between North Korea and Russia has dramatically increased after the recent summit between leaders Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin, indicating a “likely” transfer of arms, according to a new report by Washington-based analysts. High-resolution satellite imagery reveals at least 70 freight cars at North Korea’s border Tumangang rail facility, the Beyond Parallel group said on Friday, a number described as “unprecedented”.

One person killed in shelling of Russia’s Belgorod oblast

A man was killed in the morning shelling of the village of Urazovo in Russia’s Belgorod oblast, the regional governor said.

Vyacheslav Gladkov said the attack came from Ukrainian forces, but the Guardian could not independently verify those claims. Ukraine typically does not claim responsibility for strikes on Russia.

A utility building, a storage facility and one social facility were destroyed in the attack, and 14 private households were damaged, Gladkov said.

The Belgorod oblast is located just over the Ukrainian border and has sustained a number of attacks in recent weeks.

Yesterday, the villages of Verigovka, Poros and Pervomaisky came under mortar fire, as did the Shebekino checkpoint, Gladkov said. Two artillery shells were fired at the village of Zhuravlevka, while a grenade launcher fired on the outskirts of Stary village. A fragmentation munition was dropped from an unmanned drone on the outskirts of the Plotvyanka village. There were no casualties reported from any of these attacks.

Boy, 10, and his grandmother killed in airstrike on Kharkiv, Ukrainian officials say

Russia unleashed new airstrikes on Ukraine early on Friday, killing a 10-year-old boy and his grandmother in the city of Kharkiv and damaging grain and port infrastructure in the Odesa region in the south, Ukrainian officials said.

The boy and his grandmother were killed when Russia hit Ukraine’s second biggest city with two Iskander ballistic missiles, regional governor, Oleh Synehubov, said.

Twenty-eight others were injured, including an 11-month-old baby, he said, according to Reuters. These claims are yet to be independently verified.

The missile attack was claimed to have destroyed much of a residential building, where rescue workers searched among the rubble.

The attacks followed a Russian missile strike on Thursday in which Ukrainian officials said dozens of people were killed in the village of Hroza in north-eastern Ukraine during a gathering to mourn a fallen Ukrainian soldier.

UK accuses Russia of planning to mine Black Sea

Britain has accused Russia of plotting to sabotage civilian tankers loaded with Ukrainian grain by planting sea mines on the approaches to the country’s Black Sea ports.

Based on what it said was declassified intelligence, the UK said Russia did not want to directly attack merchant ships using Ukraine’s newly created humanitarian corridor with missiles, but instead try to destroy them covertly.

Russia would then seek to blame Ukraine for the loss of any shipping in an attempt to evade responsibility, the British Foreign Office continued, and the UK said it was going public in order to deter Moscow from carrying out the plan.

James Cleverly, the UK foreign secretary, accused Russia of the “pernicious targeting” of civilian shipping: “The world is watching – and we see right through Russia’s cynical attempts to lay blame on Ukraine for their attacks.”

31 drones shot down over Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk overnight, says Russian Ministry of Defence

Dozens of Ukrainian drones attacked three Russian regions overnight, according to the Russian Ministry of Defence, which claimed to have shot down 31 unmanned aircraft in what it described as a ‘terrorist attack’.

The ministry wrote on Telegram:

On the night of October 4, the demands of the Kiev regime were suppressed and terrorist attacks were carried out on objects on the territory of the Russian Federation.

31 Ukrainian unmanned aircraft of the airplane type were intercepted and destroyed by air defense units on duty over the territory of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions.

The Guardian has not independently verified these claims.