12:31pm: Kremlin says Putin not ending mobilisation ‘yet’
President Vladimir Putin does not plan to end a military mobilisation in Russia “yet” but some of the country’s regions completed the process, the Kremlin said Tuesday.
“For the moment, there is no presidential decree (on ending mobilisation),” Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
He spoke a day after Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced an end to the mobilisation in the capital, closing the city’s draft offices.
Putin announced a nationwide military call-up to prop up Moscow’s forces in Ukraine on September 21, in a move that has led to an exodus of men and some discontent.
Last week the Russian leader said he aimed to end the drive “within about two weeks”.
12:14pm: Ukraine says situation ‘critical’ after strikes on energy facilities
The situation in Ukraine is “critical” following waves of Russian strikes targeting the country’s energy infrastructure ahead of winter, Ukraine’s presidency said Tuesday.
“The situation is critical now across the country because our regions are dependent on one another… it’s necessary for the whole country to prepare for electricity, water and heating outages,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, told Ukrainian television.
12:07pm: Russian strikes on Kyiv energy facility kill two, say prosecutors
Russian strikes that targeted an energy facility in Kyiv left at least two people dead, officials said Tuesday, in a wave of bombardments that knocked out electricity in several cities across the country.
“On October 18, 2022, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, using means of warfare prohibited by international law, launched a missile attack on an energy supply facility on the left bank of the capital. Preliminarily, two people were killed and one was injured,” the regional prosecutor’s office said.
11:53am: Kremlin says it has no knowledge of its army using Iranian drones in Ukraine
The Kremlin said Tuesday it had “no information” of its forces using Iranian drones in Ukraine after Kyiv and the West said Moscow used Tehran’s weapons in its deadly strikes.
“No, we have no information on this. Russian tech is used,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said when asked whether Russia was using Iranian drones during a briefing, referring any further questions on the issue to the defence ministry.
11:48am: Russia says ‘technical malfunction’ likely behind Yeysk jet crash
Russia on Tuesday said a “technical malfunction” probably caused a military jet to crash into a block of flats in Yeysk, near Ukraine, killing at least 13 people including three children.
Investigators said they were questioning the pilots of the Sukhoi Su-34, who managed to parachute out of the plane before it crashed on Monday evening into the nine-storey building, engulfing it in flames.
Nineteen people were injured, four of them critically.
The crash was probably caused by “a technical malfunction”, Russia’s investigative committee, which probes serious crimes, said.
It said it had launched a criminal inquiry into possible violations of flight rules, and had “seized fuel samples at the departure aerodrome” and “flight recorders at the site of the crash”.
11:03am: Fifty metres of Nord Stream pipe destroyed
At least 50 metres of the Nord Stream 1 pipeline has been destroyed or buried under the seafloor, following an explosion assumed to be from sabotage, underwater images published Tuesday showed.
Danish police meanwhile said their inspections of the pipelines 1 and 2 in the Danish economic zone of the Baltic Sea confirmed the damage was “caused by powerful explosions”.
In videos published by Swedish newspaper Expressen, a massive tear and twisted metal can be seen on the Nord Stream 1 pipeline 80 metres down in the Baltic Sea.
Expressen said the videos, filmed on Monday, show how over 50 metres (165 feet) of the pipeline is either missing or buried under the seabed, and long tears can be observed on the seabed leading up to the burst pipe.
“It is only an extreme force that can bend metal that thick in the way we are seeing,” Trond Larsen, drone operator with the Norwegian company Blueye Robotics, told Expressen.
Larsen, who piloted the submersible drone which captured the video, also said you could also see “a very large impact on the seabed around the pipe.”
10:45am: Power cuts in Kyiv and Ukraine regions after strikes on energy facilities
Several regions of Ukraine, including the capital Kyiv, were experiencing power cuts after multiple strikes targeted energy facilities, local officials and agencies said Tuesday.
Many settlements in Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, and parts of Dnipro city in central Ukraine were without electricity, while power was restored to the southern city of Mykolaiv after strikes overnight.
Russian air strikes have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s power stations since October 10, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
He wrote on Twitter that the attacks had caused massive blackouts across Ukraine and that there was “no space left for negotiations” with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
8:35am: Ukraine says three strikes hit ‘power facility’ in Kyiv
Ukraine said Tuesday three strikes had hit a “power facility” in Kyiv, a day after deadly Russian drone strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
“Preliminarily, three hits on a power supply facility on the left bank of Kyiv,” said Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, on social media.
Reporting from the city of Zaporizhzhia, FRANCE 24 correspondent Catherine Norris Trent says that strikes there are a nightly occurrence and notes “how important the energy infrastructure is” in the Zaporizhzhia region, home to Europe’s largest nuclear power station and a huge hydroelectric dam.
8:15am: Ukraine says Russia ‘kidnapped’ two nuclear plant workers
Ukraine’s state nuclear energy agency on Tuesday accused Russia of detaining two senior employees at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine.
In a statement on social media, Energoatom said Russian forces on Monday “kidnapped” the head of information technology Oleg Kostyukov and the plant’s assistant general director Oleg Osheka and “took them to an unknown destination”.
6:50am: Russian military jet crash leaves 13 dead as search ends
At least 13 people, including three children, were killed after a Russian military plane crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a town in southwest Russia near the border with Ukraine, Moscow authorities said Tuesday as search operations ended.
The ministry of emergency situations said in a statement that rescuers had completed the search of the rubble, and discovered “10 more bodies”, after earlier announcing three deaths.
“In total, 13 people died, including three children, while 19 people were injured,” according to the ministry, as quoted by Russian news agencies.
6:40am: Deadly drone strikes hit Kyiv as Russian warplane crashes
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