Ukraine updates: US slams ‘utter brutality’ of Russian attacks

The United Nations General Assembly has voted to reject Russia’s call for the 193-member body to hold a secret ballot this week on whether to condemn Moscow’s move to annex four partially occupied regions in Ukraine.

The General Assembly decided with 107 votes in favour that it would hold a public vote – and not a secret ballot – on a draft resolution that would condemn Russia’s “illegal so-called referenda” and the “attempted illegal annexation”. Diplomats said the vote on the resolution would likely be on Wednesday.

Only 13 countries on Monday opposed holding a public vote on the draft resolution, another 39 countries abstained and the remaining countries did not vote.

Russia had argued that a secret ballot was needed because Western lobbying meant that “it may be very difficult if positions are expressed publicly”.

Ukraine’s ambassador to the UN has denounced Russia as a “terrorist state” during an urgent United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) meeting to discuss Moscow’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

“Russia has proven once again, that this is a terrorist state that must be deterred in the strongest possible ways,” said Sergiy Kyslytsya, speaking after Russia launched a deadly barrage of missile attacks at cities across Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he spoke to US President Joe Biden about air defences after a series of Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian cities.

“Had a productive conversation with US President Joe Biden,” Zelenskyy wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

“The main topic of discussion was air defence. Currently, this is the number one priority in our defence cooperation,” he added.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made no secret of the missile raids that hit cities in Ukraine being payback for the attack on a bridge in Russian-annexed Crimea.

Pro-Kremlin hawks in Russia have also praised the attacks, with Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Putin, addressing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy personally. “We warned you, Zelenskyy, that Russia hasn’t really started yet, so stop complaining,” he said.

A barrage of missiles rained down across Ukraine on Monday — killing at least 11 people, wounding dozens and hitting infrastructure all the way from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east.

The raid is an apparent response to a blast that severely damaged the bridge linking the Crimean Peninsula to Russia. The explosion on Sunday — the day after Putin’s 70th birthday — is widely believed to be the work of Ukrainian intelligence.

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Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said his country will not be “intimidated” by Russia’s missile raids on Ukrainian cities that killed at least 11 people.

“Ukraine cannot be intimidated. It can only be more united. Ukraine cannot be stopped,” Zelenskyy said in a video shared on social media. He also promised to make the “battlefield even more painful” for Russian troops.

The United Arab Emirates foreign ministry has said President Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan’s visit to Russia aims to help reach “effective political solutions” to the Ukrainian crisis, state news agency WAM reported.

The ministry added that UAE “seeks to achieve positive results to reduce military escalation, reduce humanitarian repercussions, and reach a political settlement to achieve global peace and security.”

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) was set to meet hours after Russia launched a deadly barrage of missile raids at cities across Ukraine, as Western powers condemned Moscow’s latest attacks and sought to underscore its isolation.

The UN called the urgent meeting to discuss Russia’s declared annexation of four partly-occupied Ukrainian regions, but the debate was set to be overshadowed by the attacks on Kyiv and other cities in one of the most punishing assaults on Ukraine in months.

Ahead of the UNGA session, and with tensions at a boiling point, UN chief Antonio Guterres described Russia’s attacks as an “unacceptable escalation of the war,” his spokesperson said.

Russia is open for diplomacy, but Washington’s encouragement of  Ukraine’s “bellicose mood” complicates diplomatic efforts to solve the conflict, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has said.

“We repeat once again specially for the American side: the tasks that we set in Ukraine will be solved,” Zakharova wrote on the ministry website.

“Russia is open for diplomacy and the conditions are well known. The longer Washington encourages Kyiv’s bellicose mood and encourages rather than hinders the terrorist undertakings of Ukrainian saboteurs, the more difficult will be the search for diplomatic solutions.”

Germany has no plans to back a joint European Union debt issuance, a government source has said, denying a media report saying Chancellor Olaf Scholz supported joint debt issuances to tackle the energy crisis.

“Such plans are not known in the government,” the source said.

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US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said that Russia’s attacks on Ukraine present a “profound moral issue”, and the international community has a responsibility to make clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s actions are unacceptable.

“The international community has a responsibility to make clear that President Putin’s actions are completely unacceptable,” Blinken said in a statement.

“Now is the time to speak out in support for Ukraine; it is not the time for abstentions, placating words, or equivocations under claims of neutrality. The core principles of the UN Charter are at stake.”

The websites for a number of large US airports were briefly taken offline after a cyberattack promoted by a pro-Russian hacking group.

The distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks hit the airport websites of several major United States cities, including Atlanta, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Phoenix and St Louis.

A DDOS attack involves knocking a website offline by flooding it with traffic.

The airport websites were targeted after the pro-Russian hacking group known as “KillNet” published a list of sites and encouraged its followers to attack them. Most appeared to be functioning normally after being temporarily knocked offline.

Russian missile raids on Ukraine’s power network caused blackouts in many parts of the country, deepening fears of outages this winter and prompting Kyiv to halt electricity exports.

Attacks that killed at least 11 civilians and wounded 64 left four regions temporarily without electricity, and supplies were disrupted in several other areas, the State Emergency Service said.

“It is clear now that most of the missiles hit the power systems of different cities,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, the deputy head of the presidential office, said on the Telegram messaging app.

He warned civilians, “you need to be prepared for the consequences of such shelling, up to rolling blackouts.”

A spokesperson for Russian energy giant Gazprom has said that a NATO mine destroyer had been discovered at the Nord Stream 1 offshore gas pipeline in 2015.

The spokesperson, Sergei Kupriyanov, said the device was pulled out and rendered harmless by the Swedish armed forces.

KEEP READING:

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• Putin says response to more Ukrainian attacks will be ‘severe’

US President Joe Biden has condemned the Russian missile attacks across Ukraine, saying that they hit civilian targets with no military purpose.

“These attacks only further reinforce our commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” Biden said in a statement, promising to continue to provide support for Ukrainian forces to “defend their country and their freedom”.

The US president added that the attacks “demonstrate the utter brutality of Mr Putin’s illegal war on the Ukrainian people”.

He also stressed that Washington and its allies will continue to impose costs on Moscow over what he called “atrocities and war crimes” in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian energy ministry has said it will halt exports of electricity following Russian missile raids on energy infrastructure.

“Today’s missile strikes, which hit the thermal generation and electrical substations, forced Ukraine to suspend electricity exports from October 11, 2022 to stabilise its own energy system,” the ministry said in a statement on its website.

Ukraine Energy Minister Herman Halushchenko said Russian attacks on the energy system were “the biggest during the entire war”.

In a TV broadcast, he said that missile attacks “on the entire chain of supply [were made] in order to make switching supply as difficult as possible”.

Poland has urged its citizens in Belarus to leave the country as tensions between the two countries increase, in part due to the war in Ukraine.

“We recommend that Polish citizens staying on the territory of the Republic of Belarus leave its territory with available commercial and private means,” the Polish government said in guidance for travellers published on its website.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he held talks with Bridget Brink, the US ambassador to Ukraine, following Russia’s barrage of missile attacks on Monday morning.

“The United States condemns Russia’s attacks on the infrastructure facilities of Ukraine and is committed to holding Russia accountable for war crimes and atrocities committed in our country. Thank you for your support!” Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said he spoke with Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and reiterated Washington’s support for Kyiv after Russia’s “horrific strikes”.

“We will continue to provide unwavering economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people,” Blinken tweeted.

I just spoke with @DmytroKuleba to reiterate U.S. support for Ukraine following the Kremlin’s horrific strikes this morning. We will continue to provide unwavering economic, humanitarian, and security assistance so Ukraine can defend itself and take care of its people.

— Secretary Antony Blinken (@SecBlinken) October 10, 2022

Germany’s attorney general has launched an investigation into ruptures in the Nord Stream gas pipelines, allowing German investigators to collect evidence.

Denmark, Sweden and Germany are investigating how the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 pipelines ruptured, spewing gas into the Baltic Sea off the coast of Denmark and Sweden in September.

Russia has sought to pin the leaks on the West, while European countries called them acts of “sabotage”, without yet attributing responsibility for the incidents.

Al Jazeera has spoken to a resident of Kyiv, who says her house shook after this morning’s explosions, and two experts on Russia’s next move.

“Yes, this is revenge, but this is what Putin can afford for now,” said Kyiv-based analyst Ihar Tyshkevich. “Russia has no chances of quickly changing the situation on the front lines.”

The Russians will try to hit as “many civilian infrastructure sites as possible”, he said.

Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said Russia laid the political groundwork for the attacks more than a week ago.

Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions on September 30 led the Kremlin to claim it had a right to use weapons of mass destruction (WMD) to defend “Russian” territory, Romanenko told Al Jazeera.

“Within the framework of the Russian legislation, Putin has the right to use the WMDs,” he said.

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