Russia-Ukraine latest updates: 11 killed in Zaporizhzhia – Kyiv

The International Monetary Fund’s executive board approved Ukraine’s request for $1.3bn in additional emergency funding to help the country sustain its economy as it battles Russia’s invasion, two sources familiar with the decision have said.

The funds will come from a new emergency lending programme to address food shortages.

The Russian justice ministry has declared one of the country’s most popular rappers to be a “foreign agent”, a legal designation that has been used to hound Kremlin critics and journalists.

Oxxxymiron, whose real name is Miron Fyodorov, was added to an updated list of foreign agents alongside four journalists and Dmitry Glukhovsky, a prominent writer.

He cancelled a scheduled Russian tour in protest at the invasion of Ukraine and subsequently left Russia and gave a series of concerts in Turkey, the United Kingdom and Germany, entitled, Russians Against The War.

In late August, authorities said they were investigating his work under the country’s anti-extremism laws. Under Russian law, material designated “extremist” is effectively prohibited.

Oxxxymiron, whose lyrics are strongly political and who attended rallies backing jailed Kremlin critic Alexey Navalny, was one of Russia’s prominent rappers before the war, enjoying wide popularity in a country where hip-hop is a popular genre.

Ukrainian forces have liberated a total of 2,434sq km (940sq miles) and 96 settlements in the east of the country in their latest offensive, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address.

Zelenskyy also said that in the last week alone, Kyiv’s forces had taken 776sq km (300sq miles) and 29 settlements in the east of the country. On Thursday, he said more than 500sq km (190sq miles) had been recaptured in the south.

Poland’s government appointed temporary leadership to run Russian firm Novatek Green Energy in Poland after it was sanctioned earlier this year and forced to halt deliveries in the country, Poland’s government has said.

“I’ve decided to introduce new temporary leadership at Novatek Green Energy … This will allow clients to return to the use of the company’s network.” Waldemar Buda, the development and technology minister, said in a statement. “This is particularly important with the upcoming winter season and energy crisis.”

In April, Poland’s biggest gas company, PGNiG, said its subsidiaries Polska Spolka Gazownictwa and PGNiG Obrot Detaliczny would provide gas to customers in areas affected by a halt in deliveries from Novatek Green Energy.

The move to appoint temporary new leadership will guarantee energy security to up to 1,000 customers, the government said in the statement.

The UN nuclear watchdog’s chief Rafael Grossi will travel to Russia early next week for talks on setting up a protection zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine, the agency said in a statement.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had previously said Grossi would travel to Kyiv and Moscow this week. He was in Kyiv on Thursday.

Separately, four IAEA staff relieved the two who had been at the plant since September 1. The four will “provide support” to the protection zone once it is agreed, the IAEA said.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and his team are working to expand and extend a deal allowing Ukrainian Black Sea grain exports, which could expire in late November, a UN spokesman has said.

“They’re working actively to remove also the last obstacles to facilitate the export of Russian grain and fertiliser,” said UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric, adding that UN aid chief Martin Griffiths and senior UN trade official Rebeca Grynspan would travel to Moscow in about a week to discuss the issue.

France has created a fund, initially worth 100 million euros ($98m), for Ukraine to directly buy weapons and other materiel it needs in its war against Russia, President Emmanuel Macron said.

“We are setting up this special, dedicated fund initially with 100m euros to allow the acquisition of equipment that we have already delivered and that we will continue to do so in terms of weapons, meaning defensive ones,” Macron said after an EU summit in Prague.

He added that discussions were being held, particularly with Denmark, to deliver more highly accurate CAESAR truck-mounted cannons to Ukraine on top of the 18 France has already given.

A UN human rights body has passed a motion to appoint a new independent expert on alleged human rights abuses in Russia, accusing Moscow of creating a “climate of fear” through repression and violence.

Members voted 17 in favour and six against, with 24 abstaining. The move is the first time the 16-year-old Human Rights Council has set up a special rapporteur to examine the rights record of one of its so-called P5 members, which hold permanent seats on the Security Council.

Nearly 50 countries brought the motion including the UK, all European Union countries barring Hungary, as well as the United States, Ukraine, Japan and Colombia. China was among those who opposed it.

The Kremlin and Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Russia’s ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Gennady Gatilov, said the motion contained false allegations.

The United Kingdom has rejected Russia’s call for a secret ballot at the UN General Assembly next week on whether to condemn Moscow’s move to annex four Ukrainian regions.

Moscow moved to annex four partially occupied regions in Ukraine — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia — despite Ukraine and its allies denouncing the votes as illegal and coercive.

The UK’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward said, “To conduct a secret ballot on a General Assembly decision would go against decades of precedent and undermine the practices of the world’s most representative deliberative body.”

“That is why we are requesting under rule 87b that a recorded vote should take place on the resolution,” she said.

Ukraine’s environmental protection minister says an accident at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant could release 10 times the amount of potentially lethal radioactivity than in Chornobyl 36 years ago.

Ruslan Strilets, who is in Cyprus for a UN environmental conference, told The Associated Press a release of radioactivity of that magnitude could expand to as much as two million sq km, “three times larger than Ukraine’s total area” or an area half the size of the European Union.

An accident could also spark “a wave of environmental refugees” fleeing to other areas of Ukraine or abroad, he said.

Strilets added that about three million hectares (7.4 million acres) of forest had been damaged or burned since the beginning of Russia’s invasion.

In combination with Russian attacks on oil depots and industrial facilities, forest fires have spewed more than 67 million pollutants into the air. Currently, 812 nature-protected areas have either been damaged or remain under threat.

Strilets said a preliminary assessment of environmental damage the war has caused in the last seven months puts the cost at more than 36 billion euros ($35.25 billion).

Russia will consider starting its own investigation into Nord Stream pipelines’ leaks as Denmark did not allow Russia to be engaged in their inquiry, the Russian embassy in Denmark said.

The embassy also said Denmark’s refusal to allow Russia to be part of the investigation undermines the reliability of any future results.

Russia has sacked the commander of its Eastern Military District, Colonel-General Alexander Chaiko, the Russian news site RBC reported, in the latest military firing spree amid a string of battlefield losses in Ukraine.

RBC cited public state registers to report that Lieutenant-General Rustam Muradov had been appointed to head the Eastern Military District, which covers troops based in Russia’s far east.

However, much of its strength is currently deployed in Ukraine.

Muradov, who the European Union sanctioned in February, previously served in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and commanded Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh, a breakaway region of Azerbaijan that has been a centre of conflict with neighbouring Armenia.

Though the head of Muradov’s native Dagestan region congratulated him on his appointment, the Kremlin and defence ministry did not immediately confirm the move.

Russian President Vladimir Putin celebrated his 70th birthday, becoming the longest-serving leader since Josef Stalin.

While officials celebrated the occasion and Russian Orthodox Patriarch Krill prayed for good health, Russia’s war efforts have come into question as Ukraine’s rapid counterattack has led to the loss of occupied territory.

Read more on Putin’s 70th birthday here.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called on Brussels to increase pressure on Russia’s energy sector a day after the EU imposed a new round of sanctions on Moscow over its invasion of Ukraine.

“We must continue moving in this direction, the direction of pressure on the Russian energy sector, on this main source of income of the aggressor state,” Zelenskyy said in a video address to an EU summit in Prague.

He thanked the EU for adopting new sanctions on Moscow, which expanded import/export bans and blacklisted individuals over Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian regions.

Zelenskyy also reiterated Kyiv’s calls to “demilitarise” Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, in an area that Moscow claims to have annexed.

German Minister for Foreign Affairs Annalena Baerbock has said every vote would count next week when the United Nations General Assembly gathers to vote on a resolution to condemn Russia’s annexation of four Ukrainian territories.

Baerbock said the international community must “make clear to Russia: these areas belong to Ukraine”.

The UN General Assembly resolution would condemn Russia’s “illegal so-called referenda” and the “attempted illegal annexation” of the areas where voting occurred.

Since Russia announced the annexation referendum, Ukraine and its allies have denounced the votes in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia as illegal and coercive and called the referendums a “sham”.

Russian forces say they have captured ground in Donetsk, their first claim of new gains after Kyiv grabbed momentum with a counter-offensive that rattled Russia’s war effort.

Russian separatist forces in the Donetsk region said they had reclaimed a series of villages near the Ukraine-controlled industrial town of Bakhmut, which has been under Russian shelling for weeks.

“On the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a grouping of troops of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, with fire support from Russian forces, liberated Otradovka, Veselaya Dolina and Zaitsevo,” the separatists said on social media.

As Ukrainian forces rapidly regain territories and Russia continues with its annexation plans despite global condemnation, what exactly is the state of this conflict?

Al Jazeera’s Start Here recaps all the military and political moves that have led to this point.

A megayacht was found docked in Hong Kong and connected to sanctioned Russian oligarch Alexey Mordashov, according to shipping records, after a week-long voyage from Russia.

Mordashov was among several Russian oligarchs sanctioned by the West after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine for their links to President Vladimir Putin.

Read more on the megayacht here.

The UN Human Rights Council has agreed to monitor the rights situation in Russia, marking the first-ever resolution focused on violations inside the country.

The 47-member top UN rights body accepted draft text presented by all European Union countries except Hungary, with 17 nations voting to appoint a so-called special rapporteur to monitor Russia.

Twenty-four countries abstained, while six voted “no”, including China, Cuba and Venezuela.

The special rapporteur will monitor “The situation of human rights in the Russian Federation for a period of one year”.

“[The rapporteur will also] collect, examine and assess relevant information from all relevant stakeholders, including Russian civil society both inside and outside of the country,” and present a report in a year.

The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to human rights champions Ales Bialiatski of Belarus, Russia’s Memorial group and Ukraine’s Center for Civil Liberties for documenting war crimes and rights abuses.

The head of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Berit Reiss-Andersen, told reporters: “They [winners] have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human right abuses and the abuse of power. Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy”.

“This prize is not addressing President Putin … except that his government … is representing an authoritarian government that is suppressing human rights activists,” Reiss-Andersen said.

The committee also called for the release of Bialiatski, who has been jailed since 2021 in Belarus.