Russia-Ukraine war: Blinken hails ‘significant’ progress as Ukraine’s forces reach Russian border in north – live

Pavlo Kyrylenko, who is Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, has given a morning update on Telegram. He states that:

In Slovyansk, at least one person was killed and one person was injured by shelling. The town of Hostre in the Kurakhivska community came under fire — fortunately, no one was injured. Avdiivka has been subjected to massive shelling at dawn for several days in a row. Today there were no casualties, we are clarifying the extent of the damage. Three people were injured as a result of the night shelling of Toretsk, and at least four houses were damaged.

He also reported that several buildings were damaged during the attacks. The claims have not been independently verified.

We reported earlier that there have been clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region has been going on for decades. [See 5.36am]

It appears the latest flare-up ended swiftly. Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan had called on Russian president Vladimir Putin, French president Emmanuel Macron and US secretary of state Antony Blinken to discuss the situation, but Reuters has a snap saying that there are local media reports that a ceasefire has been agreed.

Azerbaijan borders Russia to the south.

With Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, set to meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping in Uzbekistan this week, a senior Chinese diplomat has said Beijing was willing to shape the international order together with Russia in a “more just and rational direction”.

Agence France-Presse reports:

China and Russia have drawn closer in recent years as part of what they call a “no limits” relationship acting as a counterweight to the global dominance of the United States.

On Monday, the Communist party’s foreign affairs chief, Yang Jiechi, told Russia’s ambassador to China, Andrey Denisov, that China was “willing to work with Russia to continuously implement the spirit of high-level strategic cooperation between the two countries, safeguard the common interests of both sides, and promote the development of the international order in a more just and rational direction”.

Russia has sought to bolster ties with Asian countries, particularly China, since being hit with unprecedented western sanctions over its invasion of Ukraine. Heightening tensions between China and the west, Beijing has not condemned Moscow’s interventions in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s military says the Antonivsky Bridge across the Dnieper River near occupied Kherson is now unusable by Russian military, the Kyiv Independent reports. Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command also reported that Ukraine’s forces destroyed one tank, five 152 mm gun-howitzers, including one Msta-B and one Msta-S howitzer, and 12 units of armoured vehicles, among other Russian military equipment. As a result, 59 Russian troops were killed, the command said.

A group of Ukrainian civil society leaders says sweeping electricity cuts are part of Russia’s strategy, urging the US to ramp up support to maximise recent gains before winter, Agence France-Presse reports.

Much of eastern Ukraine was plunged into a blackout on Sunday, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, blaming deliberate attacks by Moscow as Kyiv made startling gains on the battlefield.

“Their approach is to have more cold before the winter season starts by destroying all critical infrastructure,” said Hanna Hopko, who heads the International Center for Ukrainian Victory, an umbrella group of civil society organizations.

Hopko, addressing reporters at the German Marshall Fund of the United States, said: “Putin really thinks that neither Ukraine nor Europe will survive this winter. That’s what he really hopes and that is actually the central pillar around which he now is developing his threats.”

US leaders are being careful not to declare a premature victory after a Ukrainian offensive forced Russian troops into a messy retreat in the north, the Associated Press reports.

Although there was widespread celebration of Ukraine’s gains over the weekend, US officials know Russian President Vladimir Putin still has troops and resources to tap, and his forces still control large swaths of the east and south.

“I agree there should be no spiking of the ball because Russia still has cards it can play,” said Philip Breedlove, a retired US air force general who was Nato’s top commander from 2013 to 2016. “Ukraine is now clearly making durable changes in its east and north and I believe that if the west properly equips Ukraine, they’ll be able to hold on to their gains.”

Key Russian army ‘severely degraded’, says MoD

As Russia’s forces retreat from the Kharkiv region, they are leaving behind hundreds of military vehicles, including tanks and trucks. Our picture editors assembled this series of striking images of abandoned equipment.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will speak with International Monetary Fund managing director Kristalina Georgieva on Tuesday, two sources familiar with the plan told Reuters, as Ukraine continues to press the global lender for a full-fledged financing program.

Ukrainian officials have said they are seeking an IMF program worth as much as $15bn to $20bn, although such a large amount is seen as unlikey to win IMF approval. The IMF Executive Board, at an informal session on Monday, discussed a plan that could offer Ukraine $1.4bn in emergency aid.

Clashes have erupted between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops, according to Russian news agencies, in a resumption of decades-old hostilities linked to the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Azerbaijan, which re-established full control over the territory in a six-week conflict in 2020, acknowledged casualties among its forces. Armenia made no mention of losses, but said clashes persisted overnight.

The Armenian government said it would invoke a cooperation agreement with Russia and appeal to a Russia-led security bloc, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation, as well as the UN security council, Interfax reported.

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The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, says Ukrainian forces have made important progress in their counteroffensive against Russian troops, although it was too early to predict the outcome.

“Clearly we’ve seen significant progress by the Ukrainians, particularly in the northeast, and that is a product of the support we’ve provided, but first and foremost it’s a product of the extraordinary courage and resilience of the Ukrainian armed forces and the Ukrainian people,” Blinken told reporters in Mexico City.

“It’s too early to tell exactly where this is going. The Russians maintain very significant forces in Ukraine as well as equipment and arms and munitions. They continue to use it indiscriminately against not just the Ukrainian armed forces but civilians and civilian infrastructure as we’ve seen.”

Summary and welcome