Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy says Ukrainian forces make gains in Kherson after taking full control of Lyman

Pavlo Kyrylenko, Ukraine’s governor of Donetsk, has reported on Telegram that at least one person is trapped under rubble in an educational establishment in Chasiv Yar after Russian shelling. The claim has not been independently verified.

Zelenskiy: Ukraine has made gains in Kherson as well as Donetsk

Ukraine’s governor of Kharkiv, Oleh Synyehubov, has posted to Telegram that in the last 24 hours two civilians were hospitalised “as a result of Russian shelling”.

He also said that “in the Izium district near Balakliia, an emergency medical vehicle was blown up by a mine. Unfortunately, the 60-year-old driver died. A 23-year-old paramedic was injured.”

He said that another 26-year-old man was injured by a landmine in the Kharkiv district, and that “569 explosive objects were neutralised by deminers of the state emergency service during the day”.

The claims have not been independently verified.

Russian state-media Tass has reported that about 300 residents of Yakutia, called up during the partial mobilisation by mistake, have returned to the republic. Yakutia is a region in the far north-east of the Russian Federation.

A rehabilitation centre where children with special needs study has been destroyed overnight by Russian shelling in the city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Ukraine’s governor for the region, Oleksandr Starukh.

Starukh claimed “about 10 S300 missiles were launched” at the region, but that there were no casualties.

The claims have not been independently verified. Zaporizhzhia is one of the regions Russia announced it was annexing last week.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, has posted to Telegram to say that Ukrainian forces fired on the village of Golovchino, which is over the border from Ukraine’s Sumy and Kharkiv regions. He claims that a 48-year-old woman has been killed. The claims have not been independently verified.

A church reduced to rubble, a dog exploring the ruins of a village in Kharkiv region, and a Ukrainian soldier in a moment of rest – some of the latest images from the war.

Russian president Vladimir Putin’s unusually rapid acknowledgment of problems with Russia’s partial mobilisation highlights the likely scale of dysfunction with the draft, the UK Ministry of Defence says.

In its latest intelligence briefing, the MoD says officials have almost certainly drafted ineligible people, and will struggle to train the new recruits.

Russian forces are continuing forced mobilisation efforts in the occupied territories of Ukraine, the Kyiv Independent reports.

Citing an update from Ukraine’s Southern Operational Command, the Independent reported that Russian officials were making rounds to people’s homes and compiling lists of men of conscript age.

Passing through checkpoints had also become increasingly complicated, with Russian forces requiring an extensive list of documents, conducting lengthy inspections of vehicles, removing gadgets, money, and other valuables, and often refusing to let vehicles through.

Moscow’s setbacks on the battlefield are causing it to lose control of Russia’s “information space”, according to the Institute for the Study of War.

In a special edition of its daily analysis, the thinktank found that Kremlin propagandists were departing from Moscow’s preferred narrative and openly expressing disappointment with the conduct of Russia’s partial mobilisation, while grieving the loss of the key city of Lyman.

Some guests on heavily edited Kremlin television shows that aired on October 1 even criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin’s decision to annex four Ukrainian oblasts before securing their administrative borders or even the frontline, expressing doubts about Russia’s ability ever to occupy the entirety of these territories.

Along with Lyman, Ukraine forces have liberated the small Arkhanhelske and Myrolyubivka settlements in the Kherson region as well, Reuters has reported Volodymyr Zelenskiy as saying.

Ukraine’s Interfax agency reported that according to Serhiy Cherevatyi, spokesperson for the Ukrainian Eastern Group of Forces, Ukraine’s forces recaptured Torske, a village in the Donetsk region, about 15km (nine miles) east of the now-liberated Lyman.

Russia’s parliament will consider on Monday bills and ratification treaties to absorb the regions annexed by President Vladimir Putin, the speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, Vyacheslav Volodin says.

The areas Putin claimed as annexed just over seven months into Russia’s invasion of its neighbour – Donetsk and Luhansk plus Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in the south – are equal to about 18% of Ukraine’s total surface land area.

A pomp-filled Kremlin signing ceremony with the regions’ Russian-installed leaders on Friday failed to stem a wave of criticism within Russia of how its military operation is being handled.

The British government’s ability to investigate the true ownership of properties has come into question after researchers found £700m of luxury homes previously linked to sanctioned oligarchs are not flagged for asset freezes.

The campaign group Transparency International UK has identified 33 houses, flats and office blocks in London or Surrey that are not marked as restricted on the UK property register, which it says have been publicly linked to sanctioned individuals, raising questions about whether they should have been flagged.

You can read the full story here:

The Ukrainian advance in Donetsk is bringing the city of Sloviansk back to life, the Guardian’s Peter Beaumont reports.

For the city of Sloviansk, the recapture of the strategic hub of Lyman about 12 miles away by Ukrainian forces has brought a new mood of optimism.

The Donbas city was once one of Russia’s main objectives along with neighbouring Kramatorsk.

On Sunday as a continuous stream of military traffic was visible leaving Sloviansk in the direction of Lyman, the impact of the fall of the strategic railway junction was already transforming Sloviansk, a place that for months has been a ghost city.

You can read the full report here:

Lyman’s recapture by Ukrainian troops is Russia’s largest battlefield loss since Ukraine’s lightning counteroffensive in the north-eastern Kharkiv region in September.

Russian forces had captured Lyman from Ukraine in May and had been using it as a logistics and transport hub for its operations in the north of the Donetsk region.

Control over Lyman could prove a “key factor” in helping Ukraine reclaim lost territory in the neighbouring Luhansk region, whose full capture Moscow announced in early July after weeks of grinding advances, Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said.

Lyman’s operational importance was due to its command over a road crossing over the Siverskyi Donets River, behind which Russia has been attempting to consolidate its defences, Britain’s Ministry of Defence said.

“Thanks to the successful operation in Lyman we are moving towards the second north-south route…and that means a second supply line will be disrupted,” said reserve colonel Viktor Kevlyuk at Ukraine’s Centre for Defence Strategies thinktank.

“And in that case, the Russian group in Luhansk and Donetsk could only be supplied strictly through (Russia’s) Rostov region,” Kevlyuk told media outlet Espreso TV.

The Guardian’s Luke Harding filed this report from Kyiv:

The recapture of Lyman had become the most popular story in the media, Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy noted in his Sunday evening address. “But the successes of our soldiers are not limited to Lyman,” he added.

“At least twice a day – in the morning and in the evening – I receive reports from our military. This week, the largest part of the reports is the list of settlements liberated from the enemy as part of our ongoing defence operation,” he said.

“Now I am optimistic and very motivated,” a 33-year-old Ukrainian soldier told Agence France-Presse after returning from near Lyman. “I see the activity on the front line, and how foreign weapons … help us take our lands back.”

David Petraeus’s warning to Moscow

Summary and welcome