Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday that it was in Russia’s interests to stoke war in the Middle East to weaken global unity.

“Based on available information — very clear information — it is in Russia’s interests to inflame war in the Middle East to create a new source of pain and suffering that would weaken global unity, create divisions and help Russia in undermining freedom in Europe,” Zelensky said in his nightly video address.

It comes as Ukrainian forces have made was supposed to be a chance for Europe to gain some clarity about two major issues – how to tackle migration and what to do about welcoming war-ravaged Ukraine and other nations into the EU.

On Thursday, the European Political Community (EPC) met, with 44 heads of state or government coming together from across the continent. It included the EU member states as well as countries like the UK and Ukraine.

Migration was a key issue, with EU nations split between those who want initiatives focused on distributing those who arrive into the bloc between all members in a joint act of solidarity and those nations who see such migration as a threat.

Why two of the EU’s biggest political headaches aren’t going away any time soon

Dozen injured, including baby, in Russian attack on Ukraine’s Kherson – governor

Sunday 8 October 2023 08:11 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

A dozen people were wounded, including a 27-year-old woman and her 9-month-old baby, in a Russian attack on the southern Ukrainian region of Kherson, its governor said on Sunday.

“The Kherson region experienced another terrible night,” Governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

The woman and the infant were hospitalised with moderate wounds, he said, adding that a 33-year-old Red Cross medic was also wounded.

Several houses and gas pipelines were damaged in the attack.

Over the past 24 hours, Russian forces carried out 59 attacks on Kherson, the region’s administration said on Telegram, including 19 instances of shelling of Kherson city, the region’s administrative centre.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Russia.

Russia has frequently carried out air strikes and shelling on Ukraine since the start of its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Ukraine says its counteroffensive in the south and east is gradually making progress.

Both sides deny targeting civilians, but thousands of civilians in Ukraine have been killed in attacks that have hit residential areas as well as energy, defence, port, grain and other facilities.

A look at Russia’s deadliest missile attacks on Ukraine

Sunday 8 October 2023 07:00 , Athena Stavrou

Since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the Russian military has repeatedly used missiles to blast civilian targets across the country, with devastating consequences.

One of the deadliest such attacks happened Thursday when a Russian rocket struck a village cafe and store in the village of Hroza in eastern Ukraine, killing 52 civilians.

Here is a look at some of the deadliest strikes so far:

A look at Russia’s deadliest missile attacks on Ukraine

Russian forces ‘conduct regimental rotation’

Sunday 8 October 2023 06:30 , Athena Stavrou

Russian forces appear to have recently conducted a regimental rotation in the Orikhiv area, demonstrating an ability to sustain their defenses in this critical sector of the frontline, war monitoring think-tank say.

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) say that substantial elements of the 42nd Motorized Rifle Division and two VDV divisions have been rotated in and out of the frontline south of Orikhiv.

This is something Russian forces have been struggling to do in recent months.

Russian ex-TV journalist sentenced in absentia

Sunday 8 October 2023 06:00 , Athena Stavrou

Reminder: A court in Moscow has handed a former state TV journalist an 8-year prison term in absentia for protesting against Russia’s war in Ukraine:

Former Russian state TV journalist gets 8 1/2-year sentence in absentia for Ukraine war criticism

Sunday 8 October 2023 05:30 , Athena Stavrou

Ukrainian officials say a 10-year-old boy has been killed and a further 20 people wounded after a Russian missile attack on a block of flats in the centre of Kharkiv on Friday.

The attack came less than a day after a strike on the small village of Hroza in Kharkiv oblast, which killed 52 people on Thursday.

Footage from inside Kharkiv apartment captured aftermath of deadly strike.

UN investigators search for answer at site of Russian missile strike

Sunday 8 October 2023 05:01 , Namita Singh

UN and local investigators searched for answers on Saturday at the site of a Russian missile strike that killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to president Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials in Kyiv.

Representatives from the United Nations Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) spent much of the day speaking with local residents and survivors in Hroza, in the northeastern Kharkiv region, according to a statement shared with the Associated Press.

“My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village cafe and store, was also clearly civilian,” Danielle Bell, who led the team that visited Hroza yesterday, was cited as saying in the UN statement.

“What happened here is yet another tragic reminder of the deadly impact Russia’s invasion has had on Ukraine’s civilians,” Mr Bell added.

Only six people in the cafe survived, and the town is trying to fathom why and how the wake was targeted. Dmytro Chubenko, spokesman for the regional prosecutor, said on Friday that investigators are looking into whether someone from the area transmitted the cafe’s coordinates to the Russians — a betrayal to everyone now grieving in Hroza.

Russia says it shoots down two missiles over Crimea

Sunday 8 October 2023 05:00 , Athena Stavrou

Russia’s defence ministry said the country’s air defence systems had “detected and destroyed” two Ukrainian S-200 anti-aircraft missiles, thwarting attacks it said Kyiv attempted four hours apart on the Crimean Peninsula on Saturday.

The reports by the ministry, which have not been verified, did not say where exactly the missiles were shot down over Crimea, annexed by Moscow in 2014.

At 10:25 p.m. in Moscow, Ukrainian public broadcaster Suspilne quoted a resident as saying two explosions rang out in the area of Yevtaporiya in the west of Crimea.

Earlier, other local channels carried an image of smoke over Dzhankoi in the north and reported sounds of explosions.

Police identify 48 out of 52 civilians killed in Russian bomb attack on cafe

Sunday 8 October 2023 04:38 , Namita Singh

Ukrainian police have identified 48 out of the 52 civilians killed by the missile blast, according to the chief police investigator for Kharkiv province. In a Facebook post, Serhii Bolvinov said that investigation teams were “gathering up dead bodies, literally piece by piece.”

Not all of the victims have been identified. Regional police investigator Mr Bolvinov told reporters late on Thursday that authorities would have to use DNA to identify some of the victims because their remains were beyond recognition.

Hand grenade fragments found in the bodies of victims in Prigozhin’s plane crash

Sunday 8 October 2023 04:00 , Athena Stavrou

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of people who died in the Aug. 23 crash of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin’s plane.

Experts investigating the crash found no indication the private jet had suffered an “external impact,” he said. Prigozhin and two of his top lieutenants of the Wagner private military contractor were among the 10 people killed when the jet came down as it flew from Moscow to St. Petersburgh.

There was no way to independently verify Putin’s statement.

Hand grenade fragments were found in the bodies of victims in Prigozhin’s plane crash, Putin says

Pictures: Devastated village copes with aftermath of Russian strike on funeral

Sunday 8 October 2023 03:00 , Athena Stavrou

UN and local investigators searched for answers on Saturday at the site of a Russian missile strike on the small Ukrainian village of in Hroza, in the northeastern Kharkiv region

The attack days earlier turned its sole cafe to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials in Kyiv.

where is Hroza?

Sunday 8 October 2023 02:00 , Athena Stavrou

A precision missile strike on a cafe hosting soldier’s wake killed 52 and decimated the Ukrainian village of Hroza.

The village cafe was obliterated and whole families perished after the missile strike on Thursday cut short a wake for Andriy Kozyr, a soldier from Hroza who died last winter fighting Russia’s invading forces in eastern Ukraine.

His son Dmytro Kozyr, also a soldier, was among those who died in the attack alongside his wife Nina, just days short of her 20th birthday, according to Ukrainian media reports. As of Saturday, Ukrainian law enforcement and the regional prosecutor’s office put the number of victims at 52.

The tiny village only had a population on around 500 before the war, and many are questioning why it was targetted.

Russian defence minister inspects factory for advanced missiles

Sunday 8 October 2023 01:00 , Athena Stavrou

Russia’s defence minister Sergei Shoigu inspected a military factory producing the Sarmat intercontinental missile, saying it would soon be ready for use, his ministry posted on Telegram Saturday.

The Sarmat missile will be “put on combat duty in the near future,” the ministry said in a statement, as reported by AFP.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday said Russia had almost completed work on the Sarmat, after Moscow earlier this year announced it had successfully tested the missiles. Putin said the “truly unique weapon will strengthen the combat potential of our armed forces, reliably ensure the security of Russia from external threats.”

Russia attacks Nikopol three times in one day

Saturday 7 October 2023 23:59 , Athena Stavrou

Russia attacked the city of Nikopol in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, southern Ukraine, three times in one day, local Governor Serhii Lysak reported on Saturday

Russian forces used heavy artillery against the city twice during the day and once in the evening, Lysak said in a Telegram post.

A school, municipal enterprise, 11 homes, power lines, a gas pipeline, and nearly a dozen commercial buildings were damaged, the governor said.

However, no casualties were reported, according to the local authorities.

Zelenskyy condemns Hamas following attacks in Israel

Saturday 7 October 2023 23:00 , Athena Stavrou

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has condemned Hamas’ attacks on Israel.

In a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, the Ukrainian PM said: “We in Ukraine have a special feeling about what has happened. Thousands of rockets in the Israeli sky… People killed just on the streets… Civilian cars shot through… Detainees being humiliated…

“Our position is crystal clear: anyone who causes terror and death anywhere on the planet must be held accountable.”

Russia plans to reverse global nuclear test ban, announces envoy

Saturday 7 October 2023 22:00 , Athena Stavrou

Russia plans to withdraw its ratification of the 1996 treaty that prohibited the testing of nuclear weapons, the country’s envoy to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organisation [CTBTO] said on Friday.

Mr Ulyanov, Moscow’s envoy to the CTBTO, said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, that “#Russia plans to revoke ratification (which took place in the year 2000) of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty.”

“We are disturbed by the comments of Ambassador Ulyanov in Vienna today,” a US State Department spokesperson said in a statement. “A move like this by any State Party needlessly endangers the global norm against nuclear explosive testing.”

What are Russia’s Iskander missiles?

Saturday 7 October 2023 21:00 , Athena Stavrou

Following Russia’s Iskander missile attack, which killed 52 during funeral near Kharkiv, The Independent explains what the missiles are:

What are Russian Iskander missiles?

Russian attack on village cafe kills at least 51 people, Ukraine says

Saturday 7 October 2023 20:01 , Athena Stavrou

UN and local investigators searched for answers at the site of a Russian missile strike on a small Ukrainian village that days earlier turned its sole cafe to rubble and killed nearly 52 people gathered for a dead soldier’s wake, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other top officials in Kyiv.

“My initial conversations with local residents and survivors indicate that virtually all those killed were civilians and that the target itself, a busy village cafe and store, was also clearly civilian,” Danielle Bell, who led the team that visited Hroza on Saturday, was cited as saying in the UN statement.“What happened here is yet another tragic reminder of the deadly impact Russia’s invasion has had on Ukraine‘s civilians,” Bell added.The village cafe was obliterated and whole families perished after the missile strike on Thursday cut short a wake for Andriy Kozyr, a soldier from Hroza who died last winter fighting Russia’s invading forces in eastern Ukraine.

His son Dmytro Kozyr, also a soldier, was among those who died in the attack alongside his wife Nina, who was just days short of her 21st birthday.