Latest Ukraine updates: Kadyrov urges use of nuclear weapon

Germany will deliver the first of four advanced IRIS-T air defence systems to Ukraine in the coming days to help ward off drone attacks, its defence minister, Christine Lambrecht, said during her visit to Odesa.

“In a few days, we will deliver the very modern IRIS-T air defence system,” she told ARD television. “It is very important for drone defence, in particular.”

UN nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi is expected to hold talks in Moscow and Kyiv next week on the creation of a protection zone around the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant (ZNPP) in Ukraine, the watchdog said on Saturday.

“Director General Grossi continues his consultations and other efforts aimed at agreeing and implementing a nuclear safety and security zone around the ZNPP as soon as possible. He is expected to travel to Kyiv and Moscow next week,” the International Atomic Energy Agency said in a statement.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has revealed that fighting was continuing in the strategic town of Lyman, despite Russian claims of retreating from the city.

“The Ukrainian flag is already in Lyman in the Donetsk region. Fighting is still going on there,” Zelenskyy said in a late-night video address.

Germany’s Minister of Defence Christine Lambrecht has made a surprise visit to Ukraine, her first since Russia’s invasion in February.

Lambrecht visited the southern port city of Odesa, the German defence ministry said in a statement, without saying how long the trip had lasted. It added on Twitter that she had met her Ukrainian counterpart, Oleksii Reznikov.

United Nations inspectors boarded ships anchored off the coast of Istanbul to make inspections as part of the Black Sea Grain Initiative and joint coordination efforts managed by the United Nations together with Turkey, Russia, and Ukraine.

A United Nations inspector on one of the ships, Averi Nissanka, told The Associated Press news agency that inspectors are assigned to ships daily by the Joint Coordination Center, which has delegations representing the maritime elements of Russia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Nations.

“There are different countries, different perspectives, but these people work together for a same objective”, Nissanka said. “So we usually do like three vessels per day,” he added.

Inspectors representing all parties at the Bosporus in Turkey have been searching vessels entering and leaving Ukrainian ports to ensure no weapons or soldiers are on board, a clause of the agreement signed heavily insisted on by Russia.

Russian Minister of Defence Sergei Shoigu inspected accommodation facilities for recruits at a military facility outside Moscow, the ministry said.

The defence ministry shared a video showing Shoigu and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin visiting the accommodation site, as well as recruits at a shooting exercise.

When asked by a journalist if women will be called up for the partial mobilisation ordered last month, Shoigu said, “No. No, this was not in the plans and is not in the plans for the future. We do not plan and are not going to call up women.”

Russian forces shelled a civilian evacuation convoy in Ukraine’s northeast killing 24 people on Saturday, Ukrainian officials said.

“In the Kupyansk district, a shot-at convoy of cars containing civilians was found. According to preliminary data, 20 people died in the cars,” Kharkiv Governor Oleg Synegubov said on the Telegram messenger site.

Synegubov put the preliminary death toll at 24 including a pregnant woman and 13 children.

Read more here.

The Danish Energy Agency says one of two ruptured natural gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea appears to have stopped leaking gas.

The agency posted on Twitter that it had been informed by the company operating the Nord Stream 2 pipeline that pressure appears to have stabilised in the pipeline, which runs from Russia to Germany.

“This indicates that the leaking of gas in this pipeline has ceased,” the Danish Energy Agency said.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands reporting from Kyiv said losing Lyman will be a “blow” to Russia’s ability to supply other war fronts.

“Lyman is a rail hub … Russia’s military relies very heavily on for rail transportation to move troops, to move weaponry, to move supplies around the front lines,” he added.

“It also provides Ukrainian another launchpad for further offensives into Russian-occupied territories,” he added.

Russia failed to win enough votes for re-election to the United Nation’s aviation agency’s governing council on Saturday, in a boost for Western powers that wanted to hold Moscow accountable following its invasion of Ukraine.

Russia fell short of the votes needed to stay on the International Civil Aviation Organization’s (ICAO) 36-nation governing council, during the agency’s assembly which runs through October 7 in Montreal.

Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia’s region of Chechnya, has said that Moscow should consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine after a significant new defeat on the battlefield.

Kadyrov slammed top commanders for their failings and wrote on Telegram, “In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons.”

Russia’s defence ministry has said its troops had withdrawn from the town of Lyman in eastern Ukraine to avoid being surrounded by Ukraine’s army.

“In connection with the creation of a threat of encirclement, allied troops were withdrawn from the settlement of Krasny Liman to more advantageous lines,” the ministry said, using the Russian name of the town, the Reuters news agency reported.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the Gas Interconnector Greece-Bulgaria pipeline in Sofia, chief of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen has described the pipeline as a “game changer”.

“And it means freedom,” von der Leyen told an audience which included heads of states and governments from the region.

The 182-kilometer (115-mile) pipeline will run from the northeastern Greek city of Komotini, where it is linked to the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, up to Stara Zagora in central Bulgaria.

Ukraine’s defence ministry says its forces were “entering” the key town of Lyman in the eastern Donetsk region.

“Ukrainian Air Assault Forces are entering Lyman, Donetsk region,” the ministry said on Twitter, posting a video of soldiers holding up a yellow and blue Ukrainian flag near a sign with the town’s name.

France could deliver six to 12 new Caesar howitzers, originally destined for Denmark, to Ukraine, according to French newspaper Le Mond.

A French defence ministry spokesperson said that while France supports Ukraine the details of this are “not meant to be communicated” when asked to comment on the report.

Ukraine’s SBU security service has said 20 civilians were killed in Russian shelling of a civilian convoy in the “grey zone” between Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-controlled territory in eastern Ukraine in late September.

In a statement, it said that seven vehicles had been hit in the shelling between occupied Svatove in Luhansk region and Ukrainian-held Kupiansk which Kyiv recaptured in the Kharkiv region last month.

Russian-installed officials in Ukraine’s east accused Kyiv on Thursday of shelling a convoy of refugees being evacuated from the Kharkiv region and killing approximately 30 civilians, Russian state media reported.

It was not immediately clear if they were referring to the same convoy.

Italy’s Eni has said it not would receive any of the gas it had requested from Russian supplier Gazprom for October 1

Russian gas supplies through the Tarvisio entry point will be at zero for October 1 as Gazprom has said it is not possible to supply gas through Austria, Eni said in a statement on its website.

Eni added that it would provide updates if gas supplies were restored.

Ukrainian soldiers have clambered onto a vehicle with the Ukrainian flag on the outskirts of the eastern town of Lyman, a longtime Russian bastion that Kyiv says it has encircled, a video posted by the president’s chief of staff showed.

“October 1. We are unfurling our state flag and establishing it on our land. Lyman will be Ukraine,” one of the soldiers said before taping the flag onto what appeared to be the “Lyman” welcome sign on the way into the town.

Video could not be verified independently.

The International Atomic Energy Agency has said it is seeking information about the director-general of Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant whom the state-owned company in charge of the plant said was detained by a Russian patrol.

“We have contacted Russian authorities and are requesting clarifications,” a spokesperson for the IAEA, the United Nations nuclear watchdog, said in response to a query.

Read more here.

Ukraine says up to 5,500 soldiers could be encircled in the key eastern city of Lyman, Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Sloviansk in the Donetsk region, said.

“The town serves as an important transport and logistic hub since May, when it was taken over by Russians,” he said.

Stratford said a military operation in some of the surrounding villages near Lyman is continuing.

“If Ukraine takes full control of Lyman, it will give them a stepping stone for further operations to the northeast and northeast,” he added.