November 4, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Our live coverage for the day has ended. Follow the latest Ukraine news here or read through the updates below. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said eight Iranian-made drones were shot down by an anti-aircraft missile regiment in southern Ukraine on Friday.

Two Kalibr cruise missiles were also destroyed by units of the southern and central air commands, he said in his nightly address.

“The fiercest combat actions during this week are concentrated in Donbas: Bakhmut and Soledar,” the president said, referring to eastern regions near the frontlines of the conflict.

“We are holding our positions. And in these and some other areas in the Donetsk region, the Russian army has already wasted more lives of its men and lost more ammunition than it probably had lost in the two Chechen wars combined,” Zelensky said, referring to the Moscow’s casualties in Chechnya.

Russia’s onslaught of attacks on civilian infrastructure, particularly energy and water facilities, has repeatedly hampered a Ukrainian company this month.

DTEK Group, which owns coal and thermal power plants in various parts of Ukraine, reported the latest missile attack damaging its energy facilities on Friday. It was the twelfth attack on a DTEK facility in the past month.

There were no casualties from the shelling, according to preliminary information.

“As a result of the enemy attack, the power equipment of the enterprise was significantly damaged. After the end of the shelling, the company’s employees will promptly begin to eliminate the consequences and resume work,” DTEK said in a statement. “For safety reasons, only critical employees are present at the facilities. All others work remotely.”

DTEK is Ukraine’s biggest private energy firm and a frequent target of Moscow’s forces — conventional and otherwise.

In July, the firm said Russian hackers carried out a cyberattack on its facilities.

More background: Russia’s bombardment of the Ukrainian energy grid could have grave consequences this winter, according to a growing number of Kyiv’s allies around the globe.

The G7 group of wealthy nations will coordinate their support for Ukraine as the weather turns colder there and power outages persist, German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock said Thursday.

”We will not allow the brutality of the war to lead to the death of lots of elderly people, children, teenagers and families to die from hunger or cold over the upcoming winter months due to the brutal tactics of the Russian president,” Baerbock told reporters.

Ukrainian forces shot down two Kalibr cruise missiles fired by Russian forces from the Black Sea on Friday, according to Ukraine’s Air Command “South” in Odesa.

The air command said one cruise missile was shot down over the Kherson region, and one was shot down over the Mykolaiv region.

Meanwhile, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that Russians have been attacking Bakhmut, Avdiivka, and Novopavlivka in the east.

In addition, the Lviv region in the west and the Kharkiv, Dnipro and Zaporizhzhia regions in the east have been hit with missiles and shelling in the last day, it said.

“There is a low level of moral and psychological state of the personnel of the enemy units located in Zaporizhzhia region. These are the consequences of unsatisfactory conditions of detention, poor equipment, constant delays and incomplete payments of salaries, as well as the dismissive attitude of the military leadership to subordinates,” the General Staff said in a Telegram statement Friday.

The General Staff reported that the Russian headquarters in the city of Melitopol was hit on Thursday. Melitopol has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the invasion.

The General Staff also said a Russian-occupied administration building in Hola Prystan in the Kherson region was struck.

Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-appointed deputy head of the Kherson region military administration, confirmed the strike Thursday but said nobody was injured.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said any use of a nuclear weapon by Russian President Vladimir Putin would have disastrous consequences for him and his nation.

“Together with the G7, countries around the world are making clear to President Putin that any use of a nuclear weapon would be catastrophic for him and for Russia,” Blinken said at a press conference at the G7 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in Munster, Germany.

The G7, short for Group of Seven, is made up of representatives from some of the world’s largest economies. At its meeting this week, foreign ministers from the coalition collectively vowed “severe consequences” for any use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Moscow. 

Blinken on the oil price cap: The secretary of state also weighed in on the G7’s price cap for Russian oil, a key way the alliance is trying to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.

The top US diplomat downplayed concerns that such a mechanism could backfire and drive up gas prices amid threats by the Kremlin to withhold oil sales to nations that implement a price cap. 

Blinken said the purpose of the cap is two-fold.

“It’s to ensure that energy continues to come onto the market, to meet demand,” he said. “And second, to put some limits on President Putin’s ability to line his pockets with the proceeds of sales of energy to fuel and fund the war against Ukraine.” 

“I believe that that mechanism will help us do just that,” Blinken concluded.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made an unannounced visit Friday to Kyiv, where he met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other top officials.

Sullivan underscored US support for Ukrainians “as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity,” said Adrienne Watson, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, in a statement.

In Kyiv, Sullivan announced an additional $400 million security assistance package to Ukraine. It includes refurbished T-72 tanks and drones, along with refurbished surface-to-air missiles.

He also affirmed the US will continue to provide economic and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine:

“The United States is going to be with Ukraine for as long as it takes in this fight. There will be no wavering, no flagging, no flinching in our support as we go forward.”

Sullivan added that the war could easily end if Russia chose to stop fighting and ceased its occupation.

“And that’s precisely what it should do from our perspective,” he told reporters.

Zelensky said he was grateful to Sullivan for his support for Ukraine.

“I had the honor of presenting Jake with the Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise of the II degree on behalf of the entire Ukrainian people for strengthening interstate cooperation, supporting state sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president said in a Telegram post.

The US Defense Department announced a new security assistance package for Ukraine worth about $400 million under the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

The package includes tanks and drones.

“The USAI package underscores the continued US commitment to supporting Ukraine by meeting their most urgent requirements … while also building the capacity of Ukraine’s armed forces to defend its sovereignty over the long term,” Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said at a news conference Friday.

The package supplies refurbished T-72 tanks, new Phoenix Ghost drones, funding to refurbish HAWK air defense systems to send to Ukraine, and other items.

The tanks will be coming from the Czech Republic, with the US paying for 45 of them to be refurbished, according to Singh, and the Netherlands paying to refurbish an additional 45 tanks.  

Some of the tanks are expected to be delivered by the end of December, Singh said.

Singh also announced that “a portion” of the Phoenix Ghost drones previously pledged to Ukraine have already been delivered.

“We’ve seen success already on the battlefield, but I don’t have an exact timeline for when this next tranche will be delivered,” she said.

The US will refurbish HAWK air defense missile systems for the first time using Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funding, Singh said during the briefing.

Singh would not specify how many HAWK air defense systems will be refurbished and sent to Ukraine, citing operational security. 

Some background: Ukraine has been asking NATO allies and the US for more air defense systems as Russian forces have continued to attack the country with missiles and Iranian-made drones. While the US has used Ukraine funding to provide NASAMS (National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System), another air defense system, those NASAMS have not arrived in Ukraine yet.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the US for the support later Friday:

A Ukrainian military official surveyed the devastation in de-occupied parts of the eastern Luhansk region, leaving him with “rather mixed feelings,” he said Friday.

Serhiy Hayday, head of the Luhansk region military administration, described the pain of seeing what the Russians left behind. He found destroyed villages, cattle that are ill or dead, and empty houses, according to a Telegram post about his visit.

Hayday said his party found five to six people “who remained there up to the last” and helped take them out of the settlement. He recommended civilians stay away due to shelling and mines in the area.

Fierce fighting in the region: There are constant battles in Luhansk’s Svatove-Kreminna area, north of Russian-occupied Severodonetsk, according to Hayday. He said the Russians are increasing their manpower in the area.

“Every time during the attack, the Russians send their soldiers (numbering up to a platoon) for reconnaissance, in which they cannot survive. They die, and the next ones go forward. Every new attack is accompanied by the fact that the Russians are trampling their dead. Of course, no one takes the bodies out. There is no such thing as value of human life for them,” Hayday said Friday.

A Russian-appointed official says “everything is calm in Kherson city” Friday but again warned Ukrainian forces could be preparing for an attack on the city.

Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-appointed deputy head of Kherson’s region military administration, said that while there has been no advance by Kyiv’s forces, Ukrainian military equipment has been lined up in columns in some parts of the region.

He said the Ukrainians could be preparing for an attack on Kherson city and again warned residents should evacuate. But currently, “Kherson city is under the defense of Russian servicemen,” Stremousov said in a Telegram post Friday.

A senior Moscow-appointed official’s remark Thursday that Russian troops will “most likely” fall back from positions in Kherson has led to some confusion about the situation on the ground there. A Ukrainian official suggested the statement could be a trap.

What Ukrainian authorities are saying: Serhii Khlan, a member of the Kherson Regional Council, said that residents in the city are seeing an increased military presence in the streets.

Ukrainian forces hit a Russian troops’ distribution center in Oleshky on the east bank of the Dnieper river Thursday night. In an interview with Ukrainian station Espreso TV Friday morning, Khlan said Russian troops are carrying out forced evacuations by making residents leave their homes so that the military can move into them. He said it is “happening everywhere in the east bank” of the river.

Kherson regional police said Friday that the agency has begun 42 criminal proceedings over what it called “war crimes” by Russians in the region in the last 24 hours.

In Oleshky, “the occupiers are stealing cars, taking homes away from locals and invading their homes. Russians are settling in recreation facilities,” according to police. The department added that there have been reports of kidnapping in the cities of Kherson and Kalanchak in the last 24 hours.

In Kherson city, police said Russians are destroying water-crossing equipment with explosives and are shooting and burning boats.

Ukraine’s fears that its troops may lose access to Elon Musk’s crucial Starlink internet service deepened in the past week after 1,300 of the military’s satellite units went offline, according to two sources familiar with the outage.

The small, easy-to-use satellite dishes made by Musk’s private rocket company SpaceX have been universally hailed as a game-changing source of communication for Ukraine’s military, allowing it to fight and stay online even as cellular phone and internet networks have been destroyed in its war with Russia.

But concerns have risen recently over the dependability of SpaceX after discussions about funding were revealed and outages were reported near the frontlines.

The recent outage started Oct. 24 and was described by one person briefed on the situation as a “huge problem” for Ukraine’s military. The terminals had been disconnected, this person said, due to a lack of funding.

The outage affected a block of 1,300 terminals that Ukraine purchased from a British company in March and were used for combat-related operations.

SpaceX was charging Ukraine’s military $2,500 a month to keep each of the 1,300 units connected, pushing the total cost to almost $20 million by September, the person briefed on the matter said. Eventually, they could no longer afford to pay, the person said.

Some background: CNN first reported that SpaceX sent a letter in September to the Pentagon claiming it had spent almost $100 million funding Starlink in Ukraine and that it could no longer continue to do so. The letter requested that the Defense Department take over more of the funding for Ukraine’s military, which it calculated would run tens of millions of dollars a month.

Days after the CNN report, Musk appeared to reverse course, claiming that SpaceX had withdrawn the request.

“The hell with it,” Musk tweeted, “we’ll just keep funding Ukraine govt for free.”

Negotiations between SpaceX and the Defense Department continue despite Musk’s claim that SpaceX withdrew its request, according to a senior defense official.

“Negotiations are very much underway. Everyone in our building knows we’re going to pay them,” the senior Pentagon official told CNN, adding that the department is eager to have commitments in writing “because we worry he’ll change his mind.”

On Wednesday, Musk attended a ceremony for US Space Force that also included Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and General Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Musk has also been embroiled in his high-profile and controversial takeover of Twitter.

Neither Musk nor SpaceX responded to a request for comment. The Ukrainian government, including the Ministry of Defense, did not immediately respond.

Read more:

This photograph taken on September 25 shows an antenna of the Starlink satellite-based broadband system donated by US tech billionaire Elon Musk in Izyum, Kharkiv region, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Related article Ukraine suffered a comms outage when 1,300 SpaceX satellite units went offline over funding issues | CNN Politics

Pope Francis is calling on leaders, particularly in the religious community, to avoid a new Cold War.

“After two terrible world wars, a Cold War that for decades kept the world in suspense, catastrophic conflicts taking place in every part of the globe, and in the midst of accusations, threats and condemnations, we continue to find ourselves on the brink of a delicate precipice and we do not want to fall,” he said in Bahrain at a conference on East-West dialogue.

“It is a striking paradox that, while the majority of the world’s population is united in facing the same difficulties, suffering from grave food, ecological and pandemic crises, as well as an increasingly scandalous global injustice, a few potentates are caught up in a resolute struggle for partisan interests, reviving obsolete rhetoric, redesigning spheres of influence and opposing blocs,” the Pope said, in an apparent reference to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He added that religious leaders need to do their part in opposing rearmament.

The Pope is wrapping up a two-day conference called “Bahrain Forum for Dialogue: East and West for Human Coexistence.” He is meeting with Muslim elders and other religious leaders encouraging inter-religious dialogue.

He also urged for peace talks in a tweet during his trip on Friday.

The use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons by Russia would be met with “severe consequences,” G7 foreign ministers said in a joint statement Friday, following meetings in Germany.

“Russia’s irresponsible nuclear rhetoric is unacceptable,” the ministers said.

The ministers also rejected Russia’s unsubstantiated accusations that Ukraine is preparing a so-called dirty bomb.

“The inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that these allegations are baseless, and we commend Ukraine for its transparency,” the ministers said.

They added that the coalition will “continue to counter Russia’s disinformation, including false allegations concerning bioweapons,” including “strengthening the G7 Rapid Response Mechanism’s capacity for a coordinated response.”

This week’s meeting of the G7, short for Group of Seven, brought together leaders from some of the world’s largest economies.

Some background: International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors completed in-field verification activities at three locations in Ukraine at the request of the Ukrainian government, and they have not found any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials, according to a statement by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi Thursday.

Ukraine made the request after Russia made allegations about activities related to the possible production of dirty bombs in three locations: the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv, Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Vody, and Production Association Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro, according to the IAEA, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog.

The G7 has established a “coordination mechanism” to help Ukraine “repair, restore and defend its critical energy and water infrastructure,” the group’s foreign ministers said in a joint statement on Friday following meetings in Münster.  

The statement condemned Russia’s attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure, “in particular energy and water facilities” in Ukraine.

“Through these attacks, Russia is trying to terrorize the civilian population. Indiscriminate attacks against civilian population and infrastructure constitute war crimes and we reiterate our determination to ensure full accountability for these and crimes against humanity,” the foreign ministers said.  

Ukraine has been facing a wide assault on critical infrastructure and power sources since early October. Some 450,000 households across Kyiv are without electricity Friday as power outages across Ukraine continue, according to the city’s mayor Vitalii Klitschko.  

This week alone, attacks on critical infrastructure in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, and Zaporizhzhia have left millions without electricity and water intermittently.

The G7 foreign ministers called on Russia to “immediately stop its war of aggression against Ukraine and withdraw all of its forces and military equipment.”

Remember: The G7 is shorthand for Group of Seven, an organization of leaders from some of the world’s largest economies: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the US.

Social media video and local Telegram channels indicate there have been explosions near an airfield just north of Kherson city — an area occupied by Russian forces.

The video showed a large plume of black smoke rising from the area of Chornobaivka. 

There’s been no official comment from either the Ukrainian military or Russian-appointed officials in the area.

Further north, on the east bank of the Dnieper river, unofficial Telegram channels say that Russian forces are forcing local people to leave the village of Velyka Lepetykha. Russian-appointed officials have already announced an evacuation of civilians from a 15-kilometer zone (9 miles) along the river as they create new defenses in the area. 

Those same channels say a mandatory evacuation is also underway in the village of Hornostayivka further downstream, while new explosions have been heard in the town of Nova Kakhovka, also on the east bank and close to a dam and hydro electric plant on the river.

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov has suggested that Russian forces may pull back from parts of the Kherson region.

At a briefing in Kyiv, Reznikov said, “we all know the habit of Russians showing the gestures of a goodwill” — a reference to the Russians’ withdrawal from north of Kyiv and from Snake Island, both of which were described by Russia as “goodwill gestures.”

“I think they are potentially ready for such an act of a goodwill,” he said. “But they’re going to have to lose some of their potential due to the actions of Ukrainian Armed Forces.”

Reznikov also referred to recent wet weather in Kherson, saying that it “contributes to the speed of events. The enemy is using irrigation channels as trenches.”

Ukrainian forces are pushing forward on several fronts in Kherson, but Russian units have fortified positions on both banks of the Dnieper river.

Reznikov also said Russian forces had already used up their first batch of 300 Iranian drones. Hundreds more have been ordered, according to Ukrainian officials. 

Reznikov said a priority is to “protect our sky,” appealing to the Brazilian government to supply some of the munitions it has for the Gepard anti-aircraft artillery system. “We use Gepards in places where there are grain hubs to close the sky from Iranian drones, so that they do not destroy the logistics system of grain hubs,” he said.

“The [German] IRIS-T systems are already working, the [US] NASAMS are already on the way, with the crews. We will also receive the Crotale all-weather air defense missile system from our French partners,” he said.

Britain and Poland have agreed on the need to “send a continued strong signal” against Russian President Vladimir Putin, a Downing Street spokesperson told CNN. 

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and his Polish counterpart Mateusz Morawiecki discussed bolstering the security of NATO’s eastern flank in a phone call Friday, and Sunak pointed out the UK is increasing the capability of its forces and bumping up activity in the Baltic region. Both agreed on the need to send a signal to Putin that intimidation would not work, according to the spokesperson.

“The Prime Minister said he looked forward to deepening the strong defense and security links between the UK and Poland, which he said would benefit the security of both countries, and Europe as a whole,” the spokesperson said.

Russia has mobilized an additional 18,000 soldiers above its goal of 300,000 to fight in Ukraine from the general male population, President Vladimir Putin said Friday.

Since issuing a decree near the end of September to bolster Moscow’s forces, 318,000 men have been mobilized in Russia, and 49,000 of them are already in the combat zone fighting, according to Putin. He credited an “inflow of volunteers” who stepped up to fight.  

“We already have 318,000. Why 318,000? Because the volunteers are coming. The number of volunteers is not decreasing,” Putin told reporters and volunteers outside of the Kremlin walls.

Last week, Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu reported to Putin that the mobilization goal of 300,000 recruits has been reached and that the mobilization draft has been completed. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that civilians in the Ukrainian region of Kherson should be evacuated from conflict zones.

“Those who live in Kherson should be removed from the zone of the most dangerous actions, because the civilian population should not suffer,” Putin told a meeting at the Kremlin, according to Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.

Ukrainian forces are undertaking an offensive on several fronts in Kherson, and Russian-backed officials in the region have told civilians to leave areas on both sides of the Dnieper river, amid signs that Russian forces are trying to improve their defenses in several areas.

About half a million homes in Kyiv were left without power Friday as Moscow intensifies attacks targeting critical civilian infrastructure, sparking fears of a bleak winter in Ukraine.

Here are the latest developments:

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has called on Chinese President Xi Jinping to help stop Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine. 

“I told President (Xi) that it is important for China to use its influence on Russia,” Scholz told reporters at a press conference in Beijing. He said he told Xi that China is “a great country” and urged for it to take responsibility for peace in the world. 

“Russia must immediately stop the attacks, under which the civilian population is suffering daily, and withdraw from Ukraine,” Scholz said.

Scholz said he and Xi also discussed nuclear warnings from the Kremlin.

“President Xi and I agree that nuclear threats are not acceptable and dangerous. By using nuclear weapons, Russia would be crossing a line that the international community has drawn together,” Scholz said.

The Russian headquarters in Melitopol in southern Ukraine were attacked and destroyed on Thursday, according to the city’s mayor.

Melitopol has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the invasion.

“The enemy headquarters was destroyed yesterday, where the FSB special forces personnel were located; there are killed and wounded,” Ivan Fedorov said in a briefing.

“There was a barracks and equipment. It was one of the hardest targets in terms of reaching it, in terms of the air defense and the location.”

It has been extremely difficult for civilians to leave the city, Fedorov added.

“Today 150 to 200 people per day leave through Vasylivka (the only available route from occupied territory to Ukrainian-held areas) compared to 1,000 people as it was.”

“To leave Melitopol you need to submit an application, which is considered within a month term. There is a leaving route through Crimea, which takes 3 to 5 days.”

Some children are being taken from occupied areas to Crimea and parts of Russia, Fedorov claimed. He said some 300 children had been removed so far.

“(School children in Melitopol) are not allowed to go outside during breaks between lessons. Children are being forced to study Russian history, sing the Russian anthem and other patriotic songs.”

A shortage of medicines, high prices in pharmacies and unemployment meant that life had become difficult for civilians in the city, according to Fedorov.

“Lots of Melitopol residents are jobless so they are trying to leave.”

Civilians in Ukraine are “getting more and more fearful” as Moscow escalates attacks on critical infrastructure, leaving many residents without power.

“We are seeing people actually getting more and more fearful about what an increasingly dark and cold winter might mean,” CNN’s Christiane Amanpour told Don Lemon on “CNN This Morning” from Kyiv.

The Kremlin’s nationwide assault on energy facilities disrupted electricity in almost half a million homes in the capital on Friday, according to the city’s mayor.

“450,000 consumers, that is households in Kyiv, are out of power this morning. It is one and a half times more than the recent days,” Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram. 

“Stabilization outages are applied due to overloading of the central unit of the country’s energy system. I urge all city residents to save electricity as much as possible because the situation remains difficult.”

The recent strikes came amid an expanding partnership between Iran and Russia in recent months, which has included Tehran dispatching drones and other equipment to Moscow for use in its war in Ukraine.

“If that continues at pace, it’s going to be very, very hard for the people here,” Amanpour said of the collaboration between both countries.

Some context: Ukraine has been facing a wide Russian assault on critical infrastructure and power sources since early October.

This week alone, attacks on infrastructure in the regions of Kyiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia have left millions without electricity and water intermittently. About 4.5 million Ukrainian consumers were dealing with power outages as of Thursday evening, according to President Volodymr Zelensky.

Iran is seeking Russia’s help to bolster its nuclear program, US intelligence officials believe, as Tehran looks for a backup plan should a lasting nuclear deal with world powers fail to materialize. 

The intelligence suggests that Iran has been asking Russia for help acquiring additional nuclear materials and with nuclear fuel fabrication, sources briefed on the matter said. The fuel could help Iran power its nuclear reactors and could potentially further shorten Iran’s so-called “breakout time” to create a nuclear weapon.  

Experts emphasized to CNN, however, that the nuclear proliferation risk varies depending on which reactor the fuel is used for. And it is also not clear whether Russia has agreed to help — the Kremlin has long been outwardly opposed to Iran obtaining a nuclear weapon. 

But the Iranian proposal has come amid an expanding partnership between Iran and Russia that in recent months has included Iran sending drones and other equipment to Russia for use in its war in Ukraine, and Moscow potentially advising Tehran on how to suppress a protest movement sweeping Iran, US officials said. 

Iran has said its nuclear program is only for peaceful purposes and that it formally halted its weapons program, but US officials have stated that Iran’s uranium enrichment activities have gone far beyond the parameters of the 2015 nuclear deal and that the amount of time it would take for Iran to produce enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon has shortened to just months. 

In June, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned lawmakers that Iran’s nuclear “program is galloping forward … The longer this goes on, the more the breakout time gets down … it’s now down, by public reports, to a few months at best. And if this continues, it will get down to a matter of weeks.”

The Biden administration is watching any new areas of cooperation between Iran and Russia with concern. Any covert Russian assistance to Iran that could boost Iranian efforts to produce a nuclear weapon would also mark a significant shift in Russian policy, given Russia’s membership of the P5+1 group of countries that have been part of the negotiations to stymie Iran’s nuclear program. 

“As we have said, the JCPOA is not on the agenda,” National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson told CNN, referring to the formal name for the Iran nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action. “We have been working with partners to expose the growing ties between Iran and Russia — and hold them accountable. We will be firm in countering any cooperation that would be counter to our non-proliferation goals.”

The Iranian Mission to the UN and the Russian Foreign Ministry did not return requests for comment. 

Correction: An earlier version of this story has been updated to clarify the description of Iran’s nuclear program. 

Read the full story here.

Russian forces and “collaborators” have begun a census in the southeastern city of Enerhodar, according to Ukrainian authorities.

For the second day running, Russian forces “along with collaborators with the so-called police are doing the door-to-door tours and intercepting people in the courtyards,” said Dmytro Orlov, the displaced mayor of Enerhodar.

“This was reported by local residents who had to participate in the ‘census.’”

“In many cases the census ends up with a rummage and browsing through the apps of mobile phones. Please be aware!” he added.

Before Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine in February, the population of Enerhodar was about 50,000. The city has been under Russian occupation since early March.

It is adjacent to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which was disconnected from Ukraine’s power grid due to shelling from Moscow earlier this week as the Kremlin ramped up strikes targeting critical energy infrastructure.

Russian bombardments some 50 kilometers (31 miles) from the plant had disabled two high voltage transmission lines, according to state nuclear energy company Energoatom.

The plant had gone to “full black-out mode. All 20 diesel generators started operating,” Energoatom said.

“Power units 5 and 6 are being transferred to a cold shutdown mode,” it added. The other four units were already shut down.

The plant is run by Ukrainian technicians but is under the control of the Russian state nuclear energy operator Rusatom.

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Thursday that power had been cut late Wednesday evening and was “now receiving back-up power from its emergency diesel generators, further underlining the extremely precarious nuclear safety and security situation at the facility.”

IAEA Director General Mariano Grossi said the cut-off underlined “the urgent need to establish a protection zone” around the plant.

“Despite the best efforts of the plant’s courageous staff to stabilize the external power situation in recent weeks, the Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Power Plant has again lost all access to off-site electricity,” Grossi said.

“For now, it receives the power it needs from the on-site diesel generators. But this is clearly not a sustainable way to operate a major nuclear facility. Measures are needed to prevent a nuclear accident at the site. The establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone is urgently needed.”

Russian forces have stepped up attacks in the east of Ukraine using multiple launch rocket systems (MLRS), especially in the Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian military.

The military’s General Staff said 80 such attacks were recorded Wednesday, while on Thursday “the enemy carried out four missile and 28 airstrikes, and fired more than 45 times from MLRS.”

On Thursday, Lt. Gen. Valerii Zaluzhnyi, commander-in-chief of Ukraine’s armed forces, told NATO Gen. Christopher Cavoli, the alliance’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, that “the enemy tripled the intensity of hostilities on certain areas of the front” with up to 80 daily attacks.

But Zaluzhnyi said Ukrainian troops were holding their defensive lines.

He also said he and Cavoli had “discussed the problem of Russian missile attacks and the employment of attack drones.”

Artillery fire: The General Staff said recently liberated parts of the Kharkiv and Luhansk regions had come under artillery and mortar fire, and the front lines around the city of Bakhmut in Donetsk had also been active.

There had also been artillery and mortar fire against more than 25 settlements along the front lines in the south, the General Staff said. 

It said the Ukrainian air force had been active Thursday and had “inflicted 21 strikes against the enemy.”

“Up to 20 areas of concentration of troops and equipment were hit,” the General Staff said.

Alleged looting: The General Staff added there was “an increased movement of trucks and cars with looted property on the roads of Kherson region.” It said “significant robberies” are taking place in Beryslav and nearby settlements,” including from power grid maintenance enterprises.  

About 4.5 million Ukrainian consumers were dealing with power outages as of Thursday evening, according to President Volodymr Zelensky.

Households across the country have been temporarily disconnected from energy supply under an emergency schedule aimed at stabilizing the nation’s fragile electric grid. Russia has been bombing and destroying civilian infrastructure, ushering in fears of a cold, dark winter.

Most people are affected in the capital, Kyiv, and nine other regions: Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Sumy, Kirovohrad, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Khmelnytskyi and Cherkasy. Power outages are also possible in other areas.

Some background: Kyiv’s Western allies have condemned Russia’s focus on dismantling Ukrainian energy infrastructure ahead of winter.

European Union foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said Thursday that G7 countries have a “moral duty” to help Ukraine, as Putin counts on the winter to help his forces batter Ukraine.

International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors have completed verification activities at three locations in Ukraine at the request of the Ukrainian government, and they have not found any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials, according to a statement by IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi Thursday.

Ukraine requested the inspection after Russia made allegations about activities related to the possible production of “dirty bombs” in three locations: the Institute for Nuclear Research in Kyiv, Eastern Mining and Processing Plant in Zhovti Vody, and Production Association Pivdennyi Machine-Building Plant in Dnipro, according to the IAEA, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

“Over the past few days, the inspectors were able to carry out all activities that the IAEA had planned to conduct and were given unfettered access to the locations. Based on the evaluation of the results available to date and the information provided by Ukraine, the Agency did not find any indications of undeclared nuclear activities and materials at the locations,” the IAEA statement said.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Russia “the world’s top liar” after the IAEA’s announcement.

“IAEA has checked 3 Ukrainian facilities in focus of Russian disinfo and found no evidence of any ‘dirty bombs’. I thank @rafaelmgrossi for IAEA’s excellent and prompt cooperation which helped counter Russian falsehoods. Russia has confirmed its status of the world’s top liar,” Kuleba tweeted Thursday.

Some background: Russia had accused Ukraine of planning to use a so-called dirty bomb — a weapon that combines conventional explosives like dynamite and radioactive material like uranium — an allegation dismissed by Kyiv and its Western allies as a false-flag operation that Moscow could use as a pretext to escalate the Kremlin’s war.

Officials from the US Embassy in Moscow met with detained American Brittney Griner on Thursday, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said.

State Department spokesperson Ned Price said in a tweet Thursday that embassy officials “saw firsthand her tenacity and perseverance despite her present circumstances.”

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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres welcomed the revival of the Black Sea grain corridor this week, saying the ships departing Ukrainian ports provide “hopeful news in a world churning in turmoil.”

Seven vessels carrying food left Ukraine’s ports Thursday after Russia agreed to rejoin the Black Sea grain deal. Shipments of grain from Ukraine had been in jeopardy after Russia suspended its participation in the initiative last weekend. It resumed its role on Wednesday.

“For stemming the food crisis, for easing prices and pressures for people around the world, for reducing the risks of hunger, poverty and instability, the Black Sea grain initiative is making a difference,” Guterres told reporters at UN headquarters in New York.

Guterres said the initiative has reached a new milestone with 10 million metric tons of grain and other food products being shipped through the Black Sea corridor in three months.

“Despite all the obstacles we have seen, the beacon of hope in the Black Sea is still shining and the initiative is working,” he said. “It is our collective responsibility to keep it working smoothly.”

More background: In July, following months of negotiations, ministers from both Ukraine and Russia signed the grain deal brokered by the UN and Turkey. Russia pledged to unblock ports on the Black Sea to allow the safe passage of grain and oilseeds — some of Ukraine’s most important exports. The shipments are viewed as critical to addressing the global food shortage.

The UN chief said Thursday that he is grateful for Turkey’s diplomatic efforts in establishing and helping reopen the vital food supply line.