Ukraine news – live: US privately asks Ukraine to show Russia it’s open to talks, report says

LIVE – Updated at 07:23 The US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless president Vladimir Putin is removed from power, the Washington Post reported.A spokesperson for the US State Department responded to the report by saying: ‘We’ve said it before and will say it again: Actions speak louder than words. If Russia is ready for negotiation, it should stop its bombs and missiles and withdraw its forces from Ukraine.’Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin is to allow serious offenders, including sex offenders, to join the conflict in Ukraine. It is claimed by the Kremlin that its forces have already mobilised an additional 18,000 soldiers above its goal of 300,000 as it tries to bolster its efforts against Ukraine.It comes as Iran confirmed for the first time that it has supplied Russia with drones. Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian admitted on Saturday the country had provided Putin with the equipment, despite previous denials. ‘We gave a limited number of drones to Russia months before the Ukraine war,’ Mr Amirabdollahian told reporters after a meeting in Tehran. He added that Iran ‘remained committed to stopping the conflict’. Biden administration privately asks Ukraine to signal Russia it’s open to talks, report saysRussia to allow sex offenders to join army US to send $400 million more to Ukraine in military aidChina sends message to Russia, says no nuclear war over UkraineGlobal statesmen: Only diplomacy can end Ukraine warRussia claims it will release ‘proof of British involvement’ in Black Sea drone strike 07:23 , Maroosha Muzaffar Vitalii Klychko, Mayor of Kyiv, has urged residents to stock up on essentials and even consider temporarily moving out, the Ukrainian Pravda reported.He has also not ruled out a complete blackout in Kyiv with no electricity, heating, water or communications.During a TV broadcast, Mr Klychko said: ‘We are doing all we can to prevent this from happening. But let’s be honest: our enemies are doing all they can to ensure that the city has no heat, no electricity, no water, and for all of us to be dead. And the future of this country, and the future of each one of us, depends on how prepared we are for different situations.’We are not ruling it out. We run through different scenarios in order to survive, to be prepared.’ 07:15 , Joe Middleton Ukraine’s state electricity operator on Saturday announced regular scheduled blackouts in Kyiv and seven other regions of the country in the aftermath of Russia’s devastating strikes on energy infrastructure.The move comes as Russian forces continue to pound Ukrainian cities and villages with missiles and drones, inflicting damage on power plants, water supplies and other civilian targets, in a grinding war that is nearing its nine-month mark.Russia has denied that the drones it has used in Ukraine came from Iran, but the Islamic Republic’s foreign minister on Saturday for the first time acknowledged supplying Moscow with ‘a limited number’ of drones before the invasion. Hossein Amirabdollahian claimed, however, that Tehran didn’t know if its drones were used against Ukraine and stated Iran’s commitment to stopping the conflict. © Provided by The Independent Power blackouts across Ukraine amid Russian shelling 04:57 , Maroosha Muzaffar A 9-year-old child was injured in Russia’s shelling of Nikopol district, in the Dnipropetrovsk region, it was reported.Valentyn Reznichenko, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration, wrote on Telegram yesterday: ‘In the evening, the Russians once again shelled Nikopol district. They fired heavy artillery at the Myrove community. They injured a 9-year-old girl.’It said that ‘the enemy shell hit a residential building’, Ukrinform reported. 03:58 , Maroosha Muzaffar The US is privately encouraging Ukraine’s leaders to signal an openness to negotiate with Russia and drop their public refusal to engage in peace talks unless president Vladimir Putin is removed from power, the Washington Post reported.The Post quoted unnamed people familiar with the discussions as saying that the request by the US officials was not aimed at pushing Ukraine to the negotiating table, but a calculated attempt to ensure Kyiv maintains the support of other nations facing constituencies wary of fuelling a war for many years to come.It also reported that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s ban on talks with him had generated concern in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, where the war’s effects on costs of food and fuel are felt most sharply. 03:26 , Maroosha Muzaffar Russian forces have kidnapped 34 children from the Preobrazhenka village in the Myrne community to Russia’s Anapa, Kherson Oblast, said governor Yaroslav Yanushevych, Kyiv Independent reported.’The parents were promised that their children would be returned by the end of this week, but then the time of stay was extended again for another week,’ Mr Yanushevych said in a Telegram post yesterday.On 22 October, it was reported that Russian forces kidnapped 46 children under five years of age from the Kherson Regional Children’s Home and brought them to Russian-occupied Simferopol in Crimea, Mr Yanushevych said at the time.Earlier, on 15 October, Kyiv Independent reported that Moscow was relocating 500 Ukrainian children living in the occupied territory of Kherson Oblast to Russia every day. Saturday 5 November 2022 23:20 , Thomas Kingsley Saturday 5 November 2022 22:54 , Thomas Kingsley Rishi Sunak will promise to speed up the UK’s transition to renewable energy when he addresses the Cop27 climate summit on climate change on Monday.Mr Sunak made a last-minute decision on 2 November to participate in the climate talks, reversing a plan much criticised by environmental activists and political opponents to skip the annual gathering.He will tell politicians and business leaders at the event that Britain will work with international allies to speed up its move to cleaner sources of energy, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine made the need to do so even more pressing.’Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and contemptible manipulation of energy prices has only reinforced the importance of ending our dependence on fossil fuels,’ Mr Sunak said in a statement issued by his office.’We need to move further and faster to transition to renewable energy, and I will ensure the UK is at the forefront of this global movement.’ © Provided by The Independent (PA Wire) Saturday 5 November 2022 22:19 , Thomas Kingsley The Polish border service on Friday reported an increase in the number of Middle Eastern migrants trying to illegally cross into the European Union at the border of Belarus and Poland.In the past 24 hours, border agents detained 117 migrants from Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq, Cameroon, Morocco and Sri Lanka, with 65 others detained the previous day. Belarusian border officials declined to comment.Last week, the Polish border service released an 26 October video that appears to show Belarusian border guards near the border with Poland, leading a group of migrants and trying to hide their faces from the camera. It said Belarusian border guards help migrants cross the border to Poland, with most migrants now traveling first to Russia and then taking organized transport to Belarus. © Provided by The Independent Migrant border crossings rise at Poland-Belarus border Saturday 5 November 2022 21:40 , Thomas Kingsley Only dialogue and diplomacy can end the devastating war in Ukraine, with total victory on the battlefield impossible for either warring party, members of a group of prominent former world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela said Friday.The group, known as The Elders, delivered that message to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, telling him on a visit to Kyiv this summer that he must start considering a way out of the conflict, said group chairwoman Mary Robinson, former Irish president.’We need to encourage more thinking about how it will end in order to get the idea that this needs to end, as opposed to increasing the military arsenal on both sides and the devastation to the population in Ukraine,’ said Robinson, who also served as U.N. high commissioner for human rights.Read the full story below: © Provided by The Independent Global statesmen: Only diplomacy can end Ukraine war Saturday 5 November 2022 21:20 , Thomas Kingsley Saturday 5 November 2022 20:58 , Thomas Kingsley The echoing crash of a shell landing nearby sends Luda’s pet dog scurrying into the makeshift shed that a neighbour made out of scraps of broken cupboards in an effort to provide shelter, Bel Trew writes.But the people in this frontline town in northeast Ukraine just stare numbly at the sky, bracing for the next hit. It goes like this most days: they are marooned by bombed-out buildings.Another louder explosion cracks through the winter wind. The night shelling has begun.Read the full exclusive story below: © Provided by The Independent ‘We have nowhere to go’: The pensioners barely surviving on Ukraine’s front lines Saturday 5 November 2022 20:44 , Thomas Kingsley German chancellor Olaf Scholz, who was heavily criticised for a trip to Beijing this week, said on Saturday his and Chinese president Xi Jinping’s joint statement opposing the use of nuclear weapons in Ukraine had been reason enough for the visit.Mr Scholz’s comments came a day after his visit to the world’s second-biggest economy alongside German corporate CEOs, the first by a G7 leader since the Covid-19 pandemic.’Because the Chinese government, the president and I were able to declare that no nuclear weapons should be used in this war, that alone made the whole trip worthwhile,’ Scholz said during an event of his Social Democratic party. © Provided by The Independent Xi Jinping with Olaf Scholz (AP) Saturday 5 November 2022 20:20 , Thomas Kingsley Ukrainian attackers shot and seriously injured a judge in an eastern Russian-controlled region of Ukraine who sentenced three foreigners to death in June, a pro-Moscow official claimed on Saturday.Denis Pushilin, the administrator of Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, said Alexander Nikulin had been injured late on Friday in the town of Vuhlehirsk to the north east of the city of Donetsk.’The Ukrainian regime continues to display its vile terrorist methods,’ Pushilin claimed.Doctors assessed Nikulin to be in a serious but stable condition, he added.In June, Nikulin passed death sentences on two Britons and a Moroccan who were captured while fighting for Ukraine, ruling they had tried to overthrow local authorities. Saturday 5 November 2022 19:55 , Joe Middleton External power has been restored to Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant two days after it was disconnected from the power grid after Russian shelling damaged high voltage lines, the UN nuclear watchdog said on Saturday.Both the plant’s external power lines were repaired and reconnection started on Friday afternoon, Rafael Mariano Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said in a statement.Grossi reiterated his call for the establishment of a nuclear safety and security protection zone around the plant to prevent a nuclear accident, adding: ‘We can’t afford to lose any more time. We must act before it is too late.’Reuters Saturday 5 November 2022 19:17 , Joe Middleton Saturday 5 November 2022 18:53 , Thomas Kingsley Residents of the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut are living in dire conditions, with civilians killed and wounded daily, the deputy mayor said on Saturday, as fighting between Russian troops and Ukraine’s forces rages around the city.Bakhmut has been an important target for Russia’s military in its slow advance through the Donetsk region, one of the territories the Kremlin claims to have annexed after what Kyiv and the West say were sham referendums in September.Kyiv’s military says the area is the site of some of the heaviest fighting with Russian forces, and deputy mayor Oleksandr Marchenko told Reuters that Russia’s troops were ‘trying to storm the city from several directions’.’With every day it’s becoming harder and harder to survive in this city,’ Marchenko said from inside an empty government building as mortar fire boomed nearby.He said more than 120 civilians have been killed in Bakhmut since Russia’s invasion. © Provided by The Independent (REUTERS) Saturday 5 November 2022 18:15 , Thomas Kingsley In a video address, Mr Zelensky dismissed talk of limited Iranian supplies to Russia, saying Ukraine had downed 11 drones on Friday alone.’If Iran continues to lie about the obvious, it means the world will make even more efforts to investigate the terrorist cooperation between the Russian and Iranian regimes and what Russia pays Iran for such cooperation,’ he said.Separately, US Special Envoy for Iran Robert Malley tweeted it was untrue that Iran had sent a few drones.’They transferred dozens just this summer and have military personnel in occupied Ukraine helping Russia use them,’ he said.Mr Zelensky, who has repeatedly pressed allies to provide more defences against aircraft and missiles, said he expected ‘good news’ in coming weeks but gave no details. Kyiv, he added, would next week launch a fund-raising campaign to buy marine drones.Last month, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters Iran had promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles, in addition to more drones.IRNA quoted Amirabdollahian as saying Tehran and Kyiv had agreed to discuss allegations about the use of Iranian drones but the Ukrainians did not show up for talks.In a response on Facebook, Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Oleg Nikolenko said Amirabdollahian was spreading ‘insinuations about an alleged refusal by the Ukrainian side’.Mr Amirabdollahian repeated Tehran would ‘not remain indifferent’ if it were proven Russia had used Iranian drones against Ukraine.The European Union last month agreed new sanctions on Iran over drone deliveries, and Britain imposed sanctions on three Iranian military figures and a defence manufacturer. Saturday 5 November 2022 17:46 , Thomas Kingsley President Zelensk