Ukraine

KIEV, September 28. /TASS/: The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has accused 16 individuals of collaboration for organizing referendums in the DPR, the LPR, the Zaporozhye and Kherson Regions on joining Russia.

The list includes DPR head Denis Pushilin, head of the Zaporozhye Region’s military-civilian administration Yevgeny Balitsky, head of the Kherson Region’s military-civilian administration Vladimir Saldo and his deputy Kirill Stremousov.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia was poised Wednesday to formally annex parts of Ukraine where occupied areas held a Kremlin-orchestrated “referendum” — denounced by Kyiv and the West as illegal and rigged — on living under Moscow’s rule.

Armed troops had gone door-to-door with election officials to collect ballots in five days of voting. The results were widely ridiculed as implausible and characterized as a land grab by an increasingly cornered Russian leadership following embarrassing military losses in Ukraine.

KYIV, Sept 26 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he doesn't think Vladimir Putin is bluffing when he says Moscow would be ready to use nuclear weapons to defend Russia.

The Russian president said in a televised address last week that Moscow would use "all available means" to protect Russia and its people if its territorial integrity were threatened. 

"Look, maybe yesterday it was bluff. Now, it could be a reality," Zelenskiy, who had previously played down such warnings as nuclear blackmail, told CBS News on Sunday.

KYIV, Sept 26 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Monday no decision had been taken on whether to seal Russia's borders to stop an exodus of military-aged men fleeing the country, after days of chaotic scenes during its first military mobilisation since World War Two.

Asked about the prospect of the border being shut, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: "I don't know anything about this. At the moment, no decisions have been taken on this."

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A young man shot a Russian military officer at close range at an enlistment office Monday, in an unusually bold attack reflecting resistance to the Russian leadership’s efforts to mobilize hundreds of thousands of men to wage war on Ukraine.

The shooting comes after scattered arson attacks on enlistment offices and protests in Russian cities against the call-up that have resulted in at least 2,000 arrests. Russia is seeking to bolster its military as its Ukraine offensive has bogged down and sapped its forces.

KHERSON, September 25. /TASS/: A missile strike, assumably from the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system, has hit a hotel in Kherson, causing casualties, a TASS correspondent reported on Sunday.

The Ukrainian military attacked the Kherson hotel at 5:30 am, assumably, firing one rocket from the HIMARS multiple-launch rocket system, according to the information provided by a TASS correspondent. Two people were killed, according to preliminary estimates.

LUGANSK, September 25. /TASS/: The referendum on the accession to Russia in the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR) has been recognized as valid, since the voter turnout has exceeded 50%, Yelena Kravchenko, chairperson of the LPR’s Central Election Commission (CEC) said on Sunday.

"High voter turnout is reported from the entire territory on the Lugansk People’s Republic. After three days of voting, the voter turnout exceeded 50% So, the referendum is recognized as valid," she said.

Sept 25 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in an interview broadcast on Sunday that Ukraine had received sophisticated air defence systems from the United States.

It was the first acknowledgment that Ukraine had received the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS), long sought by Kyiv and whose shipment was approved by Washington late last month.

24 Sep 2022; MEMO: Ukraine has downgraded its diplomatic relations with Iran and withdrew the accreditation of the Iranian ambassador over Tehran's supply of drones to Russia.

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The onset of autumnal weather, with rains making fields too muddy for tanks, is beginning to cloud Ukraine’s efforts to take back more Russian-held territory before winter freezes the battlefields, a Washington-based think tank said Sunday.

Russia, meanwhile, pressed on with its call-up of hundreds of thousands of men to throw into the seven-month war, seeking to reverse its recent losses. Without control of the skies over Ukraine, Russia is also making increasing use of suicide drones, with more strikes reported Sunday in the Black Sea port city of Odesa.