Ukraine updates: Second Nord Stream suspect detained

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Tuesday described the situation at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant as critical, blaming Russian shelling for preventing efforts to restore external power lines to the plant. 

In his nigthly video address, Zelenskyy said that one of the diesel generators providing emergency power was no longer functional, seven days after external power lines went down. 

"There has never before been such an emergency situation at the Zaporizhzhia plant. The situation is critical. Russian shelling has cut the plant off from the electricity network," Zelenskyy said.

The president also said he mentioned the issue in a discussion with UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, saying he expected an "appropriate response" from the international community. 

Ukraine and Russia have traded blame for the longest outage at the nuclear power station since Russia seized control of the plant soon after its 2022 full-scale invasion. Russia attributed the power outage to Ukrainian shelling. 

Both sides have repeatedly accused each other of risking a potentially devastating nuclear disaster at Europe's largest atomic energy production facility during the course of the conflict.

Prior to the war, Zaporizhzhia NPP produced roughly 20% of Ukraine's energy supply.

It has been shut down since soon after Russia took control of the site, but it still needs power to maintain cooling and other security systems.

A drone strike in Dnipro killed one person and injured 15, 13 of whom required hospital treatment, regional governor Serhiy Lysak said. 

Videos circulating on social media showed a burning apartment building and several charred cars on a busy street in the city.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described it as a "brazen attack in broad daylight, targeting civilian infrastructure." 

Zelenskyy renewed his call for tougher international sanctions on Moscow, and for "all of us in Europe" to "build a reliable defense against Russian drones and missiles." 

Earlier, Ukrainian authorities said a total of 65 Russian drones targeted the country overnight, most of which were shot down by air defenses. 

A strike in the northeastern Sumy region killed a couple and their two children, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleg Grygorov.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Ukraine had sent a team of anti-drone warfare specialists to Denmark "for exercises."

Copenhagen is preparing to host European leaders amid a series of alleged Russian airspace violations in Europe. 

Poland's Prime Minister Donald Tusk also said that Polish soldiers would head toDenmark to help secure the upcoming EU leaders' meeting and European Political Community summit. 

Mysterious drone sightings since September 22 have led to airport closures and other disruptions in Denmark, with Copenhagen blaming Moscow and Russia denying the allegations. 

Poland has also recently reported a major drone incursion, while Russian neighbor Estonia said Russian fighter jets entered its airspace. 

Ukraine has faced almost nightly drone attacks from Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion in early 2022; its Air Force says it intercepts roughly 80% of incoming drones. 

"Our group of specialists has begun deploying a mission in Denmark to share Ukraine's experience countering drones," Zelenskyy said in a social media post.

"Ukraine's experience is the most relevant in Europe today," he said. "And it is precisely our expertise, our specialists, and our technologies that can become a key element of future Europe's Drone Wall — a large-scale project that will guarantee security in the skies," he added.

European leaders meet in Copenhagen on Wednesday, with the top agenda item billed as "Russia's recent airspace violations in seceral EU member states." 

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban has claimed that Ukraine is not an independent country, given Russia occupying part of its territory and its reliance on western support in the war.

The comments, published as a transcript by Orban's populist government from an interview with a friendly media personallity, Balazs Nemeth, were made after Ukraine alleged that drones had entered its airspace from Hungary. 

Orban said he believed his ministers, who have denied that drones crossed into Ukraine's airspace, but he also tried to argue that it did not matter either way. 

"Let's assume some flew a few metres in. So what?" the prime minister said. "Ukraine should not behave as if it were a sovereign state. Ukraine lost a fifth of its territory in the war with the Russians, the Russians took it from them. Sovereignty has ended there." 

Orban, who has resisted several EU and NATO initiatives to support Ukraine or sanction Russia, said that if the West were to stop supporting Kyiv tomorrow, "Ukraine will close." 

He said that even though his government and that of Volodymyr Zelenskyy disagreed on several issues, "we are not enemies of each other." Therefore, he argued, Kyiv was focusing on the wrong issue because the drones would have posed no threat even if they did encroach on its airspace.

Hungary has secured exemptions to several EU sanctions programs on Russia, allowing it to continue importing much of its oil and gas from the country.

The arguments with Ukraine also come amid a heated election campaign in Hungary and a serious challenge to the government from a party now led by a former member of Orban's Fidesz party, Peter Magyar.

A Ukrainian diver wanted by Germany for his alleged involvement in the Nord Stream explosions has been detained in Poland, his lawyer and Polish prosecutors said on Tuesday. 

The man, identified by German authorities as Volodymyr Z., is suspected of involvement in the 2022 explosions that largely the severed Nord Stream gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany at the bottom of the Baltic Sea.

"This morning, he was detained in a town near Warsaw," the man's lawyer Tymoteusz Paprocki said, with Warsaw's regional prosecutor's office spokesperson later confirming the news. 

Paprocki said that his client would fight against his transfer to Germany, saying the European arrest warrant against him was inadmissible considering Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

"The attack on Nord Stream infrastructure concerns one of the pipeline's owners, [state-owned gas giant] Gazprom, which directly finances the military operations in Ukraine," he said. 

Paprocki said his clinet had done "nothing wrong" and had not committed "any crime to the detriment of Germany." 

Last month, Italian police arrested another Ukrainian man, identified as Serhii K., suspected of coordinating the attacks. He too plans to appeal his extradition to Germany, after a lower court ordered his transfer.

The 2022 explosions disabled three out of four Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines. Russia blamed the US, Britain and Ukraine for the blasts. 

Germany, Denmark and Sweden all opened investigations into the incident, with the Danish and Swedish probes closing earlier this year without naming suspects.

Speaking alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels on Tuesday, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte proclaimed, "we have to keeps our skies safe."

Rutte's comments came ahead of an EU-NATO meeting to discuss air defense strategy in the face of perceived Russian threats.

"We have seen over the last couple of weeks what happened with the drones in Poland, the MiG-31s [fighter jets] in Estonia, but also what is happening now in Denmark," said Rutte.

"In Denmark, we are still assessing what is behind it, but when it comes to Poland and Estonia, it's clear that it's the Russians," he added. "Still, we are assessing whether it is intentional or not. But even if it is not intentional, it is reckless and it is unacceptable."

The frequency of such incidents along Europe's eastern border of late has prompted calls for the creation of a defensive drone wall, an idea that Rutte called "timely and necessary."

The concept will also be on the agenda when EU leaders gather for an informal summit in Copenhagen on Wednesday.

Von der Leyen on Tuesday said, "Europe must deliver a strong and united response to Russia's drone incursions at our borders," while pledging "immediate actions to create the drone wall."

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Tuesday that a reparation loan to Ukraine funded by frozen Russian assets would go partly toward funding the EU's defense industry.

Von der Leyen, however, clarified that the assets would not be seized.

"Importantly, there is no seizing of the assets. Ukraine has to repay the loan, if Russia is paying reparations. The perpetrator must be held responsible," she said.

Speaking as European Union (EU) commissioners met in Brussels for security talks, von der Leyen also stressed the need for a "drone wall" to guard against Russian drone incursions.

"Europe must deliver a strong and united response to Russia’s drone incursions at our borders," she said.

The commissioners are to be joined at their meeting by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.

Recent Ukrainian counteroffensives have taken back more than 170 square kilometers (67 square miles) of territory from occupying Russian forces near the eastern town of Dobropillia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late on Monday.

"As of the beginning of this day, our forces have liberated more than 174 square kilometers since the start of the operation, and more than 194 square kilometers have been cleared of Russian sabotage groups," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address.

He said nearly 3,200 Russian soldiers had been killed in the operations.

But Zelenskyy conceded that Kyiv's troops were embroiled in difficult situations at several places along the front, including near Kupiansk in the Kharkiv border region and in districts between Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk. 

Ukraine says a Russian drone strike overnight to Tuesday killed a family of four in the northeastern Sumy region.

Oleg Grygorov, the head of the regional military administration, said a residential building in the village of Chernechchyna, in the Krasnopillia community, had been hit.

"A couple with two young children lived in this house. Unfortunately, no one managed to escape," Grygorov wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

"Rescuers [recovered] the bodies of four deceased people from under the rubble — parents and their sons, six and four years old," he said.

"This is a terrible and irreparable loss for the entire community and the region."

Russia in its turn said it had come under attack from Ukrainian drones overnight, with the Defense Ministry saying 81 had been "intercepted and destroyed."

On Sunday, a large-scale, 12-hour Russian drone and missile attack on Ukraine killed at least four people in the capital, Kyiv, including a 12-year-old girl, and injured dozens of more people across the country.

Russia and Ukraine again exchanged drone attacks overnight, with the death of a family of four reported in Ukraine's Sumy region.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has delivered a report on the front-line situation in the east of his country, saying Kyiv's forces have managed to recapture considerable amounts of territory despite ongoing difficult conditions.

You join DW's coverage as Russia's full-scale invasion of its neighbor continues unabated, more than three and a half years after it began.