Ukraine updates: Zelenskyy meets with Nordic leaders

UN special rapporteur Mariana Katzarova has accused Russia of the "systematic" torture of domestic critics and enemy soldiers. 

In a new report, the UN expert on the situation of human rights in Russia said "torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment are used as state-sanctioned tools for systemic oppression in the Russian Federation."

Katzarova noted that it is "not a new phenomenon" for Moscow to engage in torture, but in the wake of Russia's full-scale of invasion of Ukraine in 2022, "it has become a concerted strategy, a tool for stifling the civic space, for silencing all anti-war critics or dissidents."

Katzarova said there are at least 1,300 known political prisoners in Russia, but that perhaps the number could be 1,700 or more.

In addition, thousands of Ukrainians are believed to have been taken to Russian-held territory in Ukraine or to Russia itself. They, too, face degrading and brutal treatment, including rape and other sexual violence, the report said.

During the interview with Germany's ARD, opposition leader Yulia Navalnaya said she did not know how Vladimir Putin can be defeated, adding she was worried that nobody really knows. 

"You see in all the talks with world leaders and others that nobody really knows how he can be defeated," she said. "We must just do everything we can each day to get closer to this moment."

Challenged about opinion polls in Russia suggesting a majority support for the war in Ukraine, Navalnaya said she did not believe these to be a fair reflection of what people really thought, rather of what they were willing to say publicly. 

"I think it is Putin's war," she said. "Vladimir Putin is the President of Russia, he started this war. People living under a dictatorship are afraid of speaking up." 

DW awarded Navalnaya its 2024 Freedom of Speech Award earlier this year.

Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny's widow, Yulia Navalnaya, spoke to Germany's ARD television on Tuesday about her new book "Patriot" which focuses on her late husband. She also talked to the broadcaster about the her hopes of coordinating opposition to President Vladimir Putin's regime from exile. 

Asked about the difficulties of uniting often disparate opposition groups in Russia, Navalnaya said Putin himself could galvanize them. 

"For me there's one important thing. Whatever views we have, we are united by the fact that we have the same enemy," Navalnaya said. "We are all people with different views, but we are fighting for a democratic Russia and against this regime. I think that unites all of us."

 

Asked if it was harder to bring about change from exile — in contrast of her husband's determinaton to work with Russia even with danger to his life — Navalnaya said that "everything has changed since the start of the war." 

She alluded to people regularly facing trial for criticism of the war or the government as proof of this, but also as proof that some in Russia were still willing to defy the government despite the risks they faced.

Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a new military nuclear training exercise on Tuesday. 

"Today we are conducting another exercise of strategic deterrence forces," Putin said in a video clip released by the Kremlin. "We will work out the actions of officials to control the use of nuclear weapons with practical launches of balllistic and cruise missiles." 

Putin called the use of nuclear forces an extreme measure, and also said that Russia would not take part in any arms race, but Moscow needed to have its nuclear forces ready for use. 

Russia has often alluded to its nuclear arsenal, the world's largest, amid the conflict in Ukraine and its deteriorating relations with the West. 

It recently revised the circumstances in which it might consider a nuclear strike neccessary, to include a large conventional attack on Russia by a non-nuclear power supported by nuclear-armed allies. This was seen as a bid to deter NATO and Ukraine.

Moscow is also in the process of modernizing parts of its nuclear arsenal.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb has said he urged Chinese President Xi Jinping to talk to Vladimir Putin about the Russian invasion of Ukraine during talks in Beijing.

"Right now we are very much in a situation whereby Russian aggression has violated international law," Stubb said in remarks at the start of a press conference.

Stubb earlier said the talks with Xi were aimed partly at finding "peaceful solutions" to the war in Ukraine. 

Russian troops have captured — in Moscow's parlance, "liberated" — the eastern Ukrainian town of Selydove as they move closer to the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, Russia's Defense Ministry said on Tuesday.

"As a result of successful operations ... the town of Selidovo in the Donetsk region is fully liberated," the ministry said, using the Russian spelling for Selydove.

Selydove, which had the only coal mine in the Donetsk region still under Ukrainian control, is just 18 km (10 miles) southeast of Pokrovsk.

Its capture comes amid a slow but seemingly inexorable advance by Russian troops in the region in the past months.

Moscow very recently claimed the capture of two nearby villages, Bogoyavlenka and Katerynivka, and the small town of Girnyk, all located to the south of Selydove. 

According to an analysis by the AFP news agency based on figures from the American Institute for the Study of War (ISW), the Russian army took 478 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory in October.

That is a record since the first weeks of the invasion in March 2022.

Russia could legitimately strike a factory of the German concern Rheinmetall in Ukraine that produces military equipment for Kyiv, the Kremlin's spokesman has said.

Dmitry Peskov said the factory, which opened in late October, could "of course" be a target of Russian attacks.

Rheinmetall, which says it intends to open four military factories in all in Ukraine, said it had already heard such threats from Moscow and that its operations in Ukraine were well-protected.

The existing factor is set to manufacture several Lynx infantry fighting vehicles for Kyiv by the end of the year, while future plants are to manufacture gunpowder, tank ammunition and air defense systems, Rheinmetall director Armin Papperger told Ukrainian media.

This year, Papperger himself was reportedly the planned target of a foiled assassination plot by Russia.

Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, says a drone has hit a university where thousands of volunteers have been trained to fight against Ukraine.  
 "As a result of a drone attack from the air a roof caught fire on an empty building of the Russian Special Forces University in Gudermes at 6:30 am (0330 GMT)," Kadyrov wrote on Telegram.

He said there were "no casualties" and that the fire was extinguished.

Later, he told reporters that there would be a harsh response to the attack.

"They've bitten us - we will destroy them," Kadyrov told reporters in a video published by Russian state news agency RIA.

"In the very near future we'll show them the kind of vengeance they've never even dreamt of," he said.
The university, which Putin toured during a rare visit to Chechnya in August, has trained more than 19,000 volunteers to fight in Ukraine since Russia launched its 2022 offensive, Russia's TASS state news agency reported.

Chechnya — situated in the North Caucasus — is a Russian republic possessing limited autonomy from Moscow. Its government has expressed unqualified support for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Ukraine has frequently employed drones to attack sites within Russia. but Tuesday's attack appeared to be the first it has carried out against Chechnya.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says he has agreed to boost the exchange of intelligence between his country and South Korea in a call with South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol.

The agreement comes as the US has alleged that some 10,000 troops from North Korea are training in Russia for probable later deployment in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said on X, formerly Twitter, that the involvement of North Korean troops meant that the war in Ukraine was "becoming internationalized."

He added that Ukraine and South Korea would "soon exchange delegations to coordinate actions."

Russian state media have said that North Korean Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui has arrived in the far eastern Russian city of Vladivostok on her way to Moscow, a day after Washington said 10,000 North Korean troops were in Russia for probable deployment in Ukraine.

It was not clear whom Choe would meet in Moscow.

She is on her second visit to Russia in six weeks.

Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a partnership treaty with North Korea in June under which the two countries agreed to support each other if one of them came under attack.
 

Russia bombarded Ukraine's two largest cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv overnight, with several people killed and wounded in the attacks.

Ukrainian officials said four people were killed in Kharkiv when the Osnovianskyi district came under attack after midnight, while six were injured in Kyiv by falling debris from a destroyed Russian drone.

The Ukrainian military reported that they had shot down 26 out of 48 drones launched overnight.

On Monday, the Derzhprom building in Kharkiv, one of the city's best-known landmarks, was badly damaged in a Russian guided bomb attack.

Some high-ranking North Korean military officials and troops that NATO says have been sent to Russia for likely deployment in Ukraine might be sent to the front line, South Korean lawmakers said on Tuesday after being briefed by the country's spy agency.

Seoul has warned of a "significant security threat" after Washington alleged that North Korea had sent 10,000 troops to train in Russia ahead of being probably moved to Ukraine to fight there.

"This illegal military cooperation between Russia and North Korea is a significant security threat to the international community and could pose a serious risk to our national security," President Yoon Suk Yeol said.

North Korea had also sent some 4,000 workers to Russia this year, according to the South Korean lawmakers, who had been attending a parliamentary intelligence committee hearing.

NATO has said North Korean units have already been deployed to Russia's Kursk region, where Ukrainian forces have been staging an incursion for several weeks during which they have captured some territory.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has attended the fourth Ukraine-Nordic summit in Iceland as he seeks to gain international support for his "victory plan" to defeat the Russian invasion.

"Our discussions will focus on support for the Victory Plan and the areas where our cooperation can yield maximum results: financing Ukrainian weapons production and long-range capabilities," Zelensky said in a post on social media.

A statement issued after the meeting said, "The Nordic countries support Ukraine's Victory Plan as presented by President Zelenskyy."

The leaders also reiterated their support for Ukraine's NATO membership.

The five Nordic countries whose leaders attended the summit — Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden — are some of the major supporters of Kyiv, pledging millions of euros in aid to Ukraine since Russian forces began their invasion nearly three years ago.

In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Zelenskyy said he told Nordic leaders that "[O]nly determination – truly long-range – will bring the war to an end."

tj/kb (AFP, AP, Reuters, dpa)