BERLIN — Leaders of the Group of Seven industrial powers have pledged after a videoconference with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that they “will stand firmly with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
The leaders said in a statement after Tuesday’s virtual meeting that they had reassured Zelenskyy they are “undeterred and steadfast in our commitment to providing the support Ukraine needs to uphold its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”
They said they will continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic and legal support to Kyiv, and that they are committed to supporting Ukraine in meeting its “winter preparedness needs.”
The G-7 leaders condemned this week’s barrage of Russian missile strikes against cities across Ukraine and said that “indiscriminate attacks on innocent civilian populations constitute a war crime.”
They said: “We will hold President (Vladimir) Putin and those responsible to account.”
The G-7 is made up of the U.S., Germany, Britain, France, Italy, Canada and Japan. Germany currently chairs the group.
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KEY DEVELOPMENTS:
More missiles, drones strike Ukraine, alarms keep up fear
Kremlin war hawks demand more devastating strikes on Ukraine
Analysts: Russian missiles seek to levy pain, could backfire
Weather chief: Ukraine war may be ‘blessing’ for climate
Hong Kong nixes US sanctions on Russian-owned superyacht
Follow all AP stories on the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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BRUSSELS — NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg says the 30-nation military alliance will hold a long-planned exercise next week to test the state of readiness of its nuclear capabilities.
Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels on Tuesday that “this is routine training that happens every year to keep our deterrence safe, secure and effective.”
The exercise, dubbed “Steadfast Noon,” is held annually and usually runs for about one week. It involves fighter jets capable of carrying nuclear warheads but doesn’t involve any live bombs. Conventional jets, and surveillance and refueling aircraft also routinely take part.
NATO as an organization does not possess any nuclear weapons. They remain under the control of three member countries -– the U.S., U.K. and France.
Asked whether it was the wrong time to be holding such an exercise, Stoltenberg said: “It would send a very wrong signal now if we suddenly cancelled a routine, long-time planned exercise because of the war in Ukraine.”
Stoltenberg said that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nuclear rhetoric over the war in Ukraine is “irresponsible.” He added: “Russia knows that a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought.”
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GENEVA — The head of the U.N. weather agency says the war in Ukraine “may be seen as a blessing” from a climate perspective because it is accelerating the development of and investment in green energies over the longer term — even though fossil fuels are being used at a time of high demand now.
The comments from Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, came as the world is facing a shortfall in energy needs — prompted in part by economic sanctions against key oil and natural gas producer Russia — and prices for fossil fuels have risen.
That has led some countries to turn quickly to alternatives like coal. But rising prices for carbon-spewing fuels like oil, gas and coal have also made higher-priced renewable energies like solar, wind and hydrothermal more competitive in the energy marketplace.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s state nuclear operator is accusing Russian forces of abducting another senior official at the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Energoatom wrote on its Telegram channel Tuesday that Valeriy Martyniuk, the plant’s deputy director general for human resources, had been kidnapped. It wrote that “they keep holding him at an unknown location and (are) probably using methods of torture and intimidation.”
The plant has been held by Russian forces for months but operated by its Ukrainian staff. Reports of intimidation of the staff and abductions began trickling out over the summer.
Ukrainian authorities have said that the plant’s director, Ihor Murashov, was seized and blindfolded by Russian forces on his way home from work, then released in early October after being forced to make false statements on camera.
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will meet in Kazakhstan this week to discuss Ukraine and other issues.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the two leaders will meet Thursday. He said Tuesday that the agenda will include the situation in Ukraine along with bilateral issues.
The meeting will follow Putin’s talks in Astana with the leaders of several ex-Soviet nations.
Turkey hosted talks between Russia and Ukraine in March that produced no result, and together with the U.N. co-sponsored July’s deal that allowed the resumption of Ukraine grain exports. Erdogan recently has offered to help organize peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
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MOSCOW — The Kremlin is saying that the continuation of U.S. weapons supplies to Ukraine will extend the fighting and increase the damage to Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday that “the U.S. de facto has become deeply involved.”
Asked during a conference call with reporters about U.S. President Joe Biden telling Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington has agreed to his request to provide advanced air defense systems, Peskov said that it would only exacerbate Ukraine’s condition.
He said: “It will only drag the conflict out and make it more painful for the Ukrainian side, but it will not change our goals and the end result.”
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CHISINAU, Moldova — Moldova’s president has demanded that her country’s borders be respected after three Russian missiles bound for Ukraine crossed its airspace.
President Maia Sandu said in a video address to the nation on Tuesday, a day after the incident, that “we respect territorial integrity and sovereignty of other countries and also demand that our borders be respected.”
Sandu said she would “do everything” to maintain peace in Moldova despite what she called “growing pressure” by pro-Russian political forces in the eastern European nation who she said had “promised to Moscow to overthrow our constitutional order and install a government that will allow Russia to use our country” in its war against Ukraine.
Moldova, a former Soviet republic located between Ukraine and Romania, has been a strong supporter of Kyiv during the war.
Russian troops have occupied its breakaway Transnistria region since 1991, when the region fought a brief war for independence from Moldova with Moscow’s support.
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WARSAW, Poland — Canada says it will deploy approximately 40 combat engineers to NATO ally Poland to train Ukrainian sappers in mining, de-mining, engineer reconnaissance and explosives.
Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand made the announcement during a visit to Warsaw on Tuesday.
Anand also signed a memorandum of understanding with her Polish counterpart to strengthen the two countries’ defense cooperation.
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GENEVA — The U.N. human rights office says Russian missile strikes across Ukraine on Monday were “particularly shocking” and could amount to war crimes.
Spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani of the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights called on Russia Tuesday to “refrain from further escalation” and expressed concerns about strikes on civilian infrastructure, including residential buildings and energy facilities.
“Damage to key power stations and lines ahead of the upcoming winter raises further concerns for the protection of civilians and in particular the impact on vulnerable populations,” she told reporters at a U.N. briefing in Geneva on Tuesday. “Attacks targeting civilians and objects indispensable to the survival of civilians are prohibited under international humanitarian law.”
Shamdasani added: “We have to stress that intentionally directing attacks against civilians and civilian objects — that is objects which are not military objectives — amount to a war crime.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — The mayor of Lviv says Russian forces have struck an energy facility in the western city. About a third of the city remains without power and there are issues with water supplies.
Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said Tuesday afternoon that “numerous explosions are again heard in Lviv.” He didn’t clarify what facility was attacked. It wasn’t immediately clear if there were any casualties.
Sadovyi asked city residents to stock up on water due to possible interruptions to water supplies.
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KYIV, Ukraine — The Kyiv region’s regional administration says that rolling power shutdowns following Monday’s Russian strikes on Ukraine may last for up to four hours each.
The capital’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said Tuesday that the strikes killed at least five people in the city and wounded 51. He vowed that “the evil will be avenged.”
The governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Valentyn Reznichenko, said that Russian forces overnight continued to pound three districts around the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, which is on the front line of the conflict. Those included Nikopol, a Ukranian-held city across the Dnieper River from the plant.
Vinnitsya governor Serhiy Borzov said the Ladyzhynska thermal power plant was attacked with two Shahed-136 drones. The plant’s administration said the strikes injured six people and damaged some equipment.
In Kryvyi Rih, Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said that hundreds of miners stuck underground because of power blackouts were rescued by Tuesday morning. He said the rescue operation lasted all night and “all 854 miners were brought up to the surface.”
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KYIV, Ukraine — Officials in different parts of Ukraine have reported explosions, drone strikes and missile strikes by Russian forces.
Lviv governor Maksym Kozytskyi said three explosions shook two energy facilities in the region on Tuesday. He wrote on Telegram that it wasn’t immediately clear if there were any casualties there. There were reports of new power outages in Lviv only hours after it had been restored after Monday’s attacks.
In the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian forces on Tuesday shot down four Russian missiles, according to the region’s governor Valentyn Reznichenko.
Four more Russian missiles were downed by Ukraine’s forces in the south, as well as five drones over the Mykolaiv and the Odesa regions, Operational Command South said. The governor of the southern Mykolaiv region, Vitaliy Kim, urged local residents on Tuesday not to leave shelters as “there are enough missiles still in the air.”
Another missile was shot down in the Kyiv region, governor Oleksii Kuleba said.
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LONDON — The head of Britain’s cyberintelligence service, GCHQ, has urged caution over talk about potential use of nuclear weapons.
Jeremy Fleming told the BBC on Tuesday: “I think any talk of nuclear weapons is very dangerous, and we need to be very careful about how we’re talking about that.”
He said his agency would “hope that we would see indicators if (Russia) started to go down that path” – suggesting GCHQ has not seen any such indicators so far.
He added that “they (Russia) are staying within the doctrine that we understand for their use, including for nuclear weapons.”
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MOSCOW — Russia’s foreign minister has rejected speculation about Moscow’s possible use of nuclear weapons, saying that it could do so only if Russia faces imminent demise.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday that Russia’s nuclear doctrine envisions “exclusively retaliatory measures intended to prevent the destruction of the Russian Federation as a result of direct nuclear strikes or the use of other weapons that raise the threat for the very existence of the Russian state.”
Speaking on Russian state television, Lavrov accused the West of spreading speculation about Russia’s alleged intentions to use nuclear weapons and urged the U.S. and its allies to “show the maximum responsibility in their public statements” on the subject.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has declared his readiness to use “all means available” to protect Russian territory, a statement that was broadly seen as an attempt to force Ukraine to halt its offensive to reclaim control the four regions that Russia absorbed earlier this month after Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums” that were rejected by Kyiv and its Western allies as a sham.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s State Emergency Service says that 12 S-300 missiles have slammed into public facilities in Zaporizhzhia, setting off a large fire in the area.
It says that one person was killed in the attack early Tuesday.
The S-300 was originally designed as a long-range surface-to-air missile. Russia has increasingly resorted to using repurposed versions of the weapon to strike targets on the ground.
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PRAGUE — The presidents of NATO members in central and eastern Europe are condemning Monday’s Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities and saying that they “constitute war crimes under international law.”
The presidents of the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Montenegro said in a statement that war crimes and crimes against humanity aren’t subject to any statute of limitations and are covered by the “jurisdiction of courts all over the world.”
They demanded that Russia immediately stop attacking civilian targets and said that “We will not cease our efforts to bring to court persons responsible of yesterday’s crimes.” The presidents said that “any threats by Russian representatives to use nuclear weapons” are unacceptable.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Air raid warnings throughout Ukraine have sent some residents back into shelters after months of relative calm in the capital and many other cities. That lull had led many Ukrainians to ignore the regular sirens, but Monday’s attacks gave them new urgency.
Besides the usual sirens, Kyiv residents were jolted early Tuesday by a new type of loud alarm that blared automatically from mobile phones. The caustic-sounding alert was accompanied by a text warning of the possibility of missile strikes.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian Tu-95 and Tu-160 bombers operating over the Caspian Sea launched missiles over Ukrainian territory around 7 a.m. Tuesday. It did not provide information about the targets.
It said four inbound missiles were shot down by the Ukrainian southern air command around 9 a.m.
The governor of the Vinnytsia region, Serhiy Borzov, said there was an air strike there in the morning. There was no word on casualties.
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BERLIN — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz says he plans to discuss how to bring down soaring fossil fuel prices with his counterparts in the Group of Seven industrial powers.
Scholz told a conference of Germany’s machinery industry Tuesday that “the very first task must be to ensure that the prices for fossil resources, for gas, for oil and coal come back down.” But he noted that can’t be done unilaterally.
Scholz said he plans to bring up “mutual responsibility,” particularly on gas prices, in all his international talks — including at a videoconference of G-7 leaders planned later Tuesday.
He said that “we need a negotiated process in which prices sink to a sensible level again.” Scholz said that it was the same idea that led to the foundation of the G-7 in the 1970s.
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MOSCOW — The speaker of the lower house of Russian parliament has likened the Ukrainian president to former al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.
State Duma speaker Vyacheslav Volodin asserted Tuesday that “the Kyiv regime has become a terrorist one,” pointing to the weekend attack on a bridge linking Russia with Crimea, which it annexed from Ukraine 2014, other attacks and the killings of public figures in Ukraine and Russia.
He said that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has “put himself on par with Osama bin Laden and other international terrorists.”
Volodin argued that “Western politicians supporting Zelenskyy’s regime are effectively sponsoring terrorism.” He added that there is “a rule known worldwide: there can be no talks with terrorists.”
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MOSCOW — A senior Russian diplomat has issued a new warning to the U.S. and its allies that their support for Ukraine could draw them into an open conflict with Russia.
Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said that Western military assistance to Kyiv, the training of Ukrainian personnel in NATO countries, and the provision of real-time satellite data allowing the Ukrainian military to designate targets for artillery strikes have “increasingly drawn Western nations into the conflict on the part of the Kyiv regime.”
He warned in remarks carried by the state RIA-Novosti news agency that “Russia will be forced to take relevant countermeasures, including asymmetrical ones.”
Ryabkov added that “Russia isn’t interested in a direct clash with the U.S. and NATO, and we hope that Washington and other Western capitals are aware of the danger of an uncontrollable escalation.”
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LONDON — The head of GCHQ, Britain’s electronic intelligence agency, says Russia is running short of weapons and its troops are “exhausted.”
Jeremy Fleming said Tuesday that “we believe Russia is running short of munitions.”
Fleming is due to give a public speech later, arguing that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made “strategic errors in judgment” throughout the war.
According to GCHQ, he will say that “we know – and Russian commanders on the ground know – that their supplies and munitions are running out.”
“Russia’s forces are exhausted. The use of prisoners to reinforce, and now the mobilization of tens of thousands of inexperienced conscripts, speaks of a desperate situation.”
GCHQ did not disclose the sources of its intelligence.
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KYIV, Ukraine — Ukraine’s State Emergencies Service says that 19 people were killed and 105 others were wounded in Monday’s Russian missile strikes across Ukraine.
It said Tuesday that critical infrastructure facilities were hit in Kyiv and 12 other regions, and 301 cities and towns were without power.
Russia on Monday retaliated for an attack on a critical bridge by unleashing its most widespread strikes against Ukraine in months. They hit at least 14 regions, from Lviv in the west to Kharkiv in the east. Many of the attacks occurred far from the war’s front lines.
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