Ukraine war: Russia and US ‘discuss holding talks on nuclear weapons’ – as Putin’s troops ‘prepare for street fighting’
Russia and the US are reportedly discussing holding talks on strategic nuclear weapons for the first time since Moscow sent troops into Ukraine.
Talks between the two countries on strategic stability have been frozen since Vladimir Putin‘s forces invaded Ukraine eight months ago – even as the New Start treaty on nuclear arms reduction stays in effect.
Now, Russian newspaper Kommersant said the talks may take place in the Middle East, adding that Moscow no longer views Switzerland, the traditional venue, as neutral after it imposed sanctions on Russia over Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukraine has accused Russia of looting empty homes in the southern city of Kherson – as well as occupying them with troops in civilian clothes to prepare for street fighting.
Ukraine’s military said Russian forces, “disguised in civilian clothes, occupy the premises of civilians and strengthen positions inside for conducting street battles”.
It said in an update on Monday that Russian forces were “involved in looting and theft from residents and from infrastructure sites and are taking away equipment, food and vehicles to the Russian Federation”.
Russia has ordered civilians out of Kherson in recent days, in anticipation of a Ukrainian assault to recapture it.
It comes as the city, which has a population of about 300,000, has been left cold and dark following a power and water cut to the surrounding area over the past 48 hours, according to both sides.
Russian officials blamed Ukrainian “sabotage” for the power cuts, while Ukrainian officials said the Russians had dismantled 1.5km of power lines.
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Russia lacks ‘air superiority’
Elsewhere, about 100 disabled children were moved from a medical facility in Dnipriany in the Kherson region to the Moscow area, Ukraine’s military said.
Patients from an elderly people’s home in Kakhovka were also being moved as Russian forces are taking over those facilities, it said.
Ukrainian forces around the recently liberated village of Nova Kamyanka in the Kherson region counted four Russian air strikes in the vicinity.
Recapturing Kherson has been the main focus of Ukraine’s counter-offensive in the south, which has accelerated since the start of October.
Other key developments:
• Ukraine has received its first delivery of NASAMS and Apside air defence systems, the country’s defence minister said
• North Korea denies having arms dealings with Russia after the US said it appeared to be supplying the Kremlin with artillery shells
• Putin said 50,000 Russian soldiers called up as part of his mobilisation drive were now fighting with combat units in Ukraine, the Interfax news agency reported
• Russia’s defence ministry took the rare step of denying allegations that a naval infantry unit had suffered disastrous losses of men and equipment in a futile offensive in eastern Ukraine
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Firefighters work at the scene of a damaged residential building after Russian shelling in the liberated Lyman, Donetsk region
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Monday that the Donetsk region in the east remained the “epicentre” of the fighting, claiming hundreds of Russians are being killed every day.
The towns of Bakhmut and Avdiivka in the Donetsk region are understood to be suffering the heaviest fighting.
In his nightly address on Monday, Mr Zelenskyy added that Russia should be forced to participate in “genuine” peace talks.
Russia has faced major setbacks in the east and south in recent months, and lost all the territories it captured in northern Ukraine in the weeks after the February invasion.
President Putin has responded by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists and announcing the annexation of occupied lands.
World
‘Widespread sexual violence’ took place during Hamas’s 7 October attacks, report by Israeli experts says
A newly released report led by Israeli legal and gender experts presents detailed evidence alleging “widespread and systematic” sexual violence during the Hamas-led terror attack on 7 October.
Warning: This story contains descriptions of rape and sexual violence
The findings, published by the Dinah Project, argue that these acts amount to conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), and assert that “Hamas used sexual violence as a tactical weapon of war”.
The report draws on 18 months of investigation and is based on survivor testimonies, eyewitness accounts, and interviews with first responders, morgue personnel and healthcare professionals.
According to the Dinah Project, the documented patterns – such as forced nudity, gang rapes, genital mutilation, and threats of forced marriage – indicate a deliberate and coordinated use of sexual violence by Hamas operatives during the attack.
Reported incidents span at least six locations, including the Nova music festival, and several kibbutzim in southern Israel.
A destroyed car near the police station in Sderot, following the 7 October attacks by Hamas. Pic: AP
One section of the report describes victims “found fully or partially naked from the waist down, with their hands tied behind their backs and/or to structures such as trees and poles, and shot”.
At the Nova music festival and surrounding areas, the investigators found “reasonable grounds to believe” that multiple women were raped or gang-raped before being killed.
The report’s findings are consistent with earlier investigations by the United Nations and the International Criminal Court (ICC).
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Israeli soldier describes arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza
The UN’s Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict previously concluded that there were “reasonable grounds to believe” CRSV took place during the attack.
Destroyed vehicles near the grounds of the Supernova electronic music festival. Pic: AP
Significantly, the Dinah Project urges the international community to officially recognise the use of sexual violence by Hamas as a deliberate strategy of war and calls on the United Nations to add Hamas to its list of parties responsible for conflict-related sexual violence.
Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The nature and scale of sexual violence on 7 October have been a subject of intense controversy, with some accusing parties of weaponising the narrative for political ends.
This report seeks to confront what its authors call “denial, misinformation, and global silence,” and to provide justice for the victims.
Hamas has denied that its fighters have used sexual violence and mistreated female hostages.
World
Israeli soldiers ‘psychologically broken’ after ‘confronting the reality’ in Gaza, UN expert says
A UN expert has said some young soldiers in the Israeli Defence Forces are being left “psychologically broken” after “confront[ing] the reality among the rubble” when serving in Gaza.
Francesca Albanese, the UN Human Rights Council’s special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, was responding to a Sky News interview with an Israeli solider who described arbitrary killing of civilians in Gaza.
She told The World with Yalda Hakim that “many” of the young people fighting in Gaza are “haunted by what they have seen, what they have done”.
“It doesn’t make sense,” Ms Albanese said. “This is not a war, this is an assault against civilians and this is producing a fracture in many of them.
“As that soldier’s testimony reveals, especially the youngest among the soldiers have been convinced this is a form of patriotism, of defending Israel and Israeli society against this opaque but very hard felt enemy, which is Hamas.
“But the thing is that they’ve come to confront the reality among the rubble of Gaza.”
An Israeli soldier directs a tank near the border with the Gaza Strip, in southern Israel. Pic: AP
Being in Gaza is “probably this is the first time the Israeli soldiers are awakening to this,” she added. “And they don’t make sense of this because their attachment to being part of the IDF, which is embedded in their national ideology, is too strong.
“This is why they are psychologically broken.”
Jonathan Conricus, a former IDF spokesman who is now a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, said he believes the Sky News interview with the former IDF solider “reflects one part of how ugly, difficult and horrible fighting in a densely populated, urban terrain is”.
“I think [the ex-soldier] is reflecting on how difficult it is to fight in such an area and what the challenges are on the battlefield,” he said.
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Ex-IDF spokesperson: ‘No distinction between military and civilians’
‘An economy of genocide’
Ms Albanese, one of dozens of independent UN-mandated experts, also said her most recent report for the human rights council has identified “an economy of genocide” in Israel.
The system, she told Hakim, is made up of more than 60 private sector companies “that have become enmeshed in the economy of occupation […] that have Israel displace the Palestinians and replace them with settlers, settlements and infrastructure Israel runs.”
Israel has rejected allegations of genocide in Gaza, citing its right to defend itself after Hamas’s attack on 7 October 2023.
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‘Israel has shifted towards economy of genocide’
The companies named in Ms Albanese’s report are in, but not limited to, the financial sector, big tech and the military industry.
“These companies can be held responsible for being directed linked to, or contributing, or causing human rights impacts,” she said. “We’re not talking of human rights violations, we are talking of crimes.”
“Some of the companies have engaged in good faith, others have not,” Ms Albanese said.
Read more:
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Listen to The World with Richard Engel and Yalda Hakim every Wednesday
The companies she has named include American technology giant Palantir, which has issued a statement to Sky News.
It said it is “not true” that Palantir “is the (or a) developer of the ‘Gospel’ – the AI-assisted targeting software allegedly used by the IDF in Gaza, and that we are involved with the ‘Lavender’ database used by the IDF for targeting cross-referencing”.
“Both capabilities are independent of and pre-ate Palantir’s announced partnership with the Israeli Defence Ministry,” the statement added.
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