Ukraine says Russian stronghold liberated after hand-to-hand fighting – latest

Ukrainian troops have recaptured a Russian stronghold in Kharkiv after intense fighting involving hand-to-hand combat, according to officials in Kyiv.

Vladimir Putin’s forces have been driven out of a huge processing plant in Vovchansk, the officials said.

The plant, a partly steel structure with some 30 buildings, was held by Russian forces for four months and served as their stronghold in the Kharkiv border region.

A statement from Ukrainian Military Intelligence said its units recaptured the Vovchansk plant after fierce fighting “in densely built-up conditions.”

The Russian onslaught has reduced Vovchansk, and many other Ukrainian towns and villages, to smoking piles of rubble and bombed-out residential buildings.

State repression has worsened in Russia since the invasion of Ukraine, a UN expert has said, warning of arbitrary imprisonment and risks for more than 1,000 political prisoners.

“The country is now governed by a State-sponsored system of fear and punishment, including the use of torture, with absolute impunity,” UN Special Rapporteur Mariana Katzarova told the Geneva-based Human Rights Council,

The Bulgarian former Amnesty International investigator said in a report on Russia’s rights record that oppression had intensified since the February 2022 Ukraine war began, with the number of political prisoners up to more than 1,300.

Many were jailed on fabricated charges, she said, noting a priest’s seven-year sentence for a prayer against the war.

“They risk anything from death, like (opposition leader Alexei) Navalny, or really their health being completely taken away from them,” she said on Monday ahead of her speech, noting greater use of torture and solitary confinement.

Foreign secretary David Lammy came down heavily on Vladimir Putin in his United Nations Security Council address and said the invasion of Ukraine serves the Russian president’s interests alone.

“Vladimir Putin, when you fire missiles into Ukraine hospitals. We know who you are. When you send mercenaries into African countries. We know who you are. When you murder opponents in European cities. We know who you are,” the foreign secretary told the gathering of member nations in New York last night.

“Your invasion is in your own interests. Yours alone. To expand your mafia state into a mafia empire. An empire built on corruption,” Mr Lammy told the security council.

He also lauded the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky’s efforts to lead the defence of his country. “President Zelensky, the UK commends you not only for standing up for your people but for standing up for democracy,” he said.

“Seeing you in Kyiv a few weeks ago with Secretary Blinken I saw ordinary people from all walks of life. The soldiers and the civilians. The firefighters and the first responders,” Mr Lammy said.

Russian forces have begun storming the eastern Ukrainian town of Vuhledar, a stronghold that has resisted Russian attack since the beginning of the 2022 war, according to Russian war bloggers and state media.

Russian forces in eastern Ukraine advanced at their fastest rate in two years in August, according to multiple open source maps, even though a Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk region sought to force Moscow to divert troops.

President Vladimir Putin has said Russia’s primary tactical goal is currently to take the whole of the Donbas region in south-eastern Ukraine. Russia controls just under a fifth of Ukraine, including about 80% of the Donbas.

Russian forces have been pushing westwards at key points along some 150 km (93 miles) of the front in the Donetsk region, with the logistics hub of Pokrovsk a key target. They captured nearby Ukrainsk on 17 September and were now entering the hilltop town of Vuhledar, about 80 km (50 miles) south of Pokrovsk.

Russia’s defence ministry said its forces had defeated Ukrainian units at a series of settlements including Vuhledar, which Russians call Ugledar, and that the Eastern Grouping of Russian forces had improved their tactical positions. It gave no further details on Vuhledar.

Unverified video on Russian state media showed Vuhledar, which had a population of over 14,000 before the war, under heavy artillery and aerial bombardment.

The war between Russia and Ukraine cannot be ended by talks alone and Moscow must be forced into peace, Volodymyr Zelensky has told the United Nations Security Council.

“This war can’t be calmed by talks. Action is needed,” Mr Zelensky said, thanking nations who have provided Ukraine support.

“[Vladimir] Putin has broken so many international norms and rules that he won’t stop on his own, Russia can only be forced into peace, and that is exactly what’s needed, forcing Russia into peace, as the sole aggressor in this war, the sole violator of the UN Charter,” Mr Zelensky said.

He added that the war would end one day but not because “someone got tired of the war” or through a trade with Mr Putin, a reference to proposals that Ukraine cede some territory seized by Russia to settle the conflict.

Mr Zelensky also took aim at North Korea and Iran for providing arms to Russia for the war, calling them “de facto accomplices” of Moscow.

Russia has no alternative but to achieve all of its aims in the “special military operation” in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said.

Peskov said that as soon as the aims were achieved, the military operation would end.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been adamant peace talks will only begin if Kyiv abandons swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine to Russia and drops its NATO membership ambitions.

The Kremlin have continued to show a public disinterest in peace talks unless it involves the complete destruction of the Ukrainian state, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) think tank has said.

ISW analysts noted that Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed reports that Ukraine invited Russia to attend Ukraine’s second peace summit but that the Kremlin had not demonstrated any interest in participating.

Kremlin Spokesperson Dmitry Peskov recently said there is “no alternative” to Russian victory in Ukraine, reiterating Russia’s unwillingness to negotiate on terms other than Ukrainian “capitulation”.

“ISW continues to assess that the Kremlin is not interested in good faith peace negotiations with Ukraine and that the Kremlin will only invoke the concept of ‘peace plans’ and ‘negotiations’ to prompt the West to pressure Ukraine into preemptive concessions on Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the situation report from the ISW said.