Ukraine halts Russian advance in east as Mongolia refuses to arrest Putin – latest

Rafael Grossi, the head of the international nuclear agency, is set to visit the Russia-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant before meeting Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, the Ukrainian president said.

Mr Grossi, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency nuclear watchdog, said late on Monday in a post on X that he was on his way to the plant to “to continue our assistance and help prevent a nuclear accident.”

Mr Zelensky said there is no immediate prospect of Ukraine taking back control of the plant given the frontline situation.

“It is safer for Ukraine to control the Zaporizhzhia plant, but so far, from the point of view of the battlefield, I do not see such possibilities, and those that probably exist, they are dangerous,” Mr Zelensky said.

Russian agencies reported yesterday that a high-voltage power supply line at the plant automatically disconnected, but the plant’s needs are supplied from another line. There was no reason given for the automatic disconnection.

The nuclear facility in Ukraine’s southeast – Europe’s largest nuclear power plant and now in “cold shutdown” – fell to Russian troops in the first days of Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

Both sides have since frequently accused each other of shelling the plant and both Moscow and Kyiv deny the accusations.

At least 16,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukraine since April, according to a data project by the BBC’s Russia service and independent Russian media outlet Mediazona.

The project records deaths from official reports and media and satellite analysis of Russian graveyards.

Ukrainian officials have hit out at Mongolia for its failure to arrest Vladimir Putin during his visit there.

Mongolia’s failure to detain Putin was “a heavy blow to the International Criminal Court and the system of criminal law”, said Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi.

The Russian leader is wanted on an international warrant for war crimes in Ukraine, meaning Mongolia – an ICC member state since 2002 – has a treaty obligation to arrest him.

“Mongolia has allowed an accused criminal to evade justice, thereby sharing responsibility for the war crimes,” Tykhyi wrote on Telegram. Ukraine, he said, would work with its allies to ensure Mongolia felt the consequences.

Putin arrived in Mongolia on Monday for talks likely to focus on a new gas pipeline connecting Russia and China.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Moscow had no worries about any action in connection with the warrant, saying Russia had “a great dialogue” with Mongolia and all aspects of the visit had been discussed in advance.

An International Criminal Court arrest warrant issued last year against Putin obliges the court’s 124 member states, including Mongolia, to arrest the Russian president and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Ukraine is facing difficulties in confronting “the most combat-focused Russian brigades” on the eastern front, Volodymyr Zelensky said in his latest remarks on the war’s frontline situation.

“In the Pokrovsk sector, no matter how difficult it is, there has been no (Russian) advance for two days,” he said addressing journalists in the Ukrainian-held city of Zaporizhzhia alongside Dutch prime minister Dick Schoof. Mr Zelensky said he had been in discussions regarding the situation for two days with commander in chief Oleksandr Syrskyi.

Military blog DeepState also reported a stabilised situation in villages near Pokrovsk. Ukraine’s General Staff, in an evening account, reported fighting around Selydove and Russian attacks on the city of Ukrainsk.

Yuri Podolyaka, a Ukrainian-born, pro-Russian military blogger, said fierce fighting was gripping Selydove, 20km (12 miles) south of Pokrovsk, and Ukrainsk, 14km south of Selydove.

He said both sides were pushing forces into the battles for the towns, which had populations of over 20,000 and 10,000 respectively before the full-scale war began in February 2022.

In Moscow’s reports, Russian state news agency TASS said that Ukrainian forces had been driven out of a part of Selydove. The Russian defence ministry has claimed its forces have taken control of the village of Skuchne, east of Pokrovsk.

Vladimir Putin boasted of Russia’s battlefield gains during a visit to a school on Monday, claiming his forces are taking several square kilometres per day.

“We have not had such a pace in the offensive in Donbas (region) for a long time,” Mr Putin claimed to children at Secondary School No 20 in Kyzyl, in the remote region of Tuva, about 4,500km (2,800 miles) east of Moscow.

“Now we are not talking about moving 200 or 300 metres forward… The Russian armed forces are already bringing territories under control not by 200 to 300 metres but by square kilometres,” he said.

The Russian president’s claims cannot be verified and contradict Kyiv’s assessment that Russia’s troops have made no further advance in the past two days. Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has acknowledged the difficulties in the east, particularly near the city of Pokrovsk.

But it is true that Russia, which now controls 18 per cent of Ukrainian territory, has been making steady advances in eastern Ukraine since the failure of Kyiv’s 2023 counter-offensive to achieve a major breakthrough.

Ukraine’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region is legitimate and covered by Kyiv’s right to self-defence, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told German weekly Welt am Sonntag in his first reaction to the advance into Russian territory.

“Ukraine has a right to defend itself. And according to international law, this right does not stop at the border,” Stoltenberg told the paper, adding that NATO had not been informed about Ukraine’s plans beforehand and did not play a role in them.

The NATO chief said Ukraine was running a risk with the advance onto Russian territory but that it was up to Kyiv how to conduct its military campaign.

“(Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelensky has made clear that the operation aims to create a buffer zone to prevent further Russian attacks from across the border,” he said.

“Like all military operations, this comes with risks. But it is Ukraine’s decision how to defend itself.”

Kyiv launched a major cross-border incursion into the Kursk region on 6 August, while Moscow’s troops keep pressing towards the strategic hub of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine.

Russia has called the Kursk operation a “major provocation” and said it would retaliate.

The Kremlin said on Monday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had arrived for a state visit in Mongolia, which lies on the route of a planned new gas pipeline connecting Russia and China.

Russia has been in talks for years about building the pipeline to carry 50 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas a year from its Yamal region to China via Mongolia.

The project, Power of Siberia 2, is part of Russia’s strategy to compensate for the loss of most of its gas sales in Europe since the start of the Ukraine war. It is the planned successor to an existing pipeline of the same name which already supplies Russian gas to China and is due to reach its planned capacity of 38 bcm per year in 2025.

The new venture has long been bogged down over key issues such as the pricing of the gas. However, Putin said on the eve of his visit that preparatory work, including feasibility and engineering studies, were proceeding as scheduled.

He is due to hold talks with Mongolian President Ukhnaagiin Khurelsukh on Tuesday.

Ukraine urged Mongolia last week to arrest Putin on a warrant issued by the International Criminal Court warrant last year, when it accused him of the war crime of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.

The Kremlin has dismissed the accusation, saying it is politically motivated, and has said it has no worries about Putin making the trip.

The warrant obliges the court’s 124 member states, including Mongolia, to arrest Putin and transfer him to The Hague for trial if he sets foot on their territory.

Asked whether there had been discussions with Mongolian authorities about the ICC warrant, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said last week that “all of the aspects of the visit have been thoroughly discussed.”