by Francesco Battistini, Lorenzo Cremonesi, Marta Serafini and Online Editorial
The news of Monday 3 October live. The counter-offensive by Zelenskyy’s troops to recapture Kherson continues successfully
• The war in Ukraine has reached its 222nd day.
• The city of Lyman in Donetsk is fully controlled by Kyiv. It is a strategic city that is part of the territories annexed to Russia by Putin.
• Chechnya leader Kadyrov: Moscow should evaluate the use of tactical nuclear weapons.
• Stoltenberg (NATO): Serious consequences if Putin uses nuclear weapons.
• Are there internal ruptures in the Kremlin? The Three Axes of Western Intelligence.
• Paolo Valentino interviewed Russian billionaire Melnichenko, a sanctioned Russian industrialist: Regarding the annexes, he explains that the West has not yet understood what this step really means: it will be impossible to change anything. Chaos in Russia can lead to catastrophes, and it is naïve and dangerous to think that all problems, especially security, will be solved once regime change occurs.
• Russia blocks road traffic to enemy countries.
09:27 – Russia, suspended recruiter: Thousands accidentally mobilized
The head of military recruitment in a Russian region in the Far East has been suspended from his duties after thousands of people were mistakenly called to fight in Ukraine. “The military commissar of the Khabarovsk region Yuri Laiko was suspended from his duties. It will not affect the goal set for us by the President,” Governor Mikhail Degtiariov said in a video on Telegram, without explaining the exact reason for this suspension. “Within ten days, several thousand of our compatriots received the summons and went to the military police offices. We sent about half of them home because they didn’t meet the eligibility criteria to join the army,” the governor said. “The partial mobilization affects only the categories established by the Department of Defense and the President. Any abuse must be punished,” he added.
08:32 – Kyiv, Russian bombs on Zaporizhzhia at night, casualties
Russian forces launched a rocket attack on the city of Zaporizhia in southern Ukraine last night: part of the infrastructure has been destroyed and there are casualties. The head of the military administration of the region of the same name, Oleksandr Starukh, and the speaker of the city council of the city, Anatolii Kurtieve, announced this by telegram. This is reported by Ukrainska Pravda. The enemy launched a missile attack on the center of the region (the city of Zaporizhia, ed.). Information on the damage and casualties is being collected, Starukh wrote. For his part, Kurtiev added that part of the city’s infrastructure had been destroyed and there were casualties.
08:01 – NATO over Ukraine: If Putin uses nuclear weapons, Russia will pay
Serious consequences for Russia if Vladimir Putin uses nuclear weapons in any way.
In an interview broadcast by NBC, NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg announced yesterday that he had notified the Kremlin directly. President Putin uses dangerous and reckless nuclear rhetoric. While we’ve been hearing about it for a while, it doesn’t mean it remains extremely dangerous. So we told him how serious the consequences would be for Russia: it would change the nature of the conflict.
However, Stoltenberg did not clarify whether the war would result in the Atlantic Alliance intervening directly in Ukraine: it is a conflict initiated by President Putin. NATO is not one of them. What we are doing supports Ukraine, an independent and sovereign nation in Europe that has the right to defend itself against aggression.
And again: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought, that is the message the NATO allies are sending to Russia. Read the full article by Giuseppe Sarcina and Gian Guido Vecchi here.
08:00 – Kharkiv, the train ride to save 200 psychiatric patients from the Russians: They were skin and bones
When they called me from the hospital and told me that Irina couldn’t make it, I have to admit that it was hard not to cry. Certainly not the first time that Emilie Fourrey, coordinator of the MSF platoon in Ukraine dedicated to the evacuation of the wounded, has faced dramatic situations. But the last ride is not easily forgotten.
Two hundred patients with neurological and psychiatric pathologies, including Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, rescued after being transported from the Russian border in Streleccha to Kharkiv and bombed, and finally transported to Kyiv thanks to the MSF train. Including Irina, about 80 years old. He suffered from Parkinson’s and had contracted tuberculosis and pneumonia. During the trip she got worse and yesterday they called me to say that despite the treatment she had died.
Elderly people who are often hospitalized in psychiatric wards because they have no one left. A loneliness that the war has only made worse. Read the complete report from our correspondent in Kyiv Marta Serafini here.
07:40 – What are tactical nuclear bombs? Power, range, effects and scenarios
Vladimir Putin warns that this is not a bluff.
Russia could use nuclear tactical weapons to protect national security.
The Pentagon and the NATO command in Brussels are examining possible countermeasures. Although the prevailing opinion that the nuclear bombing of Ukraine is still an unlikely hypothesis.
1. What weapons could Putin use? The Russian army has about two thousand tactical nuclear bombs with a limited range, about a kilometer or two, but with a devastating effect. The weapons can be mounted on Iskander missiles with a range of up to 500 kilometers or carried by jets.
Read the full article by our US correspondent Giuseppe Sarcina here.
7.15 am – The charge of the nationalists in Russia for the war
Call it the invasion of the ultranationalists. I’m everywhere.
In the talk shows of the most popular propaganda, the guests greet the audience of deep Russia. In the capital’s parks, where some of their imitators denounce the crowds of mothers with prams on Sunday morning. And above all in the spirit of Vladimir Putin, as his last speech showed, a definitive declaration of hatred to the collective West, which is at the same time also a compendium of the theses of this group with limited political representation but enormous weight and influence only in public opinion.
As Andrei Kolesnikov, associate professor at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote, the Russian president’s words were a sample of conspiratorial clichés that thirty years ago could only have been read in the clandestine publications of these nationalist-patriotic movements.
The tirade on American colonialism and that on Western Satanism are featured in the manifestos of parties such as Sergei Baburin’s Conservative Russia and organizations such as Stanislav Vorobyov’s Imperial Russian Movement, which are also on the list of terrorist groups in the USA and other small formations. Read the full article by our Moscow correspondent Marco Imarisio here.
06:16 – Austin (Pentagon): Putin can use nuclear bomb but not signal decision
To be clear, who decides one. Putin is not controlled. When he made the irresponsible decision to invade Ukraine, he might make another one. However, at the moment I don’t see anything that makes me believe that he has already made such a decision: Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin said in an interview with CNN, commenting on the Russian president’s nuclear threats. Austin condemned the illegal annexations of Ukrainian territory and called Putin’s threats to use any means available an irresponsible statement. This nuclear saber-rattling is not what we would expect from the leaders of major countries with nuclear capabilities.
05:40 – Rubio: Putin could hit arms depots in Europe
US Senator Marco Rubio fears that Russia could attack an armaments supply center in Poland. In an interview with CNN, the Republican said that if Russian President Vladimir Putin is convinced he could lose the war over Western arms shipments to Ukraine, he could hit the logistics centers where those shipments arrive, including Poland.
00:02 – Petraeus (former CIA chief): Do I use nuclear power? We will eliminate the Russian forces
The United States, along with NATO allies, would eliminate Russian forces in Ukraine if Russian President Vladimir Putin decides to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. That’s what retired general and former CIA chief David Petraeus told ABC. For Petraeus, Western powers must take Russia’s nuclear threats seriously. Just to give you a guess, in case I think we would respond by eliminating every Russian conventional force that we can see and identify on the battlefield in Ukraine and also in Crimea and every ship in the Black Sea, Petraeus explained . A nuclear attack could not go unanswered. But it doesn’t have to be a bigger answer: non-nuclear for nuclear. You don’t want to go into nuclear escalation again, but you have to show that it’s unacceptable.
23:12 – Kiev troops advanced 75 km
The military surveillance agency Osint Defender wrote that Kiev troops had already advanced about 75 kilometers along the banks of the Dnieper and were approaching the city of Berislav. The advance risks trapping Moscow’s soldiers: the only escape routes are two bridges east of Kherson, which would have been damaged by bombing.
23:08 – Zelensky also confirms the advance in the Kherson region
President of Ukraine Zelenskyi also confirmed the start of the offensive in the Kherson region: we have already liberated the cities of Archanhelske and Myrolyubivka. The President announced developments on the ground in a late-night radio call.
22:53 – Ukrainian sources: Kiev offensive against Kherson
Ukrainian funds announced that Ukrainian troops have occupied some villages in the Kherson region. According to these rumors, part of the Russian front gave way and the Kyiv armies began recapturing part of the territories ceded after February 24th. The advance is carried out in particular along the Dnipro River. Images of Ukrainian soldiers seizing settlements in the area have surfaced on social media. This is a southward offensive, unlike the eastward one that has caused the Lyman knot to fall over the past few hours.
10:33 pm – Zelenskyy: I am sure that we can join NATO
Nine NATO countries have supported Ukraine’s aspirations to become a full member of the Alliance. We’re moving in that direction. I am sure that we will carry out this project of ours. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said so in his usual evening video message to the nation, quoted by Ukrinform.
October 3, 2022 (update October 3, 2022 | 09:28)
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