Russia Ukraine war latest: Mongolia refuses to arrest Putin as Kyiv halts Russian advance in east

I smiled as the armoured personnel carrier I was in sped past the wreckage of the Russian passport control building at the border with Ukraine, and I entered – visa-free – the country that in 2022 launched Europe’s largest conflict since the Second World War.

I describe what I saw elsewhere in The Independent, but here I want to describe some of the emotions I felt on an assignment that was very different from most journeys I’ve ever written about.

I don’t usually post photos of myself on Facebook, but I wanted my friends to see me smiling in the centre of the Russian town of Sudzha with a headless statue of Lenin – still a precious symbol of power and imperialism in Putin’s Russia – behind me.

In a career which has spanned four decades, journalist Askold Krushelnycky has seen first-hand the brutality of the Russian regime but he has now crossed the Ukraine-Russia border on a tank. As Ukraine establishes a foothold in Kursk, could the tide finally be turning?

Iran is likely to start sending ballistic missiles to Russia “imminently”, adding to its existing exports of Shahed-type drones, a Washington-based think-tank said.

Tehran could begin shipping the missiles “within a matter of days”, according to an unspecified European official, reported Bloomberg.

“Russia’s acquisition of Ababil or Fateh-360 ballistic missiles would likely allow Russian forces to strike Ukrainian near-rear targets while preserving Russia’s stockpiles of domestically-produced missiles, such as Iskanders, for deep-rear Ukrainian targets, as CTP-ISW previously assessed,” the ISW think-tank said in its latest assessment.

The think-tank cited European intelligence sources from last month who said that Iran and Russia signed a contract in December 2023 for Iran to deliver Ababil close-range ballistic missiles and Fateh-360 short-range ballistic missiles (SRBMs) to Russia.

The intelligence sources added that dozens of Russian military personnel are currently in Iran training to operate Fateh-360 missiles, the ISW said.

An eight-year-old boy was among two people killed in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, while a third died in a missile attack on the central city of Dnipro, regional governors said.

Two people were also injured in Zaporizhzhia, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said, one of them a 12-year-old girl who is in intensive care.

The past day saw 313 attacks and instances of shelling on 11 settlements, damaging several buildings in Zaporizhzhia, Mr Fedorov added, including a missile attack on the city of the same name, which is the region’s administrative centre.

Russian forces also launched missiles at the central city of Dnipro yesterday evening, killing one person and injuring three while damaging homes in one district, according to Serhiy Lysak, the regional governor of Dnipropetrovsk.

Ukraine’s air force shot down 27 out of 35 Russia-launched drones during an overnight attack today, officials said.

The air force also said Russian forces used three ballistic missiles and one guided missile in the attack, according to a statement.

No immediate casualties or damage were reported in the initial updates.

Hours before Vladimir Putin landed in Mongolia yesterday for talks likely to focus on a new gas pipeline connecting Russia and China, people in the capital Ulaanbaatar had already prepared to demonstrate against the “war criminal” Russian president.

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.

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.