Monday’s Coverage: 16+ Wounded in Russian Bombing of Zaporizhzhia City

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1948 GMT:

Russian forces have shot and killed 16 Ukrainian troops in their latest and largest execution of prisoners of war.

Videos of the execution circulated on social media, with the POWs reportedly killed after surrendering on the frontline near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region.

The Ukraine Prosecutor General’s office said it was verifying the videos and investigating the circumstances. It noted that the executions are a “cynical and gross violation of the Geneva Conventions”.

Prosecutor General Andrii Kostin said, “The murders and torture of prisoners are not an accident, but a purposeful policy of the Russian military and political leadership.”

Russian killing of POWs has been captured in a series of videos from across Ukraine. The Prosecutor General’s office said earlier this year that it was investigating more than 50 cases.

UPDATE 1632 GMT:

Russian troops have entered the town of Vuhledar in the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, with fighting ongoing, says Governor Vadym Filashkin.

Speaking on national television, Filashkin described the situation as “extremely difficult”:

The enemy has already almost reached the center of the town.

The fighting is going on within the town, so it is almost impossible to bring in humanitarian aid.

The Governor said 107 civilians remain in Vuhledar, but all children have been evacuated.

Russia’s 11-month offensive has suffered heavy losses in regular attempts to advance on Vuhledar, but the invaders have been able to surround the town in recent weeks while levelling it with shelling and air attacks.

UPDATE 1626 GMT:

A Russian strike on a market in Kherson city in southern Ukraine has killed at least six people and injured six others.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy posted:

Daily Russian terror, daily attempts to destroy life—this can and can be stopped. We must achieve lasting peace for our state and our people. For this to happen, Ukrainian strength and the resolve of our partners must outweigh Putin’s desire to wreck terror.

At least one person has been killed and 24 injured, including three children, by the latest Russian attack on Zaporizhzhia city in southern Ukraine.

Russia launched at least six guided aerial bombs, damaging apartment buildings and houses.

On Sunday, a Russian strike on a residential area injured 16 people, including an 8-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy.

UPDATE 0655 GMT:

In his nightly video address to the nation, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has acknowledged, “The situation is very challenging,” in the face of a Russian offensive in the east of the country.

Pursuing the offensive since last October, Russian forces have taken a series of villages in the Donetsk region in recent weeks and are threatening the cities of Pokrovsk and Vuhledar.

Zelensky said he had more than 2 1/2 hours of talks with Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi and Chief of the General Staff Anatolii Barhylevych.

The most important thing is to put pressure on Russia using all available means and tools to achieve our goal of a real and just peace for Ukraine and all our people as soon as possible.

European diplomats who attended last week’s UN General Assembly in New York said Ukrainian officials are more open to discussion of a ceasefire even while Russian troops occupy their territory.

They said Ukraine Foreign Andrii Sybiha, used private meetings with Western counterparts on his first trip to the US to discuss compromise solutions, with a pragmatic tone on the possibility of land-for-security negotiations.

“We’re talking more and more openly about how this ends and what Ukraine would have to give up in order to get a permanent peace deal,” said one diplomat. “And that’s a major change from even six months ago, when this kind of talk was taboo.”

A “senior Western official” said, “Land for [NATO] membership is the only game in town, everyone knows it. Nobody will say it out loud…but it’s the only strategy on the table.”

UPDATE 0600 GMT:

A Moscow court has sentenced Alexander Permyakov to life in prison over a car bombing that seriously injured nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin in May 2023.

A judge found Permyakov guilty of terrorism, terrorist training, arms trafficking, and forgery.

See also Ukraine War, Day 438: Attackers Seriously Injure Prominent Russian Nationalist

Prosecutors assert that the bombing in the Nizhny Novogorod region was conducted for Ukraine’s security services.

Permyakov is from the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine. His lawyer said he pleaded guilty and cooperated with investigators.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: The Kremlin has confirmed a 25% increase in the defense budget, Russia’s highest on record.

Draft documents, posted on the Parliament’s website, propose spending of 13.5 trillion rubles ($146 billion) in 2025. That is an increase from 10.4 trillion rubles ($111 billion) this year.

Defense and security will account for around 40% of Russia’s total government spending next year and around 6.3% of national GDP. The total exceeds the combined expenditure on education, healthcare, social policy, and the national economy.

In comparison with the ongoing surge in defense, social spending is scheduled to decrease by 16% from 7.7 trillion rubles ($87 billion) this year to 6.5 trillion rubles ($69 billion) in 2025.

On Monday, Vladimir Putin ordered the conscription of another 133,000 men, aged 18 to 30, in Russia’s autumn draft from October 1 to the end of the year.

The head of Russia’s conscription office, Vice-Adm. Vladimir Tsimlyansky, proclaimed that “conscripts will not be called up to participate in the special military operation in the new regions”.

However, conscripts were caught up in battle this summer amid Ukraine’s cross-border incursion into the Kursk region in western Russia.

Last month, Putin ordered an increase the Russian army by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen, making the force the second-largest in the world after China’s.