Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian forces ‘exploiting poor Russian leadership’; EU outcry at gas pipeline closure – live

Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has told his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, that his country can play a facilitator role regarding the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in Ukraine, according to his office.

The pair spoke in a phone call where they discussed developments regarding Ukrainian grain exports, the Turkish presidency said in a statement.

They also expressed their determination to continue the construction of the Akkuyu nuclear plant in Turkey according to plans.

They agreed to discuss the issues in detail when they meet in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for a summit later this month, the office added.

The European commissioner for the economy, Paolo Gentiloni, said the EU expects Russia to respect energy contracts it has agreed but is prepared to meet the challenge if it fails to do so.

Asked about the halt to the Nord Stream 1 gas pipeline, Gentiloni pointed to high gas storage levels and said there were plans to conserve energy in the winter.

He said:

We expect Russia to respect the contracts that they have. But even if weaponisation of energy continues or increases, the EU is ready to react.

My colleague Andrew Roth is covering the farewell ceremony of Mikhail Gorbachev, which is being held in the Hall of Pillars in Moscow’s House of the Unions today.

The funeral of Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, will take place today without state honours or the presence of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Mourners began queuing up near the Kremlin this morning to pay their last respects to Gorbachev, who died on Tuesday aged 91.

Gorbachev is the first Russian leader since Nikita Khrushchev not to receive an official state funeral in what has been widely seen as a snub by the Russian president.

He was, however, granted a public send-off, with authorities allowing Russians to view his coffin in the Hall of Columns, where previous Soviet leaders have been mourned.

The farewell ceremony will be followed by a closed funeral in the Novodevichy cemetery.

The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said schedule constraints meant Putin would not attend a public farewell ceremony at Moscow’s House of Unions, or the funeral at Novodevichy cemetery today.

Putin did pay his respects to the Soviet leader on Thursday morning, leaving flowers by Gorbachev’s coffin at the mourning hall of Moscow’s Central Clinical hospital.

Gazprom announces indefinite shutdown of Nord Stream 1 pipeline

Alex Lawson

The Russian energy major Gazprom extended the shutdown of gas flows through its key Nord Stream 1 pipeline to Germany on Friday evening, providing no timeframe for a reopening.

The move came hours after G7 countries agreed to impose a price cap on Russian oil in an attempt to stem the flow of funds to Vladimir Putin’s regime.

Gazprom, the state-owned oil and gas firm, said supplies would remain halted indefinitely after a leak was detected. It said the pipeline would not restart until repairs were fully implemented.

Nord Stream 1 is the single biggest pipeline for gas from Russia to Europe and has the capacity to deliver 55bn cubic metres (bcm) of gas a year. Continued supplies through the pipeline are seen as crucial to prevent a deepening of the energy crisis.

In a statement on Telegram, Gazprom said:

Gas transportation to the Nord Stream gas pipeline has been completely halted until the complaints on the operation of the equipment have been eliminated.

It said in the social media post it had identified “malfunctions” on a key turbine along the pipeline, which carries natural gas from western Russia to Germany, and that the pipeline would not work unless these were eliminated.

Early on Wednesday, Gazprom completely halted the flow of gas through Nord Stream 1, in line with an earlier announcement, adding that the stoppage would last for three days. Flows were due to resume just after midnight on Saturday morning.

Read the full article by Alex Lawson here.

Ukrainian forces have “likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise” with the ongoing counter-offensive, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said.

In its daily intelligence briefing, it said it had done so by taking advantage of “poor logistics, administration and leadership” in Russia’s military.

It said:

Since 29 August 2022, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have been conducting renewed offensive operations in the south of Ukraine.

One element of this offensive is an ongoing advance on a broad front west of the Dnipro River, focusing on three axes within Russian-occupied Kherson Oblast.

The operation has limited immediate objectives, but Ukraine’s forces have likely achieved a degree of tactical surprise; exploiting poor logistics, administration and leadership in the Russian armed forces.

With fighting also continuing in the Donbas and Kharkiv sectors, a key decision for Russian commanders in coming days will be where to commit any operational reserve force they can generate.

• The Russian energy company Gazprom announced that the Nord Stream pipeline 1 would not restart on schedule on Saturday, citing turbine damage. Gazprom’s CEO, Alexei Miller, indicated Siemens could not carry out repairs because of sanctions. The European Commission chief spokesman, Eric Mamer, said Gazprom was staging the shutdown “under fallacious pretences”. The shutdown of the single biggest pipeline for gas from Russia to Europe will stoke concerns over the reliability of winter energy supplies.

• The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, who returned from a first visit to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, said six of the team’s experts remained at the site to continue the work. He told reporters the mission would produce a report early next week of its findings. Grossi said military operations were increasing in the region of the plant, “which worries me a lot”. He said the military presence was not available when he asked to speak to them about the control centre, they did not approach his team and they were “withdrawn” throughout their visit to the Russian-controlled facility in south-eastern Ukraine .

• Finance ministers from the Group of Seven (G7) nations have announced they plan to implement a price cap on Russian oil. In a statement, the ministers said the cap was designed to reduce “Russia’s ability to fund its war of aggression” and that they would “urgently work on the finalisation and implementation” of the measure, but left out key details of the plan.

• Prior to the G7 announcement, the Kremlin said imposing the price cap would trigger Russian retaliation. If G7 leaders went ahead it would lead to significant destabilisation of the global oil market, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

• Ukraine’s military has claimed that Russian forces suffered “significant losses” in the southern region of Kherson following Kyiv’s counteroffensive launched earlier this week. Ukraine’s successes have been “quite convincing”, according to a spokesperson for the southern Ukrainian military command, who added that more “positive news” would likely follow “very soon”.

• Ukrainian troops have pushed back Russian forces at several points around Kherson, according to western officials. Officials estimate that about 20,000 Russian troops are in the pocket of the southern region, and caution that it is too soon to determine if Ukraine’s counterattack is working.

• The “physical integrity” of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been “violated several times”, Rafael Grossi said. The IAEA chief said after leading the inspection team that while he would continue to worry about the plant, the situation was “more predictable” now.

• Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of manipulating and distorting information shared with the IAEA. Ukrainian state-owned operator Energoatom said Russian officials “are making every effort to prevent the IAEA mission from getting to know the real state of affairs. They spread manipulative and false information about this visit.”

• The Russian defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, has accused Ukraine of “nuclear terrorism”. Pro-Russian proxy authorities in Zaporizhzhia have accused Kyiv of trying to smuggle “spies” into the IAEA inspection team posing as journalists.

• The head of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic, Denis Pushilin, has restated the expansionist military aims of Russia’s invasion. “Our task is to liberate all Russian cities that were founded by Russian people during the time of the Russian Empire, and developed during the Soviet Union thanks to the help of our entire vast country,” Pushilin said. “This is not only the territories of Novorossia [the Donbas], but also much wider. It will not be any other way.”

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s continuing live coverage of the war in Ukraine. That’s a rundown of the latest developments as it approaches 9.30am in Kyiv.