Ukrainian emergency services said that a total of three bodies have been pulled from rubble after a Russian rocket strike destroyed the five-storey apartment block in the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia . Authorities said seven rockets hit the city early on Thursday morning. Other residents are trapped under rubble, the regional governor and emergency services said. Rescue workers at the scene said they saved one three-year-old girl. More explosions were reported in the city in mid-morning Kyiv time, but there were no further casualties.

The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has appeared to admit severe losses in Ukraine , conceding the severity from the Kremlin’s recent military reversals and insisting Russia would “stabilise” the situation in four Ukrainian regions – Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia – it illegally claimed as its own territory last week. “We are working on the assumption that the particular situation in the new territories will stabilise, ” Putin told Russian teachers during a televised video call on Wednesday.

The particular UN nuclear agency chief is en route in order to Kyiv to discuss creating a security zone around Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant , after Putin ordered his government to take it over. “On our way to Kyiv for important meetings, ” International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi wrote upon Twitter, saying the need for a protection zone around the site was “more urgent than ever”. Grossi is also expected to visit Moscow in the coming days to discuss the situation at the herb. The IAEA said this had learned of plans to restart one reactor at the plant, where all six reactors have been shut down for weeks.

Ukraine’s forces are pushing their advance in the east and south, forcing Russian troops to retreat under pressure on both fronts. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukraine’s army had made major, rapid advances against Russian forces in the past week, taking back dozens associated with towns in regions in the south and eastern that Russia has declared annexed. Military experts say Russia is at its weakest point, partly because of its decision not to mobilise earlier plus partly because of massive losses of troops and equipment.

Ukraine has extended the area of control in the particular Kherson region by six to 12 miles , according to its military’s southern command. Zelenskiy confirmed the recapture of the villages of Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka plus Petropavlivka, saying the settlements were “liberated from the sham referendum and stabilised, ” in an address on Wednesday. Kherson region’s Moscow-appointed governor, Kirill Stremousov, stated the withdrawal was the tactical “regrouping” to “deliver a retaliatory blow”. The extent of Russia’s retreat remains unclear.

Moscow’s forces have left behind smashed towns once under occupation and, in places, mass burial sites and evidence of torture chambers. In Lyman , which was retaken by Ukrainian forces upon Sunday, more than 50 graves have been found, some marked with names, others with numbers, the Kyiv-based outlet Hromadske documented on Wednesday.

Leaders of 44 European countries on Thursday in Prague will send a clear signal of Russia’s isolation and try to create a new order without Moscow, the European Union’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, has said this morning. “The meeting is looking for a new order without having Russia , ” he told reporters.

Russia has submitted preliminary objections to a genocide case against Moscow brought by Ukraine . The International Court of Justice, which is the particular UN’s highest court for disputes between states, offers tweeted that it had received the objections on 3 October, but these have not been made public. The filing signifies a change in Moscow’s attitude to the ICJ situation. Russia is now engaging with the court, whereas it has previously skipped hearings and not filed documents directly.

The UN has warned Russia’s claimed annexation associated with Ukraine territory will only exacerbate human rights violations. Christian Salazar Volkmann, said UN experts experienced documented “ a range of violations of the rights to life, liberty and security” plus warned the situation would only worsen as Russian federation pushes forward with the annexation of some Ukrainian regions.

Attempts to play down retreats in Ukraine are no longer washing inside The ussr with the latest military failures spilling on to local television screens. “Why do we all advance metre by metre when they advance village by village? ” Olga Skabeyeva, the country’s top state-TV host, asked the Russia-appointed official in Luhansk in a recent broadcast. Pro-war military bloggers and journalists are also criticising the Kremlin and painting a bleak picture of deteriorating Russian morale. Roman Saponkov, a prominent war correspondent, described his despair over the pullback in Kherson on his Telegram channel: “I really don’t know what to say to you. The particular retreat … is catastrophic. ”

Poland says it has asked to have US nuclear weapons based on its territory , amid growing fears that Putin could resort in order to using nuclear arms within Ukraine. The request from your Polish president, Andrzej Duda, is widely seen as symbolic and appears to be the latest example of nuclear signalling to deter Putin. The White House, however, said it had not received such a request.

The car bombing that killed Darya Dugina , the daughter associated with prominent Russian political figure Alexander Dugin, was allegedly authorised by elements within the Ukrainian government , according to US intelligence sources who spoke using the New York Times plus CNN. The United States took no part in the attack, either by providing intelligence or other assistance, the officials said.

A SpaceX rocket carrying Russian cosmonaut, Anna Kikina, the only female cosmonaut in service, soared into orbit through Florida on Wednesday. The International Space Station crew comprising Kikina, two Americans and a Japanese astronaut flew together in a demonstration of US-Russian teamwork in space despite Ukraine war tensions.