Ukraine launches inquiry into "execution" of captured soldiers Ukraine launched an inquiry on Sunday into what it said was an “execution” by Russian forces of two unarmed Ukrainian soldiers who had signalled their intention to surrender. The public prosecutor’s office in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk said that according to “preliminary data” the images were filmed near the village of Stepove, close to Avdiivka, an eastern town where fighting is raging. “The video shows how a group of people in Russian uniforms shoot at close range two unarmed servicemen in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who surrendered as prisoners,” the prosecutor’s office wrote. “Investigators and prosecutors have started an investigation. The killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva conventions and is classified as a serious international crime.” This blog is now closing. Thanks for following today’s developments, you can read our main story here Here is a summary of today"s events so far: Ukraine said at least two people – a woman and a 78-year-old man - were killed and four injured by Russian shelling in the Kherson region on Sunday, while air defences downed 10 Russian drones overnight. Ukraine and Poland will open an additional border crossing for empty trucks on Monday in order to open up a much-needed route for Kyiv, with some crossings blocked by weeks of protests by Polish drivers, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday. Ukraine launched an inquiry on Sunday into what it said was an “execution” by Russian forces of two unarmed Ukrainian soldiers who had signalled their intention to surrender. Russia launched 12 drones and a cruise missile at Ukraine overnight, with Ukraine’s air defence systems destroying 10 drones before they reached their targets, Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday. Russian forces have eased attacks on the beleaguered eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka and unofficial reports from the region suggested they had failed to capture the devastated town of Maryinka to the south-west. At least two dead in Kherson after shelling Ukraine said at least two people were killed and four injured by Russian shelling in the Kherson region on Sunday, while air defences downed 10 Russian drones overnight. Kherson was recaptured by Ukrainian forces in November 2022 but has since faced relentless shelling by Russian forces from the opposite bank of the adjoining Dnipro river. Officials said a 78-year-old man was killed on Sunday morning when the village of Sadove was bombarded, while a woman in Kherson city was killed by shelling in a street. Sadove lies on the western bank of the Dnipro River, which marks the de-facto frontline between Ukrainian and Russian forces. Russia attacked several other locations in Ukraine overnight, using a total of 12 Shahed drones, Ukraine’s armed forces said in its daily briefing. It also said a guided Kh-59 missile failed to reach its target. Ukraine’s military has shared footage that it claims shows its 14th Separate Regiment destroying Russian armoured vehicles, a tank repair base and a truck: Ukraine’s first deputy defence minister, Oleksandr Pavliuk, has claimed Russia has lost 7,210 troops over the last week. Posting on Telegram, he added that the Russians had lost 534 units of weapons and military equipment. A Ukrainian commander has said Russian infantry activity is rising on the nation’s south-eastern frontline. Genl Oleksandr Tarnavskyi said Russian forces had reduced the number of airstrikes against Ukraine but intensified infantry activity in the region. Posting on Telegram, Tarnavskyi said: “The activity of the occupiers’ infantry increased again in the operational zone of the Tavria Air Defense Forces – 55 combat clashes took place. “During the day, the enemy lost 440 personnel and nine units of military equipment. About a dozen occupiers surrendered. The activity of enemy aviation is low – five airstrikes were recorded during the day. At night, the enemy threw anti-aircraft missiles at Donetsk region. Tarnavskyi said Russian attacks had been repelled in multiple regions, and that in Zaporozhye, Russia unsuccessfully tried 12 times to restore positions Tarnavskyi claims they lost in the areas south of Robotyny and west of Verbovoy. He added: “At the same time, the defence forces of Ukraine continue to conduct an offensive operation in the Melitopol direction, inflict losses in manpower and equipment on the occupying forces, and exhaust the enemy along the entire frontline.” Easing of offensive on Avdiivka shows Russian"s "running out of steam" The Ukrainian town of Avdiivka, under constant Russian fire, has experienced fewer ground attacks in the past 24 hours due to heavy Russian losses and harsh weather, the mayor said on Sunday. For nearly two months, Russia has been trying to seize Avdiivka, an industrial town near Donetsk that has become one of the most contended points on the frontline. Russian soldiers are now on the east, north and south of the town, which is largely in ruins. It is nearly surrounded but is still served by a tarmac road. Ukraine says its soldiers are holding firm and repelling the attacks. “Over the past 24 hours, the number of (ground) attacks has decreased,” Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the city’s military administration, told the Ukrainian broadcaster Freedom. He said this was due to three factors – difficult “weather conditions”, “large losses in both (Russian) and manpower” and the fact that the Russian army was “running out of steam”. “There are fewer and fewer (Russian) people willing to go on assaults voluntarily, and there are more and more refuseniks,” Barabash said. AFP has been unable to independently confirm his comments. Ukraine and Poland will open an additional border crossing for empty trucks on Monday in order to open up a much-needed route for Kyiv, with some crossings blocked by weeks of protests by Polish drivers, Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday. Those protests, over what Polish truckers see as unfair competition from their Ukrainian peers, started on 6 November, with four border crossings now under blockade, Reuters reported. Polish hauliers’ main demand is to stop Ukrainian truckers having permit-free access to the EU, something that Kyiv and Brussels say is impossible. Ukrainian border service said Uhryniv checkpoint, which is operating only for passenger cars and buses, would be opened from 1am (midnight GMT) on Monday for empty heavy vehicles with a total permissible weight of more than 7.5 metric tons. “The opening of Uhryniv is the first point on the list of measures implemented to unblock the border, reduce queues and increase the capacity of the Ukrainian-Polish border,” the border service said. Ukraine said last week it had agreed some measures with Poland that could ease the pressure at the blockaded border crossings, but that they had not discussed the main demands of the protests. An elderly man was killed during Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern region of Kherson on Sunday, regional officials said. “The occupants attacked the (Sadove) village. One of the hits was to a private garage, where a 78-year-old man was at the time. He died on the spot from the explosive injury,” the Kherson military administration said on the Telegram messaging app. Reuters could not independently confirm the report. Russian troops had abandoned Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River late last year, but now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank. Russian forces hit a fortified commander post of Ukraine’s “East” air defence and alerting centre in the central city of Dnipro, the Russian defence ministry said on Sunday. It said it inflicted combined strikes by operational-tactical and army aviation, unmanned aerial vehicles, missile forces and artillery. Reuters was not immediately able to corroborate the battlefield reports from either side. Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 12 drones and a cruise missile at Ukraine overnight, with air defence systems destroying 10 drones before they reached their targets. Russia’s defence ministry also said it its daily dispatch that it hit fuel depots in the areas of Myrhorod, Poltava region and the city of Khmelnytskyi, an ammunition arsenal in the Mykolaiv region as well as manpower and equipment in 107 various districts. Ukraine launches inquiry into "execution" of captured soldiers Ukraine launched an inquiry on Sunday into what it said was an “execution” by Russian forces of two unarmed Ukrainian soldiers who had signalled their intention to surrender. The public prosecutor’s office in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk said that according to “preliminary data” the images were filmed near the village of Stepove, close to Avdiivka, an eastern town where fighting is raging. “The video shows how a group of people in Russian uniforms shoot at close range two unarmed servicemen in the uniform of the Armed Forces of Ukraine who surrendered as prisoners,” the prosecutor’s office wrote. “Investigators and prosecutors have started an investigation. The killing of prisoners of war is a gross violation of the Geneva conventions and is classified as a serious international crime.” Russia attempting to quell dissent from wives of soldiers deployed in Ukraine; former Ukraine president Poroshenko prevented from leaving the country – what we know on day 648 of the Russia-Ukraine war: There it is, on a wintry morning: charred masonry, gnarled metal, glass shards, rubble and dust. Yet another ravaged building in Ukraine: each has its own story, and this violation is against Kherson’s regional library for children, a place of effervescent creativity with a wonderful collection, named Dnipro Seagull library, after the birds that soar over the city’s mighty river – a symbol of the region. Atop the stairs, there was a beautiful stained-glass panel featuring a seagull on the wing. Founded in 1924, the library was due to celebrate its centennial next year. Russia has claimed that memorials dedicated to Soviet soldiers are being destroyed in some eastern European countries. On Sunday, the country was commemorating the Day of the Unknown Soldier, a day established to remember fallen soldiers in Russia and abroad. The date has been marked since 3 December 1966, when a burial ceremony for the remains of an unknown soldier took place in the Alexander Garden near the Kremlin Wall. Russia’s foreign ministry, in a post about the day on Telegram, added: “Regrettably, memorials dedicated to Soviet liberator soldiers are presently being destroyed in some eastern European countries as part of a campaign to falsify history. “The Russian foreign ministry brings these outrageous facts to public attention and actively works to preserve and restore these memorials. The memory of those who sacrificed their lives for our future remains immortal.” It was not known to which eastern European countries Russia’s foreign ministry was referring. A speaker of Ukraine’s parliament has shared a still of a video that is said to show Russian soldiers executing two prisoners of war. Ruslan Stefanchuk said: “This is another crime committed by Russian terrorists. Violation of the rules of war. The killing of unarmed soldiers. “Russia has once again proved that it is a terrorist country for which there are no laws and norms of international law.” Ukraine has claimed Russia has now lost 332,040 combat personnel since the beginning of the invasion on February 24 last year. According to Ukrainian millitary figures, which have not been independently verified, Russia has lost 930 combatants in the last 24 hours. It claims Russia has lost over 10,000 armed combat vehicles, almost 8,000 artillery and 5,995 drones. Russia launches 12 drones and a cruise missile at Ukraine Russia launched 12 drones and a cruise missile at Ukraine overnight, with Ukraine’s air defence systems destroying 10 drones before they reached their targets, Ukraine’s air force said on Sunday. The cruise missile was not destroyed but did not reach its target, the air force said without giving further detail. It did not say what happened to the two drones that there were not destroyed. The Iranian-made Shahed drones were headed towards Ukraine’s north-west, the air force said. Most were downed in the Mykolaiv region in Ukraine’s south. There were no immediate reports of damage from falling debris or the drones that were not destroyed. Russia eases attacks on Avdiivka Russian forces have eased attacks on the beleaguered eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka and unofficial reports from the region suggested they had failed to capture the devastated town of Maryinka to the south-west. Russia’s military has set its sights on seizing Avdiivka and its vast coking plant since mid-October. Russian reports on Friday suggested Moscow’s troops had taken control of Maryinka, 40km to the south-west, which has been engulfed in fighting for more than a year. But unofficial Ukrainian reports on Saturday said its forces were holding some districts. The Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun told national television that Russian attacks on Avdiivka had halved over the past 24 hours, largely as a result of heavy losses. “The coking plant is controlled by the Ukrainian armed forces,” Shtupun said. “Enemy forces are trying to make their way inside, but are suffering losses in infantry and equipment.” Fighting was still intense, he said, in an adjacent area outside the town centre known as the “industrial zone”. Russia’s popular war blog Rybar said the zone had fallen under Russian control. Vitaliy Barabash, the head of the town’s military administration, told Channel 24 television that Avdiivka was “starting to look like Maryinka, a settlement that basically no longer exists. It has been razed to its foundations.” There were no official Ukrainian reports on Maryinka, but the military analyst Oleh Zhdanov said reports of its capture by Russian troops were untrue. “We acknowledge that there was an advance there of the Russian military,” Zhdanov said in an online presentation. “But the south-western and north-western parts of the town are under the control of Ukrainian forces.” Russia’s defence ministry made no mention of Maryinka. Another Ukrainian spokesperson, Volodymyr Fitio, told national television that Kyiv’s forces had repelled 21 Russian attacks in areas surrounding Bakhmut. The town, also shattered by months of fighting, was captured by Russian forces in May, but Ukrainian troops have since taken back nearby villages. Ukrainian border guards have prevented the ex-president Petro Poroshenko from leaving the country because he planned to meet the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, Kyiv’s security services said. Poroshenko, in power from 2014 to 2019, had planned a number of high-level meetings abroad but said on Friday his trip had to be cancelled because he was turned away at the border. In a statement on Saturday, Ukraine’s SBU security services said the former leader was turned back due to his planned meeting with Orbán, an EU leader chided by Kyiv for his pro-Russian stance. The SBU said Orbán “systematically expresses an anti-Ukrainian position” and alleged Moscow planned to use the meeting “in its information and psychological operations against Ukraine”. In response to the SBU statement, the Hungarian government spokesman Zoltán Kovács wrote on X that Hungary “does not wish to play any part in President Zelenskiy’s internal political struggles”. “News reports such as this and these political purges are yet another indication that Ukraine is not yet ready for European Union membership,” he added. On Friday, Orbán said the EU should propose a “strategic partnership agreement” with Ukraine instead of starting membership talks with the war-torn country. Poroshenko had been blocked from leaving the country before, including in May last year when he planned to travel to a Nato parliamentary assembly meeting in Lithuania. After leaving office, Poroshenko was investigated under treason and corruption charges that he argued were orchestrated by his successor and political rival, the current president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The two locked horns in the 2019 Ukrainian presidential elections and Poroshenko’s European Solidarity party is the second biggest party in parliament, after Zelenskiy’s. Russian shelling killed one civilian and destroyed two houses in the eastern Ukrainian town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday, the interior ministry said. Chasiv Yar is less than 5km west of the frontline city of Bakhmut, which Russia claimed to have captured in May after a devastating, months-long assault. “A civilian was killed and two houses were destroyed in Chasiv Yar during the enemy shelling,” Ukraine’s interior ministry said on social media. Ukrainian intelligence said that a “resistance movement” in the occupied city of Melitopol damaged an enemy fuel tanker and “killed several Russian occupiers” on Friday. Execution of surrendering soldiers a "war crime", Ukraine says Kyiv accused Russia on Saturday of committing a war crime by executing Ukrainian soldiers who had signalled their intention to surrender. A short video posted on Telegram shows two men coming out of a shelter, one with his hands above his head, before lying on the ground in front of another group of soldiers. This is followed by what appears to be gunfire, and smoke appears, before the video cuts off abruptly. These undated images were aired on social networks as having been filmed near Avdiivka, a town in eastern Ukraine where fighting is raging. But neither their location nor their authenticity could be confirmed. Ukraine’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, denounced the events as a “war crime”. “Today, a video of the execution by Russian servicemen of Ukrainian soldiers who surrendered as prisoners appeared online! This is another violation of the Geneva conventions and disrespect for international humanitarian law!” he wrote on Telegram. “The Russian side shows its terrorist face again and again!” he added. Lubinets said the Ukrainian soldiers “were disarmed, and their hands were raised … They did not pose any threat! The Russian side had to capture them and give them the status of prisoners of war.” Welcome and summary Hello and thanks for joining the Guardian’s continuing coverage of the war in Ukraine. Russian forces have eased attacks on the beleaguered eastern Ukrainian town of Avdiivka on Saturday and have reportedly failed to capture another devastated town 40km to the south-west. The Ukrainian military spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun told national television that Russian attacks on Avdiivka had halved over the past 24 hours, largely as a result of heavy losses in “infantry and equipment”. More on this shortly. In other news: Russian authorities are attempting to quell dissent from the wives of soldiers deployed in Ukraine, the UK’s Ministry of Defence has said. The MoD said in its daily intelligence briefing that some were being paid off while others have been discredited online. Ukraine has become progressively stronger over the past year and will soon be able to reopen Kyiv’s international airport, Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said. The Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant lost its power supply after the last remaining line to it from Ukrainian-controlled territory was disrupted, but it has since been repaired. Ukraine’s energy ministry said. OSCE conference participants have accused Moscow of undermining the Vienna-based organisation. Latvia’s representative, Katrina Kaktina, accused Russia of obstructing the OSCE agenda and of committing war crimes in Ukraine. Ukraine is developing plans to allow spectators to attend sports stadiums. Its sports ministry is developing a system that will allow fans to attend stadiums and watch games that have been off limits to the public since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.