Ukraine-Russia latest: Five things you need to know today

A firefighter works to extinguish flames after a Russian drone strike in Izmail, Ukraine
A firefighter works to extinguish flames after a Russian drone strike in Izmail, Ukraine

Russia accused of killing 16 captive Ukrainian soldiers

Prosecutors in Ukraine have accused Russian troops of killing 16 Ukrainian soldiers after they had been taken captive in battles around the front-line city of Pokrovsk.

Black and white drone footage from a village near Pokrovsk appeared to show men emerging from a treeline and apparently surrendering.

They are then fired at and fall to the ground.

Ukrainian prosecutors said that these were Ukrainian soldiers surrendering to Russian forces.

Two injured in Izmail drone strike

A drone attack on the Ukrainian Danube delta port town of Izmail injured at least two people.

Local sources said that one of the injured men was a Turkish truck driver. Izmail, on the border with Romania, has become an important part of Ukraine’s grain export route since the start of the war.

A firefighter battles with a blaze that damaged trucks waiting to cross the border into Romania
A firefighter battles with a blaze that damaged trucks waiting to cross the border into Romania

Ukrainian sources have also reported five casualties from shelling in the Kharkiv region.

Russia completes capture of Vuhledar

Russian forces have completed the capture of the Ukrainian “fortress” town of Vuhledar and are carrying out “mopping up” missions against a few remaining Ukrainian units.

Russia’s ministry of defence has not yet officially claimed the capture of the town.

Ukraine’s military dropped any reference to Vuhledar in its usual morning briefing, an acknowledgement that the town had been lost.

After their conquest of Vuhledar, Russian forces are expected to increase pressure on Pokrovsk and other front-line targets.

Russia uses contractors to fill workforce shortfalls

Russia’s defence sector says that it is running so low on workers that it is having to rely on contractors and freelancers to plug workforce shortfalls.

There has been major inflation in Russia’s manufacturing sector but the demand for men to fight on the front line has drained it of workers. Earlier this year, a senior Russian official said that Russia needed 160,000 more workers for its growing military-industrial complex.

Scholz wants phone call with Putin

Olaf Scholz wants to hold a telephone conversation with Vladimir Putin for the first time in two years ahead of a G20 summit in November in Brazil.

German media did not specify what Mr Scholz wanted to discuss and the Kremlin has not commented.

The two leaders last spoke in December 2022 when Mr Scholz urged Putin to withdraw his forces from Ukraine and negotiate a peace deal