Russia-Ukraine war live: Zelenskiy warns of attack on hydroelectric plant attack; reports of missile attack in Zaporizhzhia | World news

A series of explosions have also been reported in Ukraine’s south-eastern city of Zaporizhzhia.

Oleksandr Starukh, head of the Zaporizhzhia regional state administration, said in a telegram post Russia was attacking the regional centre with missiles on Friday morning and urged residents to seek shelter.

A Russian court has ordered the arrest of television journalist Marina Ovsyannikova, local media reports.

Ovsyannikova was under house arrest for flashing a sign on air saying the Kremlin was lying about the Ukraine war.

She has already fled Russia, her lawyer said this week, after refusing to observe house arrest measures to which she had been subjected.

Interfax news agency quoted court officials as saying:

With regard to Ovsyannikova, the court ordered her held in custody for one month and 29 days, imposed from the moment the accused is extradited to the Russian Federation or from the moment of her arrest in the Russian Federation.”

The UK Ministry of Defence has claimed Russia orchestrated a distraction campaign by announcing that 70,000 Belarusian troops would be involved in a new Russian-Belarussian group of forces.

It is unlikely that Russia has actually deployed a significant number of extra troops into Belarus and the announcement is likely an attempt to convince Ukraine to divert forces to guard the northern border, according to British intelligence.

The full report, published on Friday morning, reads:

On 14 October, Belarussian president Aleksandr Lukashenko said that 70,000 Belarusian troops and up to 15,000 Russians would be involved in a new Russian-Belarussian Group of Forces.

On 15 October, the Belarussian authorities released a video claiming to show the arrival of Russian troops in Belarus. However, to date it is unlikely that Russia has actually deployed a significant number of extra troops into Belarus.

Russia is unlikely to be able to generate combat-ready formations of the claimed size: its forces are committed in Ukraine. The Belarussian military highly likely maintains minimal capability to undertake complex operations.

The announcement is likely an attempt to demonstrate Russian-Belarussian solidarity and to convince Ukraine to divert forces to guard the northern border.”

A series of explosions have been reported in Ukraine’s north-eastern city of Kharkiv.

Kharkiv mayor, Igor Terekhov, reported that numerous explosions were heard in the city early on Friday morning.

A series of explosions in Kharkiv. Be extremely careful,” he said in a Telegram post.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the eastern Kherson region, where Ukrainian soldiers have been steadily advancing and Moscow-installed authorities have begun what they call ‘evacuations’ of civilians.

Late on Thursday Zelenskiy accused Moscow of planting mines at a the dam in the Russian-occupied region, posing a threat to a 400km Soviet-built long canal network.

Zelenskiy said in his latest address:

Russia is preparing [to attack] at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant. According to our information, the aggregates and dam of the Kakhovka HPP were mined by Russian terrorists.”

“If the dam is destroyed … the North Crimean canal will simply disappear,” and this would be “a catastrophe on a grand scale”, the Ukraine leader added.

With this terrorist attack, they can destroy, among other things, even the possibility of supplying water from the Dnipro River to Crimea. In the event of the destruction of the Kakhovka HPP dam, the North Crimean canal will simply disappear.”

Such an attack on the Kakhovka HPP “will mean exactly the same as the use of weapons of mass destruction” Zelenskiy added.

“Russia is preparing a man-made catastrophe,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, advisor to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky.

Podolyak said Russia was mining the dam and transformers at the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant to flood the lower Dnipro River where Russian forces are under threat from a Ukrainian offensive.

The goal, he said, would be to halt the Ukrainian advance and protect Russia’s troops.

Iran ‘directly engaged’ in the war, US says

Julian Borger

Iran has significantly deepened its involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by providing technical support for Russian pilots flying Iranian-made drones to bomb civilian targets, the White House has confirmed.

The national security council lead spokesperson, John Kirby, said on Thursday that it was the US’s understanding that the Iranian advisers were in Crimea to provide training and maintenance – but not to actually pilot the drones – after Russian forces experienced difficulties in operating the unmanned flying bombs.

Kirby said:

We can confirm that Russian military personnel based in Crimea have been piloting Iranian UAVs and using them to conduct kinetic strikes across Ukraine, including in strikes against Kyiv in recent days.

The information we have is that the Iranians have put trainers and tech support in Crimea, but it’s the Russians who are doing the piloting.

Tehran is now directly engaged on the ground and through the provision of weapons … that are killing civilians and destroying civilian infrastructure. These are systems that the Russian armed forces are not familiar using and these are organically manufactured Iranian UAVs [unmanned aerial vehicles]. The Russians just don’t have anything in their inventory.”

“There were operator and system failures early on. Either they weren’t being piloted appropriately and properly and were failing to reach targets or the systems themselves were suffering failures and not performing to the standards that apparently the customers expected,” Kirby added. “So the Iranians decided to move in some trainers and some technical support to help the Russians use them with better lethality.”

Hello and welcome back to the Guardian’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. I’m Samantha Lock and I’ll be bringing you all the latest developments as they unfold over the next few hours.

Iranian drone experts and advisors are believed to be helping Russia on the ground in Crimea and by providing technical support for Russian pilots flying Iranian-made drones to bomb civilian targets, the White House has said.

Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has accused Russia of planning to destroy a hydroelectric dam in the eastern Kherson region, where Ukrainian soldiers have been steadily advancing and Moscow-installed authorities have begun what they call ‘evacuations’ of civilians.

Here are all the latest lines you may have missed:

• Iran has significantly deepened its involvement in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by providing technical support for Russian pilots flying Iranian-made drones to bomb civilian targets, the White House confirmed. The US national security council’s John Kirby said on Thursday that it was the US’s understanding that the Iranian advisers were in Crimea to provide training and maintenance – but not to actually pilot the drones – after Russian forces experienced difficulties in operating the unmanned flying bombs.

• The UK is implementing new sanctions on three Iranian individuals and a business responsible for supplying Russia with drones used to bombard Ukraine. By supplying these drones Iran is “actively warmongering, profiting off Russia’s abhorrent attacks on Ukrainian citizens, and adding to the suffering of the people and the destruction of critical infrastructure”, a foreign office statement said. The assets of all four have been frozen and the individuals are also subject to travel bans.

• Prior to the UK’s announcement, the EU agreed sanctions against the same business and three individuals. Tehran denies supplying the drones to Moscow, while the Kremlin said the west is seeking to put “pressure” on Iran with accusations that Moscow is using drones made in the country.

• Moscow-backed self-appointed officials in Ukraine’s southern Kherson region have begun moving civilians into Russian territory, citing fears of a Ukrainian counteroffensive. The Russian-installed head of the key southern city, Vladimir Saldo, spoke of plans to move up to 60,000 people across the Dnipro River. Images of people using boats to flee the city were broadcast by Russian state TV. Authorities said about 15,000 people have now been “evacuated”.

• Ukrainian officials described Russia’s announcements as “a propaganda show” and told people not to comply with the evacuation request. A number have reported receiving mass text messages warning the city would be shelled and informing them that buses would be leaving from the port from 7am on Thursday. Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to the Ukrainian president, described Russian announcements as “a propaganda show” as Kyiv said the population transfers amounted to “deportations”.

• Russia’s recent admission that a “difficult situation has emerged” in the Kherson region is highly unusual and likely indicates that authorities are considering a major withdrawal of their forces from the area west of the Dnipro River, British intelligence has said.

• Ukraine began restricting electricity supplies across the country starting from 7am on Thursday in response to Russia’s strikes against its energy infrastructure. A barrage of more than 300 attacks have destroyed a third of all power plants across the country, President Zelenskiy said. Ukrainians will now need to prepare for “rolling blackouts” and people will have to conserve energy, the deputy head of the president’s office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko, warned.

• A Russian air strike that hit a major thermal power station in the city of Burshtyn in western Ukraine on Wednesday has caused “quite serious” damage, the region’s governor said on Thursday.

• A Russian aircraft released a missile near a British plane patrolling in international airspace over the Black Sea on 29 September, the UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, revealed. He told the House of Commons that the Russians blamed the incident on a “technical malfunction”.

• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said on Thursday that Putin was using energy and hunger as weapons but has failed to break the west’s unity and will not achieve his war aims through scorched earth tactics. “We will not let Moscow’s latest escalation go unanswered. Scorched earth tactics will not help Russia win the war. They will only strengthen the unity and resolve of Ukraine and its partners,” Scholz told the German parliament.

• Nato allies will act if Sweden or Finland come under pressure from Russia or another adversary before they become full members of the alliance, Nato’s secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, said on Thursday.