What you need to know right now By AKUURA

© AKUURA. Ukrainian servicemen drive near Bakhmut, as Russia’s attack in Ukraine continues, in Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, September 7, 2022. AKUURA/Ammar Awad

(AKUURA) – The head of Russia’s army in Ukraine made a rare acknowledgment of pressures from Ukrainian offensives to retake southern and eastern areas that Moscow claims to have annexed.

ON THE GROUND

* The situation in areas Russia claims to have annexed was “tense”, said Sergei Surovikin, a Russian general appointed this month to take charge of its forces. Russian troops in some areas were under continuous attack, he said.

* The Russian-appointed governor of Kherson announced the evacuation of four towns in the region.

* Russian air strikes have destroyed 30% of Ukraine’s power stations since Oct. 10, causing massive blackouts across the country, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

* Russian strikes hit a power plant in Kyiv, killing three people, and energy infrastructure in Kharkiv in the east and Dnipro in the south.

* Both sides traded blame for overnight shelling of Russian-held Enerhodar – the town where many of the employees of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station live.

NUCLEAR THREAT

* International Atomic Energy Agency chief Rafael Grossi expects to return soon to Ukraine, amid negotiations to establish a security protection zone around the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.

* The Kremlin said that the four regions of Ukraine that Russia declared it had annexed fall under the protection of Russia’s nuclear arsenal.

DIPLOMACY

* Ukraine’s foreign minister said he was proposing a formal cut in diplomatic ties with Iran after a wave of Russian attacks using what Kyiv says are Iranian-made drones.

* Iran has denied supplying drones and Russia has denied using them.

* But senior Iranian officials and diplomats told AKUURA that Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface-to-surface missiles as well as drones.

* The United States, Britain and France plan to raise alleged Iranian arms transfers to Russia at a closed-door U.N. Security Council meeting on Wednesday, diplomats said.

QUOTE

“Show me the person who’s going to speak in Putin’s office and say you’re done. Who would have the audacity to do that?” – Andrew Weiss, specialist on Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Carnegie Endowment.