The recent war in Ukraine and Russia: Zelensky accuses North Korea of ​​sending troops to Russia to receive support from allies

Friedrich Merz, an opposition candidate for the German chancellorship, says he is open to supplying Taurus long-range missiles to Ukraine as the current government opposes it.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz is said to fear that Ukraine would use Taurus missiles to attack politically sensitive targets in Russia – which could plunge Germany into hostilities with Russia.

But Merz, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) – the party of former Chancellor Angela Merkel – says he would consider supplying the missiles under certain conditions.

First, an appeal should be made to Russia to stop attacks on civilian targets in Ukraine.

If Putin refuses, Ukraine should be free to use any weapons supplied by Germany as it pleases.

“And the second step would be the delivery of the Taurus missiles. Then it is up to (Russian President Vladimir) Putin to decide how far he wants to escalate this war,” Merz said, according to N-TV.

Taurus is a German-Swedish cruise missile with a range of over 500 kilometers (310 miles).

A Russian Tu-134 military aircraft was set on fire at a military airfield in the Orenburg region on Saturday night, Ukraine said.

According to Ukrainian Military Intelligence (HUR), the aircraft will be used to “transport the leadership of the Russian Defense Ministry.”

The plane burned to the ground at the Orenburg-2 military airfield, about 1,250 kilometers (780 miles) from the front line in Ukraine.

HUR did not claim responsibility for the incident but shared footage of the fire and said: “Any crime against the Ukrainian people will be duly punished.” Kiev independent reported.

Ukraine has previously carried out attacks on Russian Air Force bases.

A Ukrainian refugee says she is living in a “surreal nightmare” after being refused permission to bring her two children to the UK.

Pressure is growing on ministers to open a path to family reunification for Ukrainians with temporary immigration status after rules changed without warning in February. Charities say the Home Office's “restrictive rules and poor decision-making” are “tearing families apart”.

Maria Kondratska, who arrived in Britain just months before Russia's full-scale invasion, is now appealing on human rights grounds after the Home Office rejected her request to grant her son and daughter, aged 11 and 15, refuge with her in Britain .

Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, a 27-year-old award-winning reporter, died in Russian custody last month, Ukrainian authorities confirmed.

“I have official documents from the Russian side confirming the death of Ukrainian journalist Victoria Roshchyna, who was illegally deprived of her freedom by Russia,” Ukraine's Human Rights Commissioner Dmytro Lubinets said in a statement.

“We have every reason to believe that her death was either the result of premeditated murder or the result of the cruel treatment and violence to which she was subjected during her time in Russian captivity,” Ukrainian journalists and media workers condemned her death, CNN reported .

BBC director general Tim Davie will warn that the withdrawal of his world service due to funding cuts helped Russia and China spread “unchallenged propaganda”.

On Monday afternoon, Mr Davie will discuss the global importance of the BBC World Service, which operates in more than 40 languages, in a speech at the Future Resilience Forum, a cross-party meeting of international politicians.

As he addresses the war in Ukraine and unrest in the Middle East, Mr Davie is expected to say: “This is a critical moment of challenge for stability and democracy worldwide.”

Ukraine is considering ceding its territory to Russia to end the war, a German news agency reported The mirrorciting official sources.

A central condition for Volodymyr Zelensky's peace formula so far is that Russia gives up the occupied territory. But now Ukrainian officials are discussing abandoning the goal of fully restoring the occupied territories, the German newspaper reported.

“We believed that victory had to mean Russia’s (Russian President Vladimir) Putin’s unconditional surrender,” the source reportedly said.

Factors forcing Ukraine to consider this option include uncertainty over the outcome of the US presidential election and the advance of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine.

“Whether it's (former US President Donald) Trump or (Vice President Kamala) Harris, Americans will slowly but surely retreat,” the official said The mirror.

Trump had previously criticized American aid to Ukraine and promised to “get the US out of the conflict” if re-elected.

A U.S. war think tank said Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, the city of Donetsk and Robotyne in Ukraine.

According to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Russia has recaptured nearly two dozen settlements in Kursk Oblast as of October 11, Russian military sources claim.

Meanwhile, the ISW said Ukrainian forces had partially regained lost positions, Ukrainian military officials reported, as fierce Russian counterattacks continued on Sunday.

On October 5, videos showed a drone flying near Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine before it was shot down by another jet that briefly flew alongside it.

Initial reports suggested it was either a Russian jet shot down by the Ukrainian Air Force or a Russian jet that lost control and was shot down by Moscow.

However, the dropped drone was not an ordinary weapon. It was later identified as the S-70 Okhotnik-B stealth drone, also known as the Hunter, one of Russia's most advanced stealth drones designed to accompany a Su-57 fighter jet.

Some 30,415 people, including nearly 8,000 children, have been evacuated from areas bordering Ukraine due to shelling and attacks, Russia's human rights commissioner said in a statement released on Monday.

Tatyana Moskalkova, the commissioner, told the Argumenty I Fakty news agency in an interview that the evacuees were being housed in nearly 1,000 makeshift accommodation centers across Russia, Reuters reported.

Ukraine, which has been under Russian invasion since February 2022, responded with shelling and other attacks on Russia's border regions. The military said the attacks targeted infrastructure crucial to Moscow's war effort.

In August, Ukrainian forces launched an incursion into the Kursk region, taking control of dozens of settlements and holding most positions since then.

Ms. Moskalkova said she had received appeals related to more than 1,000 Russian citizens from Kursk whose whereabouts were unknown and who were allegedly detained by Ukrainian forces.

Reuters could not independently verify Moskalkova's reports. There was no immediate comment from Kyiv.

Both sides deny targeting or detaining civilians, but thousands have died in the war, the vast majority of them Ukrainians.

Ukraine's human rights ombudsman on Sunday called on international organizations to respond to claims that several Ukrainian prisoners of war were executed in Russia's Kursk region, where Kiev launched a raid in August.

DeepState, a Ukrainian site that analyzes battlefields near the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, said Russian troops shot nine Ukrainian “drone operators and contractors” on October 10 after they surrendered.

Dmytro Lubinets said on Telegram that he had sent letters about the case to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross, calling it “another crime committed by the Russians.”