Strikes across Ukraine are revenge for bridge attack - Putin
US President Joe Biden says Monday's missile attacks demonstrated "the utter brutality" of Vladimir Putin's "illegal war" on Ukraine.
Accusing Russia of killing and injuring civilians, he said the strikes "further reinforce" America's commitment to stand with the people of Ukraine "for as long as it takes".
He also said Russia had destroyed targets "with no military purpose".
He called on Moscow to end the "unprovoked aggression immediately", and said Russian troops should be removed from Ukraine.
Summary
- Vladimir Putin says Monday's widespread Russian strikes on Ukraine are retaliation for Saturday's attack on a key bridge
- Putin blames the bridge explosion on Ukraine, and threatens more strikes in response to what he calls "terrorist attacks"
- The attack on the bridge badly damaged the only link between Russia and occupied Crimea - a key route for military supplies for the war
- Monday's missile strikes on cities across Ukraine, including the capital, Kyiv, mark a significant escalation
- It's the first time Kyiv has been targeted in months; Ukraine says 11 people have been killed across the country
- Meanwhile, the leader of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko, has ordered his troops to deploy with Russian forces near Ukraine
- He claims Ukraine and Nato are planning to launch an attack on his country, but offered no evidence
Gunshots and blasts heard at Mahsa Amini protests in Iran
Government officials struggle to end demonstrations sparked by death in police custody of Kurdish woman
Patrick Wintour Diplomatic editor
Gunshots and explosions were heard in the Iranian Kurdish city of Sanandaj on Monday as the protests over the death of a 22-year-old Kurdish woman Mahsa Amini continued to unfold across the country.
Government officials are struggling to end the protests led by young Iranians, especially women, previously regarded as uninterested by politics.
The British government is imminently expected to announce a first round of sanctions against Iranian officials deemed to be violently suppressing the demonstrations.
Germany launches probe into suspected Nord Stream 'sabotage'
German federal prosecutors announced an investigation into suspected blasts that damaged gas pipelines between Russia and Europe. Berlin has now joined Denmark and Sweden in gathering clues about the Baltic Sea leaks.
Germany's federal public prosecutor on Monday announced the start of an investigation into leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines Monday.
Germany now joins Denmark and Sweden in seeking to get to the bottom of leaks that saw massive amounts of gas released into the Baltic Sea after both pipelines were ruptured on September 26.
What did prosecutors say?
Federal prosecutors are investigating suspected "anti-constitutional sabotage" on the pipelines as well as "deliberately causing an explosion."
First Liberia civil war trial for crimes against humanity opens in France
France's first trial of a participant in Liberia's bloody civil wars began on Monday, with former rebel commander Kunti Kamara facing charges of crimes against humanity, including torture.
The allegations before the Paris criminal court against Kamara, 47, date back to 1993 and 1994, early years in the back-to-back conflicts that would ultimately kill 250,000 people between 1989 and 2003.
The conflicts were marked by mass murders, rape and mutilations, in many cases by child soldiers conscripted by warlords.
Atrocities against civilians were common, with drugged fighters chopping off people's limbs.
N Korea confirms nuclear missile launches were tests to 'wipe out' enemies
By HYUNG-JIN KIM
North Korea's recent barrage of missile launches were the simulated use of its tactical battlefield nuclear weapons to "hit and wipe out" potential South Korean and U.S. targets, state media reported Monday, as its leader Kim Jong Un signaled he would conduct more provocative tests.
The North's statement, released on the 77th birthday of its ruling Workers' Party, is seen as an attempt to burnish Kim's image as a strong leader at home amid pandemic-related hardships as he's defiantly pushing to enlarge his weapons arsenal to wrest greater concessions from its rivals in future negotiations.
"Through seven times of launching drills of the tactical nuclear operation units, the actual war capabilities . of the nuclear combat forces ready to hit and wipe out the set objects at any location and any time were displayed to the full," the North's official Korean Central News Agency said.
‘No room for compromise’ on Taiwan’s sovereignty, President Tsai says in National Day speech
Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen said Monday there is “no room for compromise” over the self-ruled island’s sovereignty but she is willing to work with China to find “mutually acceptable ways” to maintain peace across the Taiwan Strait.
“The consensus of the Taiwanese people … is to defend our sovereignty and our free and democratic way of life. There is no room for compromise on this,” Tsai said in a speech marking Taiwan’s National Day, delivered as tensions between Taipei and Beijing simmer at the highest point in recent decades.
Taiwan, home to 23 million people, lies fewer than 110 miles (177 kilometers) off the coast of China. For more than 70 years the two sides have been governed separately, but that hasn’t stopped China’s ruling Communist Party from claiming the island as its own – despite having never controlled it.
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