Ukraine war live: Captured soldier executed with sword by Putin’s troops, Kyiv claims

Support for Ukraine guarantees the survival of neighbouring Moldova, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said on Tuesday at a conference to address concerns about broadening Russian interference in the region.

“Everything that we do to support Ukraine also means fostering stabilisation with regards to Moldova,” Baerbock said. “It is clear what the greatest concern of the people here is: that if Ukraine falls, Moldova is the next country in line.”

Baerbock was visiting Chisinau for the Moldova Partnership Platform, together with her counterparts from France, Romania, Poland, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

Germany, one of Kyiv’s main military supporters in Europe, initiated the platform after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022, painting it as part of broader efforts to stabilise Moldova’s economy and shield it from Russian disinformation.

Vladimir Putin’s troops have executed a Ukrainian soldier with a sword amid fierce fighting in the east of Ukraine, Kyivhas claimed.

Dmytro Lubinets, Ukraine’s human rights commissioner, alleged that images had appeared on social media showing an executed Ukrainian prisoner of war with his hands tied in Donetsk.

It comes as Russian troops launched around 40 attacks on Pokrovsk overnight, a key city in eastern Ukraine key to Mr Putin’s objective of seizing the entire Donbas region, comprising of Donetsk and Luhansk.

“Photos appeared on social media of how the Russians probably executed a unarmed Ukrainian prisoner of war with a sword,” Mr Lubients said.

“This action is a gross violation of the Geneva Convention on the Treatment of Prisoners of War. How much longer will the world watch as Russia openly demonstrates disregard for any norms and laws?”

Maria Ponomarenko, a journalist from Siberia serving a six-year prison sentence for speaking out against the war in Ukraine, has declared a hunger strike, according to her publication and a supporter.

The 46-year-old was detained less than two months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 for accusing the Russian air force of bombing a theatre in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.

She was found guilty last February of spreading false information about the Russian military by a court in her hometown of Barnaul in western Siberia.

More than 20,000 people have been arrested across Russia for speaking out against the war, according to rights monitor OVD-Info.

The Kremlin said that an order by President Vladimir Putin to transform Russia’s army into the second largest in the world was needed to address growing threats on Russia’s western borders and instability to the east.

Mr Putin on Monday ordered the regular size of the Russian army to be increased by 180,000 troops to 1.5 million active servicemen in a move that would make it the second largest in the world after China’s.

“This is due to the number of threats that exist to our country along the perimeter of our borders,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on a conference call.

“It is caused by the extremely hostile environment on our western borders and instability on our eastern borders. This demands appropriate measures to be taken.”

Germany will provide an additional €100m (£84.2m) in aid for Ukraine this winter, foreign minister Annalena Baerbock announced during a visit to Moldova today.

Berlin has already given approximately €5bn in 2023 and approximately €1.6bn in 2022 in military assistance since the start of the Ukraine war. Another €2.9bn have been committed so far for future deliveries which will reach Ukraine in the years 2025 to 2028, officials had announced last month.

The aid from Germany includes armoured vehicles, air defence systems including Patriot missiles, and artillery.

Russian forces attacked energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, cutting power in some districts, local authorities said this morning.

The attack caused damage in the Konotop, Okhtyrka and Sumy districts and critical infrastructure facilities were forced to switch to back up power systems, regional officials said. Sumy’s water supply facilities were also affected.

The regional authorities said air defences shot down 16 drones over the region.

Sumy’s acting mayor Artem Kobzar said there were no casualties in the city and that energy workers were dealing with the attack’s aftermath.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 51 drones across five regions overnight and that air defences shot down 34 of them.

Vladimir Putin must be defeated and Nato allies must do more to cross the Russian president’s red lines, Estonian president Alar Karis has said.

“We probably realise now that we have to cross all of these red lines and then start forcing Russia out of Ukraine,” he told the Kyiv Independent, as he backed Volodymyr Zelensky’s calls to strike Russia with West’s long-range missiles.

In May this year, he had accused Russia of forcing “an unjust war upon Ukraine” and Russia was the one escalating the conflict each day.

“We are in a very simple position, we should lift the restrictions on the use of weapons that Ukraine gets from the Western world so we can target these drones where they start (on Russian territory). When this happens, the drones never reach Ukraine, Latvia, or any other country,” he told the Ukrainian news website.

Vladimir Putin has expanded his military by tens of thousands after dozens were injured when a Russian glide bomb hit a high-rise building in northeastern Ukraine.

Mr Putin signed a decree increasing the overall size of the Russian armed forces by 180,000, bringing the total capacity to 2.39million people, Russia state news agency RIA reported.

The last time the staffing level of the Armed Forces was increased was in December 2023. It was raised to 2,209,130 ​​people, including 1,320,000 military personnel.