EU council president calls deadly strike ‘cruel and devastating’; fragile ceasefire holds in Oleshky. What we know on day 1,710

European leaders have reacted with outrage to a deadly attack by a Russian drone that slammed into a busy railway platform in the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Thursday, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Ukraine had intelligence about more ballistic missile strikes to come. French President Emmanuel Macron stressed the need for “far more than a localised ceasefire”, referencing the current truce in the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky. The EU council president, António Costa, who described the Dnipro attacks as “cruel and devastating”, called for greater pressure on Russia after the latest strikes against civilians. “The EU will continue to increase the pressure on Russia and to support Ukraine until a just and lasting peace is achieved,” he added. “We call on all our international partners to do the same.”

Later on Thursday, Russian forces ⁠launched ⁠an attack ​on the ⁠Ukrainian capital ⁠Kyiv ​with ‌ballistic ‌missiles, Mayor Vitali Klitschko ‌said on Telegram, hitting warehouses and ‌triggering a fire. Emergency services were headed to ​the scene on the east side ⁠of the Dnipro ​River, he said.

Describing the Dnipro train station attack – which killed at least 14 people and injured another 14 – as “horrific”, the president of Ukraine insisted “sanctions against Moscow and its war machine must not be eased for as long as this Russian war continues”. Zelenskyy warned also that Ukraine had intelligence about preparations by the Russians of new ballistic missile strikes. “We need the means to take out all this Russian ‌evil. We are expecting relevant decisions,” he said. Another attack on Dnipro hit a student dormitory, setting it ablaze, regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha said, adding the assaults had cut power to 350,000 households.

The strikes came as Ukraine and Russia kept to a fragile local ceasefire in the ravaged city of Oleshky and prepared to send a humanitarian convoy to the southern Ukrainian city under Russian occupation since 2022 and where residents have faced months of food, water and medicine shortages. Russia’s human ‌rights commissioner Yana Lantratova ‌said on Friday that local residents had until 2 pm local time (1100 ​GMT) on 30 October to evacuate, Russian news agency Interfax reported. Two ​people, ​including one ​sapper, were killed ​while ‌de-mining in ​Oleshky, ​she said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s military ⁠has paused its strikes on Russian oil refineries after pressure from US President Donald Trump, ⁠according to a report in the Wall Street ⁠Journal ​on Thursday, citing people with knowledge of the operations. Ukrainian units carrying out ⁠long-range strikes were told in mid-October that the campaign against refineries was effectively on hold once ⁠missions already in motion were completed, the Journal reported. The ​unofficial pause is expected ‌to last until ‌after the US midterm elections and potentially deeper into ‌November, the newspaper said.

After the Dnipro attack, Zelenskyy renewed his criticism of a deal struck between Trump and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to ease some US sanctions on Russia allowing Moscow to release diesel on to global markets. “How many such terrorist strikes has Russia carried out against our people since sanctions were lifted on some Russian oligarchs and the energy sector, instead of de-escalating?” he asked.

Late on Thursday, Putin said he supported any steps aimed at restoring relations with ⁠European countries, saying the outbreak of any conflict would leave ⁠a situation with ⁠no ​winners. Commenting on his phone call this week with the leaders of Norway and Finland, Putin told reporters after ‌hosting a summit with African ‌leaders: “And if anyone wants it, let them prepare, but right now they have not achieved their goal – to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. And if things go too far, there will be no winners at all. .”

In advance of the midterms, Trump is blaming Kyiv for high gas prices while making clear moves to support Russia

As the US midterms approach, Donald Trump is abandoning Ukraine’s democracy in a desperate effort to deny responsibility for worsening inflation. Yet this past weekend’s dramatic elections in Brazil and Serbia show that voters can see through such subterfuge.

There is nothing like a political party’s corrupt indifference to the plight of ordinary people to galvanize voter turnout. If US voters follow in the footsteps of their Brazilian and Serbian counterparts, a Democratic landslide is likely.

Russia plans to build own version of US billionaire’s satellite communications to help attack Ukraine

Vladimir Putin praised Elon Musk’s genius and said he was in touch with Starlink’s controlling shareholder as Russia develops its own satellite communications for its military to use against Ukraine.

The Russian president, speaking at a summit with African leaders in Moscow, was comparing the Earth-orbiting network built by Musk’s SpaceX with Russia’s gradual efforts to build its own Rassvet constellation.

Frontline near Russian-occupied city in southern Ukraine quiet for first time in years ahead of planned evacuation

A local ceasefire in a southern Ukrainian city under Russian occupation appeared to be holding on Tuesday, with both sides ceasing drone attacks ahead of an apparent evacuation of about 2,000 trapped and desperate civilians.

The temporary truce began at 3am in Russian-controlled Oleshky. The city sits on the Dnipro River and is about 3 miles (5km) from Kherson, a larger city on the opposite bank. Ukrainian troops recaptured Kherson in autumn 2022.

Jonas Gahr Støre says he and Finland’s Alexander Stubb had ‘substantive’ discussion with Russian president on behalf of their two countries only

Meanwhile, Wes Streeting, the defence secretary, has warned that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is “testing us and testing Nato’s resolve” as he condemned hybrid threats and “state-sponsored terrorism” from Russia.

Streeting repeated his recent warnings that “we have to be ready for a scenario in which the United Kingdom and the Nato alliance finds itself at war with Russia”. He went on:

Not because we want war – we have no quarrel with the Russian people, and we have no desire for war with Russia; Nato is a defensive alliance – but when Putin gives assurances that he has no intentions to provoke a war with Nato, we are reminded of what he said about Ukraine only days before the invasion.

The more ready we are to face against Russia, to defend every inch of Nato territory, the less likely we are to find ourselves in that scenario.

Poland is one of our greatest and certainly our most reliable friend in Europe, and we value and treasure this friendship very much.

Ukraine will not discuss limits to its armed forces or enforced neutrality at November meeting, president says. What we know on day 1,706

A trilateral meeting between Kyiv, Washington and Moscow will take place in November aiming to restart stalled Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said. “We are ready to talk. If it’s a territorial issue, it must be addressed at a leadership level. Other issues fall within the remit of the technical groups. All this can therefore be discussed in November,” the Ukrainian president said on Sunday in an interview. Zelenskyy also renewed his push ⁠for a meeting between him and Vladimir Putin, believing that Putin is the only person ​in Russia who can make major decisions to end ​the war.

Zelenskyy says that at the trilateral talks, Ukraine will not discuss limits to its armed forces, or enforced postwar neutrality. Kyiv has long sought entry into Nato despite the reticence of some members.

Meanwhile, US warnings about imminent ⁠Russian ballistic missile strikes, critical to Ukraine’s air defences, have been fully restored, according to Zelenskyy. He told Ukraine’s ⁠TSN television channel that SpaceX’s ​Starshield satellite internet had been working at speeds of up to 420km/h since early on Saturday, after a meeting with the US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Oslo. Starshield was throttled earlier in October amid diplomatic pressure on Kyiv from Washington.

The US has been trying to pressure Ukraine to suspend strikes on Russian oil refineries, which it says push energy prices higher. However, Zelenskyy has repeatedly said Kyiv will only stop the strikes if Moscow stops hitting Ukraine’s power infrastructure, or if the US allows Ukraine to use of Starshield ‌over Russia to detect launch places of its ballistic missiles, or if it supplies Ukraine with Patriot missiles.

Zelenskyy on Sunday said Russia had launched nearly 2,300 drones targeting Ukrainian cities over the past week, renewing his call on western allies to speed up deliveries of interceptors. “This week alone, Russia has launched about 1,600 guided bombs, 48 missiles of various types, including ballistic missiles, and almost 2,300 strike drones at Ukraine,” he wrote in an online post.

Russia’s defence ⁠ministry said on ⁠Sunday ​its drones had struck a ⁠cargo vessel bound for the Black Sea port of ⁠Chornomorsk in an overnight ​attack ‌and another cargo ‌vessel en route to the ‌port of Odesa during the day. The ministry said the vessels were being used to supply the Ukrainian army. Russian ‌forces also hit a logistics centre, a ​distribution centre and a logistics terminal in the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv overnight. Reuters could not confirm the reports.

A Ukrainian drone attack overnight on the Russian border city ⁠of Belgorod killed ⁠three people ​and injured 13, local authorities said on Sunday, while ⁠a separate drone strike later in the day killed another person. The overnight attack on Belgorod ​damaged 30 apartment buildings, regional governor ⁠Alexander Shuvayev said.

The presidential election in Bulgaria on Sunday ended inconclusively, with the next head of state to be picked in a runoff. In a surprisingly strong performance, the candidate of the pro-western reformist opposition, Andrey Gyurov, will face the incumbent leftist president, Iliana Yotova. Iotova opposes military aid to Ukraine and favours dialogue with Russia, while Gyurov has often expressed firm support for Kyiv. The vote was held amid security concerns after a series of drone attacks on ships in the Black Sea.

But Elon Musk, whose company SpaceX owns Starlink, accuses Ukrainian military of violating ⁠the company’s terms

Ukraine’s military has a “stable connection to Starlink”, the Ukrainian government said, 10 days after its ability to use the satellite communications system was suddenly restricted.

But hours after the announcement, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, whose company owns Starlink, accused the Ukrainian military of violating ⁠the company’s terms. Neither Musk nor the US government, which operates Starshield using Starlink technology, took responsibility for imposing the curbs.

Residents in Oleshky have been enduring a worsening humanitarian crisis due to the lack of food, electricity and other resources

The French prime minister Sébastien Lecornu has just issued a statement on a shooting in a town west of Paris this morning where one person was killed and four others injured.

Police said a gunman had opened fire in Trappes, in the Yvelines, and neighbouring La Verriere. The gunman was later arrested in nearby Coignieres.

The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approval

If Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.

Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast

A war of words has erupted over who is responsible for the restrictions on Starshield access in Ukraine

A war of words has erupted between the Trump administration, officials in Kyiv and Elon Musk over who is to blame for limiting Ukraine’s access to Space X’s military-grade version of Starlink.

The restrictions to Starshield have rendered many of the drones used by Kyiv to strike behind the frontlines inoperable and hampered air defence systems that stop Russian attacks, according to Ukrainian officials.

Europe’s leaders can no longer trust a word that comes out of Washington. No more slaps on the wrist – we need concrete steps to punish Trump

Historical comparisons are always inexact. No one conflict precisely mirrors another. Yet Donald Trump’s shameless appeasement of Vladimir Putin carries more than a noxious whiff of Neville Chamberlain’s failed attempt in Munich in 1938 to head off war with Nazi Germany. To be fair to the former UK prime minister – and history largely hasn’t been – his peacemaking efforts had the enthusiastic backing of most people in Britain and France who, like him, were desperate to avoid a repeat of the horrors of the first world war. Trump enjoys no equivalent public support for his treachery. Nor does he face the prospect of a US war with Russia. His betrayal of Ukraine is cynically self-interested, globally dangerous and utterly contemptible.

US-Russian talks on agreeing the shoddy terms of a precedent-setting American sell-out of Ukraine are at an advanced stage, after meetings in St Petersburg this week. Trump has zigzagged over the war ever since returning to office. Now, panicked by record-low poll ratings, he seems determined to scapegoat Ukraine and force its de facto capitulation. Recent steps – his shocking decision to fund Putin’s war machine by buying Russian diesel, his waiving of tougher sanctions, his mysterious, lethal interruptions in US satellite and intelligence sharing with Kyiv, and his renewed attempt to oust Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy – mark Trump out as the skulking Judas, the craven Brutus of the modern age. He makes Chamberlain look like a man of iron principle. All that’s lacking is an umbrella.

Simon Tisdall is a Guardian foreign affairs commentator

Experts say Russia is trying to destroy energy infrastructure before winter and US ‘appeasement and flattery’ will not achieve peace

Russia has carried out a massive “demonstrative” attack on Ukraine, bombarding Kyiv with ballistic missiles just hours after Vladimir Putin said he had agreed to resume trilateral negotiations after talks with the US envoy Steve Witkoff.

Overnight, Moscow pounded the Ukrainian capital, killing at least two people and wounding 22, including four children. Targets included the southern bridge over the Dnipro River, civilian houses, energy infrastructure, an ambulance station, office buildings and a clinic.

As US support ebbs away, looming European elections and growing financial strains across the continent could fracture the precious coalition that has kept Ukraine afloat

Europe woke up last Friday to another belligerent outburst from Donald Trump – this time berating Ukraine’s wartime leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy again. Just a few days after his diesel deal with the Kremlin, the US president said Zelenskyy was more difficult to deal with than Vladimir Putin and blamed Ukraine’s leader for rocketing oil prices – without any reference to the impact of his own war on Iran.

The contrast in Europe was obvious. When Zelenskyy walked into the multi-coloured summit room of the European Council headquarters in Brussels that Friday morning, the EU’s 27 leaders burst into applause, getting to their feet to offer big hugs and brisk handshakes. European Council president António Costa told Zelenskyy and the media: “This is no time to withdraw the support to Ukraine,” calling instead for increased pressure on Russia. Zelenskyy was thankful, pointedly saying he was happy to have “huge support” from “real leaders”.

Students, teachers and civil servants have shown up in Athens, with demonstrations also in Thessaloniki and other cities

Meanwhile, back to Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St Petersburg, the US president, Donald Trump, has just welcomed the release of Stephen Hubbard, a US citizen held by Moscow on allegations of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine (11:24).

In a post on Truth Social, he said:

“Stephen Hubbard, taken four years ago by Russia during the Biden Administration, was just released from prison, at the request of President Donald J. Trump, made directly to President Vladimir Putin in a telephone conversation last week.

Stephen is on his way back home and will soon be with his family. The United States, out of respect for President Trump, was not required to give anything in return - an unprecedented situation for Russia. There was no “swap” necessary for this release.

Advance warnings of missile attacks were seemingly suspended last week by the White House, but Ukraine’s president says: ‘Now it works’

The US has resumed sharing intelligence with Kyiv about Russian missile strikes, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday after a meeting with the US envoy Steve Witkoff in Norway.

He said Ukraine was again receiving advance warnings of ballistic missile attacks, which were seemingly suspended last week by the White House. “Now it works. It’s great,” he said, adding that the US move would save lives.

GOP lawmakers threaten to pull support for president’s agenda after Russia diesel deal and sanctions pause

• US politics live – latest updates

A handful of Republicans have spoken out against Donald Trump’s softening stance on Russia, threatening to pull financial support for his agenda over his “embarrassing” handling of the Ukraine war.

Don Bacon, an outgoing congressman in Nebraska, condemned Trump’s actions – which include a stunning agreement to buy Russian diesel and the pausing of sanctions on Moscow – as “absolutely disgraceful” and accused the US president of cozying up to a “war criminal” in Vladimir Putin, his Russian counterpart.

Russia wants America and China to decide Ukraine’s future without Kyiv. Europe must challenge this dangerous return to diplomacy of the strong for the strong

Does Vladimir Putin know exactly how to play Donald Trump? The history of chummy phone calls, high-profile meetings and attempts to bring Russia in from the cold certainly suggests that Moscow’s thuggish ruler has a hold on this American president. If Mr Trump agrees to negotiate Ukraine’s future with Mr Putin and China’s Xi Jinping without Ukraine at the table, he will have handed the Russian leader a victory before talks begin. The message will be that strongmen are ruling the world and determining the fate of weaker nations.

Ukraine has the right to determine its future. That right cannot be waved away by a self-serving Russian proposal, however much it indulges Mr Trump’s belief that world affairs should be settled by powerful men. The scales are falling from European eyes. Trumpian America is raising doubts about whether it will help deter aggression or even honour its Nato commitments. If Washington now rewards Moscow and pressures Ukraine to accept a raw deal, it would be a betrayal. European governments would wonder where America might be in the future when their own security is threatened.

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Curfews to apply to parts of cities including Paris, Nice and Lyon after days of violence on French streets

• Macron criticises ‘unbridled violence’ after 2,400 arrests across France

French PM Lecornu says he has asked prefects to implement “a number of partial curfews” in certain “localised” urban areas to stop further disorder, which he attributes to “the extreme-left” and some criminal elements.

We will no doubt hear more on this from local authorities, as in the example of Marseille (10:32).

Ukrainian president accuses Washington of ‘denial of reality’ in ongoing row with Trump over apparent support for Moscow

Ukraine did not receive a warning from the US about an impending Russian missile attack on Sunday evening, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said, reviving concerns that Washington is withholding intelligence in order to bully Kyiv into capitulating to Moscow.

Yuri Ihnat, a spokesperson for the Ukrainian air force, said on television on Monday morning that Ukraine had not received a warning before a Russian missile barrage hit power plants in Kyiv at about 11pm. Earlier, a Ukrainian government official had told the Guardian the US had not warned the capital about the impending missile strike.