Russia’s top energy official, Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak, said a price cap on its exports will backfire and may lead to a temporary cut in production. Speaking in an interview after an Opec+ meeting in Vienna, Novak reinforced the Kremlin’s warning that his country won’t sell oil to any countries that adopt the cap. 

Elsewhere, the Kremlin vowed to recapture territory that’s been seized back by Ukrainian forces, saying that occupied regions to which Moscow has laid claim will be “with Russia forever”. That comes as Ukrainian forces press through sparsely manned defence lines in the southern region of Kherson, making “substantial” progress, according to the US-based Institute for the Study of War.  

Key developments 

• EU backs Russia sanctions package including oil price cap
• Ukraine retakes more of south as Putin signs off on annexation
• Gazprom resumes flows to Italy via Austria as spat resolved
• EU chief offers gas price cap before leaders’ meeting
• Ukraine war shows new risk to nuclear power’s next small thing
• Poland says it has approached US about sharing nuclear weapons

On the ground

Ukrainian forces continued to make “substantial” gains in the north of the Kherson region, beginning to collapse sparsely-manned Russian lines in that area, the ISW said. Ukrainian forces advanced in the eastern Kharkiv region west of Svatove. Their forces have liberated several small towns in Luhansk — a region still mostly controlled by Russia — according to the governor, Serhiy Haiday. 

Russia launched an overnight drone attack on the city of Bila Tserkva, 75km southwest of the nation’s capital, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said on television. The Ukrainian military expects similar strikes in other areas as Russia may have taken delivery of hundreds of drones from Iran, he said.  

Putin orders Russia to take formal control of occupied nuclear plant 

President Vladimir Putin ordered his government to formally take ownership of the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant from Ukraine after Russia laid claim to the territory where the facility is located.

Russian troops have controlled the area where the plant is located since March and Putin signed laws formally annexing the territory on Wednesday. The United Nations and many countries have denounced the annexation as illegal.

The head of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), said he was travelling to Kyiv for talks on nuclear safety as the organisation calls for a security zone around the Zaporizhzhia plant. The measure is “now more urgent than ever”, IAEA Director-General Rafael Mariano Grossi said in a tweet.  

OECD recognises Ukraine as prospective member  

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development’s council recognised Ukraine as a prospective member of the intergovernmental body whose aim is to promote global trade. The organisation will open talks with Kyiv, it said in a statement. 

Sweden reports Nord Stream gas leaks easing 

The gas leaks in the undersea Nord Stream pipelines in the Swedish economic zone appear to be decreasing in strength, according to a statement from the country’s coast guard.

The Nordic nation has begun an investigation on site, with newspaper Dagens Nyheter reporting on Wednesday that the navy has a submarine-rescue ship and a mine countermeasures vessel working near the leaks. 

Ukraine crop exports face bottleneck as queue swells  

Dozens of ships carrying Ukrainian grain are piling up to clear inspection in Istanbul, underlining the limits of the country’s crop-export revival. More than 70 loaded ships are due for inspection, indicating “some congestion” as well as growing interest in the deal, according to a United Nations spokesperson for the Black Sea Grain Initiative. 

Ukraine has been shipping crops at a rapid clip since a deal was agreed in late July to resume its seaborne trade, which had been stalled by Russia’s invasion. About six million tonnes have departed its Black Sea ports, with cargoes bound for Europe, Asia and Africa. 

Nato taking Putin’s nuclear threat seriously 

Chris Badia, Nato’s deputy supreme allied commander for transformation, said the alliance takes Putin’s comments “absolutely seriously”, especially given Russia’s performance in the war in Ukraine and how the president might react to that.

While speaking on a panel at the Warsaw Security Forum, Badia said Nato is a defensive alliance and prepared with all means. “All options are on the table from a military point of view,” he said, adding if anything should happen, it would be a political decision. He signalled that a response would likely be “conventional”, initially. 

“If you look at escalation metrics and think it through, I would say most probably this would be one of the first options on the table,” Badia said, “but nothing can be ruled out.”

Kremlin vows to retake annexed lands lost to Ukraine advances  

Russia plans to retake the parts of Ukraine it lost to Kyiv’s advances in recent days after formally declaring the annexation of those territories, according to Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

“There’s no contradiction. They will be with Russia forever, they will be returned,” he said in response to a question about how the retreat of Moscow’s forces from the areas in recent days fit with the Kremlin’s repeated claims that they will be Russian territory permanently.

Peskov also kept up the uncertainty about the precise borders of the lands Russia is claiming, refusing to specify where they lie in the contested areas. He suggested that the Kremlin is laying claim to territory controlled by its occupation administrations, but also said that it’s planning to retake more and will “consult” with residents who want to join Russia.

Europe approves fresh sanctions against Russia 

The EU backed a new package of Russia sanctions that includes support for a price cap on oil sales to third countries and mechanisms to avoid circumvention of sanctions, Andrzej Sados, the Polish ambassador to the EU, told reporters.  

The measures would add a ban on shipping Russian oil to existing restrictions on services needed to transport it, but carve out an exemption for crude priced at or under a level set by a coalition of the Group of Seven and other countries, according to a draft of the proposal seen by Bloomberg. 

UN says more than 6,000 Ukrainian civilians killed  

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 6,114 Ukrainian civilian deaths as of October 2 after Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, according to an e-mailed statement on Wednesday. A total of 9,132 civilians were injured. Most casualties were caused by shelling from heavy artillery, multiple launch rocket systems, missiles and air strikes.

The figures may be considerably higher, as reports from areas where intense hostilities have been continuing are delayed and pending corroboration. 

Russian gas flows to Italy resume 

European natural gas prices slid after Russia’s gas giant said flows of the fuel to Italy via Austria were resuming after a solution with Italian buyers was reached to overcome the regulatory changes in Austria at the end of last month that had prevented transit flows. 

Italy’s Eni SpA confirmed the resumption of flows, while Austria’s regulator said a solution appeared to have been found. 

Putin signs annexation laws 

President Putin signed laws formally annexing four regions of eastern and southern Ukraine even as Russian troops don’t fully control any of them.

Putin also signed decrees naming separatist leaders of the self-declared Donetsk and Luhansk people’s republics, and of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as acting heads of Russian occupation authorities.

Poland in nuclear talks with US  

Poland is in talks with the US about participating in a nuclear weapons sharing programme to counter growing threats from Russia, President Andrzej Duda told the Gazeta Polska newspaper. Nato’s biggest eastern European member nation has been ramping up military spending following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but until now officials haven’t broached the topic of seeking nuclear weapons as a deterrent. 

Zelensky hails ‘powerful’ advance 

The Ukrainian army is carrying out “a pretty fast and powerful advance” in the south of the country, the Ukrainian leader said in his nightly address. Dozens of settlements in the Kherson, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Donetsk regions have already been liberated this week. 

Zelensky said he’d talked by phone to US President Joe Biden and thanked him for new Himars, as well as another package of support. He also held conversations with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. DM