Zelensky says 30% of Ukraine's power plants will be destroyed within a week

The Kremlin: Putin did not announce the end of the mobilization, and the annexed lands are protected by "nuclear"

Instructors during the training of new Russian reservists at a firing range in the Volgograd region.

Reuters

The Kremlin said yesterday that President Vladimir Putin has not announced the end of the military mobilization in Russia "yet", but some regions of the country have completed the process, and stressed that the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Russia weeks ago from Ukraine are fully under the protection of the Russian nuclear arsenal, while the President announced The Ukrainian, Volodymyr Zelensky, said that the Russian bombing had destroyed about 30% of the Ukrainian power stations within a week.

"At the moment, there is no presidential decree (on ending mobilization)," Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said.

His statement comes a day after the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, announced an end to mobilization in the capital, and the closure of its recruitment offices.

Putin announced a nationwide mobilization to support Russian forces in Ukraine on September 21, in a move that led to an exodus of men, and sparked some resentment.

Putin said last week that he aimed to end the campaign "in about two weeks".

Peskov said that some regions have already achieved the set goals, without naming them. He added, "In this way, the partial mobilization process is on the way to being accomplished, and it has been accomplished in some regions."

He stressed that the authorities would not call up more than the target set by Putin, which is 300,000 soldiers.

Peskov explained that the four Ukrainian regions that Russia annexed weeks ago from Ukraine are fully under the protection of the Russian nuclear arsenal.

He pointed out that "these lands are non-extractable parts of the Russian Federation, and enjoy the same amount of insurance as the rest of the Russian lands."

On the field level, the Russian Defense Ministry said yesterday that its army has made slight progress on the battlefield in the Kharkiv region of eastern Ukraine by seizing the village of Gorobivka.

In its morning report on the situation in the country, the General Staff of Kyiv had said that Russian offensive attempts had been successfully repelled in both Kharkiv and the neighboring Donetsk region.

On the other hand, President Zelensky announced that the Russian bombing destroyed within a week about 30% of Ukrainian power stations, while power was cut off in several areas, including Kyiv, after new strikes targeting energy facilities yesterday.

“Since October 10, 30% of Ukrainian power stations have been destroyed, causing massive disruptions throughout the country,” Zelensky said on Twitter.

"The situation is now dangerous in all parts of the country, because our regions depend on each other," presidential official Kirilu Tymoshenko told Ukrainian television.

The Ukrainian nuclear energy agency, Energoatom, said in a statement that Russian forces had "kidnapped", on Monday, the director of information technology Oleg Kostyukov, and the assistant general director of the Zaporizhzhya plant, Oleg Ushika, and "taken them to an unknown destination."

And "Energoatom" called on the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, to "make all possible efforts" for their release.

The General Staff also reported that the Russian army had sent 43 "Iranian-made Shahed-136" drones, 38 of which were shot down by Ukrainian soldiers, and adopted "22 strikes" carried out on Monday by the Ukrainian Air Force.

In response to a journalist's question whether Moscow uses Iranian drones in Ukraine, Peskov said yesterday: "We do not have such information."

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