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Vladimir Putin said he believed the “partial mobilisation” of army reservists would be completed in two weeks. The Russian president said after attending a summit in Kazakhstan on Friday that a total of 222,000 reservists would be called up, down from the 300,000 figure initially circulated after the order last month.
The Belarus defence ministry said Russian troops would start arriving in the country “in the next few days” as part of its joint force.
The US and Germany are to deliver sophisticated anti-aircraft systems to Kyiv this month to counter attacks using Russian missiles and kamikaze drones, Ukraine’s defence minister said. Oleksiy Reznikov said Ukraine would receive the Iris-II air defence system from Germany this month.
A Russian submarine has reportedly been spotted off the French coast and escorted by the French navy. The submarine was spotted sailing on the surface off the Brittany coast at the end of September, the French navy said on its Twitter feed. It said British and Spanish warships had also been involved in monitoring the submarine’s movements.
Putin has called for the humanitarian corridors for Ukrainian grain to be closed if they are used for “acts of terror”. At a news conference in the Kazakh capital of Astana he also said there was “no need” for talks with the US president, Joe Biden.
A Ukrainian member of Kherson’s regional council has condemned Russia’s “evacuation” of the occupied city, saying it is in fact a “deportation”.
