Zelenskiy lays out peace formula as arrests at Russia anti-war protests pass 1,000 – as it happened

In his speech to the UN general assembly, Joe Biden accused Russia of “shamelessly” violating the core tenets of UN membership by invading Ukraine and said Moscow was making “irresponsible” threats to use nuclear weapons.

Biden urged countries to recommit to strengthening the nuclear non-proliferation regime through diplomacy, adding:

A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

The US president said no one had threatened Russia, despite its claims to the contrary, and that only Russia had sought conflict.

Google searches for “how to break an arm” reportedly surged in Russia after Vladimir Putin announced an immediate partial mobilisation of citizens to fight in Ukraine.

Russia has released 10 prisoners of war captured in Ukraine, including at least one Briton, according to a Saudi official.

The released prisoners include American, British, Swedish, Croatian and Moroccan nationals, the official said.

The release came following mediation by the Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, the official said, adding that a plane carrying the prisoners had landed in the kingdom.

Britain’s prime minister, Liz Truss, met with her Ukrainian counterpart, Denys Shmyhal, and the country’s first lady, Olena Zelenska, in New York to reaffirm the UK’s support for Ukraine.

Truss tweeted about the meeting:

As did Shmyhal, who said he had congratulated Truss on her appointment and said the pair had discussed deepening cooperation for Ukraine’s victory and reconstruction.

Dozens of people have been detained across Russia for protesting against Vladimir Putin’s partial mobilisation of Russian citizens.

At least 109 protesters have been detained across the country so far, according to the independent OVD-Info police monitor.

In the Siberian city of Irkutsk, at least 10 of 60 protesters who gathered at a central square were detained, according to local activists, the Moscow Times reports.

In Russia’s third-largest city Novosibirsk, video published to social media showed a protester shouting “I don’t want to die for Putin or for you!”

From the Wall Street Journal’s Matthew Luxmoore:

21 Sept 202211.44 EDT

Pjotr Sauer

The Guardian’s Russia affairs correspondent Pjotr Sauer writes for us today about Vladimir Putin’s speech, which marks the biggest escalation of the war in Ukraine and raises fears of unprecedented disaster.

“This is not a bluff.”

The message from Vladimir Putin’s ominous morning speech, which marked the biggest escalation of the Ukraine war since the invasion on 24 February, was clear: Russia is willing to use nuclear weapons if Ukraine continues its offensive operations.

While the longtime Russian leader has previously flirted with the grim prospect of using nuclear weapons, experts say his latest statements went further, raising fears around the world of an unprecedented nuclear disaster.

Addressing the nation on Wednesday, Putin confirmed he was planning to annex four partly occupied regions of southern and western Ukraine after this weekend’s Kremlin-orchestrated “referendums”.

He added that he was prepared to use “all means” to defend the “territorial integrity” of the Russian-occupied lands and their people.

“Putin’s statements go beyond the Russian nuclear doctrine, which only suggests Russian first use in a conventional war when the very existence of the state is threatened,” said Andrey Baklitskiy, a senior researcher in the Weapons of Mass Destruction and other Strategic Weapons Programme at the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research.

Ukraine, which has been making rapid military gains over the past few weeks, has stressed that it will continue its efforts to liberate occupied lands, with Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, stating on Wednesday that referendums will “act step by step to liberate our country”.

This means Putin’s resolve will probably be tested in the coming week.

Read the full story here:

Britain’s foreign secretary James Cleverly has said the UK will never recognise the results of “sham referendums” held in occupied Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin’s “referendum playbook” was a “blatant sham designed to seize Ukraine’s land”, Cleverly wrote on Twitter.

He added:

Any votes held at the barrel of a gun cannot be free or fair.

We will never recognise the results of any sham referendums or attempts to annex Ukraine’s sovereign territory.

Cleverly is expected to condemn Russian aggression in Ukraine when he meets his Moscow counterpart Sergey Lavrov at a UN security council meeting in New York on Thursday.

Biden references the mass graves recently discovered in Izium, which he said “showed signs of torture”.

Now we see attacks on schools, railway stations, hospitals... even more horrifying evidence of Russia’s war crimes.

The US wants the war to end on “just terms”, the US president continues, “terms we all signed up for, that you cannot seize a nation’s territory by choice”.

The only country standing in the way of that is Russia, he says.

He says Putin has made “reckless” nuclear threats and describes the plans to hold “referendums” in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine as a “sham”.

The US president Joe Biden is addressing the UN general assembly where he described the “brutal needless” war in Ukraine as one that was “chosen by one man” – Vladimir Putin.

View image in fullscreen

Putin “shamelessly violated” the core tenets of the UN charter by ordering his troops to invade Ukraine, Biden said in his first speech to the UN since Russia invaded its neighbour in February.

Biden said:

This war is about extinguishing Ukraine’s right to exist as a state, plain and simple, and Ukraine’s right to exist as a people. Wherever you are, wherever you live, whatever you believe… That should make your blood run cold.

A country “cannot seize a nation’s territory by force”, he continued.

Ukraine has the same rights belong to every sovereign nation. We will stand in solidarity with Ukraine who will stand in solidarity against Russia’s aggression, period.

It is just past 6pm in Kyiv. Here’s where we stand:

• Vladimir Putin has announced a partial mobilisation in Russia in a significant escalation that places the country’s people and economy on a wartime footing. In a highly anticipated televised address, Putin said the “partial mobilisation” was a direct response to the dangers posed by the west. According to the decree signed by Putin on Wednesday, the contracts of soldiers fighting in Ukraine will also be extended until the end of the partial mobilisation period.

• The Russian president also threatened nuclear retaliation, saying that Moscow had “lots of weapons to reply” to what he called western threats on Russian territory. He added: “It’s not a bluff.”

• Shortly after Putin’s announcement, the country’s defence ministry, Sergei Shoigu, said 300,000 Russians would be called up as part of the mobilisation that will apply to “those with previous military experience”. The Russian government will announce “very soon” which categories of citizens will be exempted from the mobilisation of reservists to serve in Ukraine, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said.

• Putin’s speech was swiftly condemned by western leaders. Nato secretary general Jens Stoltenberg criticised the Russian leader for using “dangerous and reckless” nuclear rhetoric. Germany’s chancellor Olaf Scholz described the announcement as an “act of desperation”. A European Commission spokesperson said Putin was making a “very dangerous nuclear gamble” and must “stop such reckless behaviour”. Putin’s announcement is a “clear admission” his invasion of Ukraine is failing, Downing Street said. The British Foreign Office minister Gillian Keegan called the Russian president’s speech an “obvious escalation”.

• Lithuania’s defence minister Arvydas Anušauskas has said the country is to put its rapid reaction force on high alert, as the mobilisation will also occur on its border with the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. “Since the Russian military mobilisation will also be carried out in the Kaliningrad region, ie in our neighbourhood, Lithuania cannot just watch,” Anušauskas said. Latvia’s foreign minister Edgars Rinkēvičs said his country will not offer refuge to any Russians fleeing Moscow’s mobilisation of troops.

• Putin’s decision to announce a partial mobilisation sent shockwaves across Russia, with the war set to enter the household of many families across the country. The Russian anti-war movement Vesna has called for demonstrations in cities and towns across Russia at 7pm local time (16:00 GMT) on Wednesday in protest against mobilisation. “You don’t have to die for Putin. You are needed in Russia by those who love you. For the authorities, you are just cannon fodder, where you will be squandered without any meaning or purpose,” Vesna said in a statement.

• Nearly all flights out of Russia were sold out just hours after Putin declared a partial mobilisation of reservists. Flights from Moscow to the capitals of Georgia, Turkey and Armenia, all destinations that allow Russians to enter without a visa, were sold out within minutes of Putin’s announcement, according to flight sales data. Direct flights from Moscow to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan also became unavailable.

• The Russian stock market tumbled after Putin’s speech. The Russian president’s announcement sent the Moscow stock exchange’s MOEX index plunging by as much as 10%, marking a second day in falling stocks. On Tuesday, the rouble-denominated MOEX index fell by 8.7% to hit its lowest point since 16 August.
  
  

• Putin’s televised address to the nation came a day after Russian-controlled regions in eastern and southern Ukraine announced plans to hold “referendums” this weekend on becoming part of Russia. In his speech on Wednesday, Putin said he would support the votes scheduled for this weekend to join Russia in the parts of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions that are under its control. Kremlin’s plans to annex four regions are likely to further escalate the war following Ukrainian recent successes on the battlefield.

• Russia fired a series of long-range missiles at Ukraine’s second city Kharkiv early on Wednesday, hours after the Kremlin announced plans to annex Ukrainian territory and to carry out a partial mobilisation. Explosions were heard across Kharkiv at around 2am. At least one missile struck a high-rise apartment in the western Zalutino district. Ten residents were injured.

• Joe Biden will use his speech at the UN to rally the world to stand firm in the face of Russian plans to hold referendums in occupied parts of Ukraine and possibly introduce widespread conscription. Biden’s speech on Wednesday morning will be followed a few hours later by a video address delivered by the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
  

• Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said there was a shrinking likelihood of holding talks with Vladimir Putin to end the war, adding that it could only happen if the Russian leader withdrew his forces from Ukrainian territory. In an interview with Bild TV, the Ukrainian president urged the west not to be blackmailed by Putin’s threat of nuclear retaliation, and warned that to do so would invite Russia to attempt to take more territory.
  

• Ukraine’s prime minister Denys Shmyhal has met with new British prime minister Liz Truss at the Ukrainian Institute of America in New York. Truss said she reaffirmed Britain’s “steadfast support” for the Ukrainian people, while her foreign secretary James Cleverly is expected to condemn Russia’s aggression in Ukraine when he meets his Moscow counterpart Sergey Lavrov at the UN security council on Thursday.

• German police have raided several properties understood to belong to the Russian oligarch Alisher Usmanov, on suspicion of money laundering and violations of EU sanctions. A special unit consisting of over 250 police officers on Wednesday morning searched properties including a villa on Tegernsee lake in the southern state of Bavaria belonging to Usmanov, an ally of Putin.

Hello everyone. It’s Léonie Chao-Fong still with you today with all the latest from Ukraine. Feel free to get in touch on Twitter or via email.