Ukraine: Russia's Duma to discuss revoking nuclear treaty

The State Duma Council of the Russian parliament on Monday gave a special committee 10 days to look into a possible revocation of Moscow's June 2000 ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CNTB).

In a statement, the Council said the body's International Affairs Committee will have until October 18 to come up with a proposal.

Russia has threatened to withdraw from the treaty, citing the fact that the US has never ratified it.

International observers have called Moscow’s change of heart “very concerning," as Russian President Vladimir Putin has ratcheted up threats against any country that might consider attacking him.

He has warned that "hundreds" of Russian nuclear missiles would rain down from the sky and obliterate anyone foolish enough to attack.

The UN has voiced concern over the "mass conferral" of Russian passports in occupied Ukrainian territory, with those who refuse them risking becoming "ensnared in a web of exclusion," being denied access to essential public services and being put at greater risk of arbitrary detention.

"One and a half years after the Russian Federation's full-scale armed attack on Ukraine, we continue to bear witness to blatant and unabated violations of human rights … [including] a policy of mass conferral of Russian citizenship on residents," said UN deputy human rights chief Nada Al-Nashif.

"Individuals who opt not to accept Russian passports find themselves ensnared in a web of exclusion, denied access to essential public services such as social security and health care. This also heightens the risk of arbitrary detention for those who resist."

An array of routine necessities such as receiving government benefits, getting or keeping a job and seeking medical treatment require Russian-issued papers, experts and residents have told the AFP news agency.

Moscow has been issuing Russian passports to Ukrainians in areas in the eastern Donbas region and Crimea which have been held by Kremlin-backed separatists since 2014.

But the policy has become more aggressive since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, with President Vladimir Putin signing a decree in April 2023 allowing Ukrainians in occupied areas to potentially be deported if they do not get a Russian passport by July 1, 2024.

The UN has expressed concern over the lack of an official system to repatriate Ukrainian children taken by Russia since Moscow's full-scale invasion of the country last year.

Ukrainian authorities say they have identified and verified almost 20,000 children who have been taken to Russia during the war, 400 of whom have been returned, but don't know exactly how many more there are because they do not have access to swathes of occupied territory in the south and east of Russia itself.

"The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) remains gravely concerned that there is no established system to return Ukrainian children who were transferred to other regions in Russian-occupied territory or to the Russian Federation," Nada Al-Nashif, United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.

"Among the children who reunited with their family after relatives traveled to the Russian Federation to retrieve them, some described experiencing or witnessing psychological or physical violence by educational staff there."

Moscow has repeatedly denied forcibly taking Ukrainian children, saying any who were relocated were found in orphanages or without parental care, and were if possible placed with relatives in Russia for their own safety.

The International Criminal Court has accused Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russia's Children's Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova-Belova of the war crime of illegally deporting Ukrainian children.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has expressed his solidarity with Israel in a phone call with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

"I spoke with Netanyahu to affirm Ukraine's solidarity with Israel, which suffers from a brazen large-scale attack, and to express condolences for the multiple victims," Zelenskyy said on social media.

"Israel's right to self-defense is unquestionable," he added, revealing that his government had set up an operational headquarters to aid Ukrainians in Israel. Israel has taken in around 15,000 Ukrainian refugees since Russia's full-scale invasion and has provided humanitarian aid to Kyiv, but has stopped short of supplying weapons.

In his daily video address from Kyiv on Sunday evening, Zelenskyy drew global parallels, saying that "Terror has opened up too many fronts against humanity" and referring simultaneously to "the war against Ukraine, the war in the Middle East and the horrific destabilization in Africa."

On Monday morning, speaking to the NATO parliamentary assembly in Copenhagen, Denmark, via video link, Zelenskyy reaffirmed: "This is not the time to withdraw from the international arena into internal disputes. This is not the time to isolate ourselves. This is not the time to remain silent or pretend that the terror on one continent does not affect global affairs."

He also alleged Iranian involvement in events in both Ukraine and Israel, saying Iran "can't say it has nothing to do with what is going in Ukraine" while selling Shahed drones to Russia, and that it can't claim "it has nothing to do with what is going in Israel" while officials offer support to Hamas.

Speaking at the NATO parliamentary assembly in Copenhagen, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen has appealed to members of the alliance not to succumb to "war fatigue" as Ukraine continues to fight the Russian invasion.

"Brave Ukrainian men and women are fighting on the battlefield," she said. "They are the face of right against wrong, of good against evil. This [invasion] is a threat to the ideas our alliance is built on — freedom, democracy, the rule of law."

She added: "We must be with Ukraine to the bitter end. None of us can claim war fatigue while Ukraine continues its tireless fight. Let us decide that war fatigue will not take place in our transatlantic community."

Frederiksen also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had underestimated Western resolve by assuming that NATO's support for Ukraine would be limited to "just words."

Instead, she said, "Ukrainian soldiers are fighting with our weapons, our tanks, our missiles, and soon Ukraine will also fly our F-16s."

She concluded with an appeal to "expand and deepen" a coalition of countries committed to deliver F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine.

One man has been killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine's northern Kharkiv region near the Russian border, and another in Kherson in the south, according to regional governors, with a further dozen people injured.

Russian troops abandoned the city of Kherson and the western bank of the Dnipro River in the region late last year but now regularly shell those areas from positions on the eastern bank.

Meanwhile on the battlefield, the head of Ukraine's ground forces, General Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed that his troops had had minor successes around the ruined eastern city of Bakhmut, repulsing Russian attacks and advancing themselves.

"The enemy is continuing to mass its reserves," Syrskyi wrote on Telegram. "Our troops are performing their assignments with the aim of proceeding with our advance."

Russian accounts, on the other hand, said Ukrainian attacks had been repelled around Bakhmut and further north.

In the south, Ukrainian army spokesperson Oleksandr Shtupun said that Ukrainian forces had been successful in neutralizing enemy equipment, leading Russia to deploy older weaponry.

"Sadly, the Russians have plenty of equipment," he said on Telegram.

Russia's Duma council is set to meet on Monday to discuss the possible revocation of the country's ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

The move could pave the way for Russia to resume nuclear testing for the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union.

The meeting comes after President Vladimir Putin said last week that, while he doesn't believe Russia's nuclear doctrine needs updating, it could consider revoking its ratification of the CTBT, a development which the United States said on Friday would endanger "the global norm" against nuclear tests.

First drafted in 1996, the CTBT has been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178. The United States, China, Egypt, Iran, and Israel have signed but not ratified it. India, North Korea and Pakistan have not signed at all.

According to the United Nations, 10 nuclear tests have taken place since the CTBT: India and Pakistan conducted two each in 1998, while North Korea held tests in 2006, 2009, 2013, 2016 (twice) and 2017. The United States last conducted a nuclear test in 1992 while the Russian Federation, which inherited most of the Soviet Union's nuclear arsenal, has never done so.

But signs have emerged that testing could resume, with CNN reporting in September on satellite images which showed growing activity at nuclear test sites in Russia, China and the United States. In 2020, the Washington Post said the then-Trump administration had discussed whether to hold a nuclear test.

mf/nm (Reuters, AFP, dpa)