MOSCOW: The Kremlin on Monday denied that its military was responsible for the mass killings in eastern Ukraine, accusing Kyiv of fabricating its claims of mass graves discovered in re-occupied territory.
Ukraine said Russian rockets landed dangerously near a nuclear power station in southern Ukraine, raising fears of a nuclear emergency.
Ukraine took back Izium and other eastern cities this month, snapping Kremlin supply lines and bringing fresh claims of Russian atrocities with the discovery of hundreds of graves, some of them containing multiple bodies.
"These are lies," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday. "Moscow will stand up for the truth in this story," he said.
Fighting has intensified in the northeast, and AFP journalists heard artillery exchanges in Kupiyansk on Monday as wounded civilians fled the city, which is now largely in Ukrainian hands.
The roads were littered with broken glass, empty cartridge shells and dumped remains of ration packs of both the forces.
Much of the fire was directed at Russian targets on the west side of the city, accompanied by a rumble of broken bridges, accompanied by Ukrainian tanks and artillery. In the distance, a column of smoke rose.
Citizens gathered at the city entrance, marching toward Russian lines at the sound of Ukrainian tank shells, to ride or board buses bound for safe Ukrainian territory.
"It was impossible to stay where we were," said 56-year-old Lyudmila, crossing the Oskil River from the disputed east bank to the relative safety of the west coast.
"The fire was coming every day, not just every hour." It's very difficult on the other side of the river." Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a speech to the nation on Monday that the Russians were "panic" as their forces recaptured territory in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
More than a dozen people were killed and several others wounded in a "punitive" attack by Kyiv's forces in the separatist stronghold of Donetsk, according to Russian-backed officials in eastern Ukraine.
The region's rebel leader claimed the strike was "deliberate" and that it "won't go without punishment."
Meanwhile, a court in the rebel region neighboring Lugansk sentenced two employees of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to 13 years in prison for treason.
OSCE President Zbigniew Rau denounced the "unfair" detention of members of the mission since the outbreak of the war, calling it "nothing but pure political theatre... inhumane and counterproductive".
Citizens in Ukraine's Kharkiv region describe months of brutality under Russian occupation.
Mykhailo Chindi told AFP in Kupiyansk that he was tortured on suspicion of providing targeting coordinates to Ukraine's military.
"One person held my hand, while the other thrashed my hand with a metal stick." "They were hitting me every day for about two hours," he told AFP.
"At some point, I lost consciousness." I had lost a lot of blood. "They landed on my heels, back, feet and kidneys."
According to Ukraine's nuclear energy agency Energoatum, Russia struck the Pvdnoukrensk nuclear power plant overnight, a "powerful explosion" just 300 meters (985 ft) from its reactors.
The strike broke more than 100 windows at the station, but the reactors were not damaged, according to Energoatom, which published photos of the broken glass surrounding the torn frame.
It also released pictures of a two-metre-deep pit where the missile was said to have landed. It was reported that no employee was injured.
Attacks on Ukrainian nuclear facilities have prompted Kyiv and its Western allies to call for the demilitarization of the surrounding regions.
After tit-for-tat claims of attacks, Europe's largest nuclear facility, the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant in Ukraine, in Russia-occupied territory, has become a matter of concern.
The Pivdennoukrainsk plant is located in the Mykolaiv region of southern Ukraine, close to the front lines of a Ukrainian counter-attack.
Russian forces continue to shell Ukrainian-occupied cities near the front lines.
After new fighting, the United Nations Atomic Energy Agency sent a monitoring team to the site in early September.
"Russia puts the whole world at risk." "We must intervene before it is too late," Zelensky said early Monday.
According to the EU's foreign policy chief, Ukraine will be "very high on the agenda" when world leaders begin a formal meeting in New York on Tuesday for the UN General Assembly.
"We know there are many other problems, but the war in Ukraine has shocked the world," Josep Borrell said after a meeting with EU foreign ministers on the eve of the UN assembly, which Zelensky Video will be addressed through
Seven people were killed in a Ukrainian attack on the Luhansk region
Russia and Ukraine have agreed to exchange 200 prisoners
