Both the Russian officials and an unnamed American source said that the U.S. ruled out holding any back channel peace talks that did not include Ukraine. The U.S. source also said it would not engage in official peace talks with Russia.
At least 8,000 people were killed by fighting or war-related causes in Russia's months-long conquest of Mariupol, one of the biggest battles of the nearly two-year war between Russia and Ukraine, according to Human Rights Watch. Mariupol became a byword for horror during a nearly three-month-long Russian siege for control of the strategic port city between March and May 2022, with trapped civilians forced to bury their dead by the roadside. The Human Rights Watch assessment, based on satellite and other images of grave sites, is one of the only independent estimates of the death toll so far.
Russia's armed forces have focused on eastern Donetsk region after failing at the outset of the 21-month-old conflict to advance on Kyiv. Ukraine regained large chunks of territory a year ago, but a new counteroffensive launched in June has made only incremental gains in the east and south. Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces had captured Khromove, a village on the western approaches to Bakhmut, seized in May by Russian forces after months of heavy fighting reduced it to ruins.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) General Conference has adopted a resolution on the immediate return of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant under Ukraine's full control, the Energy Ministry reported on Sept. 29.