Live blog: Ukraine eyes global peace summit this year – Kiev

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Ukraine aims to hold a global "peace summit" of world leaders this year, Deputy Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said after international representatives met in Malta over the weekend to discuss Kiev's peace formula for its war with Russia.

"This aim remains necessary and possible ... it has been demonstrated that there is interest in this," Deputy Minister Mykola Tochytskyi said shortly after concluding his meetings. Heads of state and heads of government would attend the meeting, he said.

The Malta meeting on Saturday and Sunday was attended in person or online by representatives from 66 countries, Kiev said, with over 20 more countries participating than at the last such meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, in August.

The talks did not include Russia.

Tochytskyi said the Malta meeting discussed five points of the 10-point formula put forward by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy last year: nuclear safety, food security, energy security, release of prisoners and deported persons, and territorial integrity.

More updates 👇

1602 GMT — Thousands of Ukrainians run to commemorate those killed in the war

Around 2,000 Ukrainians ran a one-kilometre race in Kiev, wearing bibs displaying the name of a person instead of a number.

Each runner chose one person to whom they dedicated their run. Spouses, children, friends, siblings, neighbours and colleagues ran for someone they knew who either was killed, taken captive or injured during Russia's ongoing military offensive in Ukraine.

The crowd cheered the runners, and many in the audience wept while waiting for participants at the finish line.

Amid the lively backdrop of Ukrainian songs, joy and sorrow intermingled in the air as life carried on despite the war. The organisers of the run called it the "World's Longest Marathon" — "because no race has lasted as long as Ukraine has been fighting for its freedom."

1045 GMT — Russia shot down 36 Ukrainian drones in Ukraine's east: Moscow

Russian air defences shot down over 30 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean peninsula overnight Saturday, Russia's Defense Ministry has said.

"The air defence systems in place destroyed 36 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles over the Black Sea and the northwestern part of the Crimean peninsula," the ministry wrote on Telegram.

Local authorities in the southern Krasnodar region bordering the Black Sea said that a fire broke out at an oil refinery in the early hours of Sunday, but did not specify the cause.

"The reasons for the incident are being established," a statement from local authorities said, amid claims in local media outlets that the fire had been caused by a drone strike or debris from a downed drone.

0822 GMT — Moscow will confiscate EU assets if Brussels 'steals' frozen Russian funds: Putin ally

Russia will confiscate assets belonging to European Union states it deems unfriendly if the bloc "steals" frozen Russian funds in a drive to fund Ukraine, a top ally of President Vladimir Putin said.

Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, the Russian lower house of parliament, said Moscow would retaliate in a way that would be more costly to the bloc if the EU moved against Russian assets, many of which are held in Belgium.

"A number of European politicians, led by the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, have once again started talking about stealing our country's frozen funds in order to continue the militarisation of Kiev," Volodin, a close Putin ally, said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

"Such a decision would require a symmetrical response from the Russian Federation. In that case, far more assets belonging to unfriendly countries will be confiscated than our frozen funds in Europe," he said.

0328 GMT — Fire erupts at refinery in Russia's Black Sea port

A fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region was promptly extinguished, the region's emergency security authorities said after social media reports of powerful blasts shaking the refinery.

"There were no casualties, no infrastructure was damaged, and there is no threat to the enterprise or residents of nearby settlements," the emergency administration authority of the Krasnodar region, which lies on the coast of the Black Sea, said on its Telegram messaging app. It did not provide information on what caused the fire.

Baza and Shot, two Russian news outlets with good security sources, said that the fire at the refinery, which lies 50 miles (80 km) east of the Black Sea port of Novorossiisk, one of Russia's most important oil export gateways, was caused by a drone attack.

0128 GMT — Ukraine-Russia war at stalemate, talks needed: Lukashenko

Russia and Ukraine are locked in a stalemate on the frontlines of their war and the two sides need to sit down and negotiate an end to the conflict, Alexander Lukashenko, the authoritarian leader of Belarus and an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said over the weekend.

"There are enough problems on both sides and in general, the situation is now seriously stalemate: no one can do anything and substantively strengthen or advance their position," Lukashenko said.

"They're there head-to-head, to the death, entrenched. People are dying."

For our live updates from Saturday (October 28), click here.