Ukraine and Russia: What you need to know right now

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Russia has opened a criminal investigation after gunmen shot dead 11 people at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border as fighting raged in eastern and southern Ukraine.

FIGHTING

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* The gunmen who killed 11 and wounded 15 at a Russian military training camp near the Ukrainian border, were from Tajikistan and had opened fire after an argument over religion, Oleksiy Arestovych, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said on YouTube.

* No civilians died in the attack, but many soldiers were killed or wounded, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said.

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* Ukrainian troops are still holding the strategic eastern town of Bakhmut despite repeated Russian attacks while the situation in the Donbas region remains very difficult, Zelenskiy said.

* Ukrainian forces shelling damaged the administration building in the city of Donetsk, the capital of the Donetsk region, Russian-backed administration of the city said.

* Russian missiles and drones struck more than 30 towns and villages across Ukraine over the past 24 hours, Ukraine’s army said in its morning update.

* Russian defense ministry said its forces had repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, inflicting what it described as significant losses against the enemy.

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* Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

* The Belarusian defense ministry in Minsk on Sunday said just under 9,000 Russian troops would be stationed in Belarus as part of a “regional grouping” of forces to protect its borders.

* Zelenskiy said almost 65,000 Russians had been killed since the Feb. 24 invasion, a figure far higher than Moscow’s official Sept. 21 estimate of 5,937 dead.

ECONOMY, DIPLOMACY

* Elon Musk said his rocket company SpaceX would keep funding its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for “good deeds,” a day after he said it could no longer afford to do so. The service has helped civilians and military stay online during the war with Russia.

* Russia’s attacks on civilian infrastructure away from the front lines will worsen the dire economic conditions in Ukraine, which has already seen a tenfold increase in poverty this year, a top World Bank official said.

QUOTES

“This is not war, this is a war crime. War is when soldiers fight with each other, but when civilians are being fought, it’s a war crime,” said sales manager Vadym Antonyuk, 51, at a water distribution point in Mykolaiv. (Compiled by Michael Perry, Gareth Jones and Tomasz Janowski)