UKRAINE: Intense fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces was taking place around two towns in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, Bakhmut and Soledar, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said.

FIGHTING

* Russia has opened a criminal investigation after gunmen shot dead 11 people and injured 15 at a military training ground near the Ukrainian border, authorities said on Sunday.

* The gunmen 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 but many soldiers were killed or wounded in the attack, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region said.

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

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

* Reuters could not verify battlefield reports.

* The Belarusian defence ministry in Minsk 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

* White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said it was incumbent upon NATO allies and other responsible countries, including China and India, to "send a very clear and decisive message to Russia that they should not contemplate the use of nuclear weapons in this conflict".

* Elon Musk said his rocket company SpaceX would keep funding its Starlink internet service in Ukraine, citing the need for "good deeds", after earlier saying he could no longer afford to do so. read more

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.

^{SOURCE: Reuters}