October 3, 2022 Russia-Ukraine news

Russian authorities removed the commander of the country's Western Military District (WMD), according records from the country’s Unified State Registry published Monday.

The Unified State Registry, which functions as a state government registry of all registered legal entitles, has listed Col. Gen. Roman Berdnikov as the new commander of Russia’s Western Military District. The announcement comes as Russian forces have pulled out from many parts of eastern Ukraine. 

The WMD, based in the western part of Russia, is one of five military districts in the country's military. It played a significant role in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Berdnikov replaces Col. Gen. Alexander Zhuravlyov, who has also been a commander in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region where Russian forces suffered heavy losses in past weeks. Bednikov’s appointment comes on the heels of the Russian forces retreat from the strategic eastern city of Lyman, in the eastern Donetsk region.

More on the former commander: Zhuravlyov, who is known for overseeing one of the most brutal chapters of Syria’s war, also oversaw a rocket artillery brigade, whom CNN identified as the brigade that launched cluster munitions attack in residential districts of Kharkiv in late February, during the early days of the war.

Russian officials have criticized the country’s military leadership following the retreat in Lyman. Russian lawmaker and former army commander, Andrei Gurulev, said he could not explain this “surrender” from a military point of view, speaking on air in Soloviev Live, a pro-Kremlin TV channel on Saturday.

Berdnikov graduated from the Kyiv Suvorov Military School in 1991 and from the Moscow Higher Combined Arms Command School in 1995.

The Russian Ministry of Defense has yet to confirm the leadership change at the Western Military District.

Retired US Air Force Col. Cedric Leighton told CNN Monday that the Ukrainian government's reported offer to the Biden administration of basically providing veto power over their list of intended Russian targets in a bid for long-range rockets is due in part to the "amazing success" that Ukraine has had recently in the war.

Leighton, a CNN military analyst, pointed to Ukraine's recent success in retaking the key eastern city of Lyman and other northern parts of the country as evidence that the Ukrainian military has "momentum" in the war.

He added that this success means Ukraine "can make even further asks" of the Biden administration in terms of weapons systems and other needs to "prosecute the war effort even further into Russian-controlled territory."

More on this: In an effort to overcome the US government's resistance to providing it with a new set of powerful, long-range rocket systems, the Ukrainian government is now offering the US full and ongoing visibility into their list of intended Russian targets, multiple officials familiar with the discussions tell CNN.

The remarkable transparency essentially gives the US veto power over Ukrainian targeting of Russia and is meant to convince the administration that providing the critical weapons would not lead to strikes inside Russian territory, which the US fears would escalate the war and draw it directly into a conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Watch Leighton's analysis:

CNN's Alex Marquardt contributed reporting to this post. 

The European Union has summoned in a "coordinated manner” the Russian ambassadors in EU member states following Russian President Vladimir Putin's decision last week to annex Ukrainian regions, an EU spokesperson told CNN Monday. 

Stano said the move aims to “convey strong condemnation of these actions” and demand the “immediate halt to steps undermining Ukraine’s territorial integrity and violating UN Charter and international law.”

The summoning started on Friday last week, according to Stano. The Russian ambassador to the EU was summoned in Brussels Monday afternoon, he added.

Ihor Murashov, the director general of Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, has returned to his family safely following his detention, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Monday.

Ukraine's foreign minister said on Twitter Sunday that he spoke with Grossi and that he assured him the "IAEA spares no effort to ensure the release of ZNPP director abducted by Russia."

The IAEA said in a statement Sunday it “had been informed that Mr Murashov was in temporary detention.”

In a statement Monday, Herman Halushchenko, the minister of energy of Ukraine, said Murashov had been "held in Russian captivity for three days."

"The pressure on the staff of Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant reaches incredible scale. Even the presence of IAEA observers at the station does not stop the Russians. Now Ihor Murashov has been returned," he said. The official said the "civilized world must stop the Russian terror at ZNPP!"

More background: Murashov had been detained by a Russian patrol, the president of state nuclear company Energoatom, Petro Kotin, said in a statement on Saturday, and the official was in his vehicle on his way from the plant when he was “stopped, he was taken out of the car, and with his eyes blindfolded he was driven in an unknown direction."

Kotin and Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs called on Russia to release him. 

Zaporizhzhia, the largest nuclear complex of its kind in Europe, was seized by Russian forces at the start of the war. 

The plant and the area around it, including the nearby city of Enerhodar, have endured persistent shelling that has raised fears of a nuclear accident through the interruption of the power supply to the plant. Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of acts of nuclear terrorism.

Citizens with dual Czech-Russian nationality are advised to leave Russia to avoid conscription, said Lenka Do, a spokesperson for the Czech Foreign Ministry on Monday.   

The Czech Republic has updated its travel guidance following Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent call for 300,000 reservists as part of its partial mobilization in Ukraine. 

Czech citizens were already advised to avoid non-essential travel to Russia in February after the “unjust war broke out,” Do said.

The ministry has also warned citizens that international debit and credit cards that were issued in the Czech Republic can no longer be used in Russia, according to Do. 

Last week, the US and the Italian embassies in Moscow also advised their nationals to consider leaving Russia.

The European Union has signed a financial assistance package for Ukraine amounting to five billion euros ($4.88 billion), EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis said Monday.

Shymal added this is another gesture of the EU determined “to support [Ukraine] in winning this war, rebuilding and pursuing [a] European future.”

Dombrovskis said via Twitter he is “pleased to sign [a] second Memorandum of Understanding with Ukraine since Russia began its brutal war.”

The US is “closely” watching Russia’s actions at the Zaporizhzhia power plant amid concerns that President Vladimir Putin could escalate his war with Ukraine and has been “thinking through” the response for any potential use of nuclear weapons by Russia. 

“We're watching this as closely as we can. And we've seen nothing that would make us change our strategic deterrent posture. So I think, you know, we take these threats seriously,” National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby told CNN’s Brianna Keilar on “New Day,” adding that there have been no indications that Putin has moved toward any preparations for a nuclear attack.

Kirby suggested the US has taken steps toward preparing for a response should Russia use nuclear weapons.

Pressed by Keilar on whether any of Russia’s tactical nuclear missiles might evade detection, Kirby said the US watches it “as best we can” but declined to comment further.

Asked about new reporting from CNN that Ukraine is offering the US oversight of targets, Kirby would not say whether the US would accept veto power, but said that the US is in “constant communication” with their Ukrainian counterparts. 

Ukraine's forces retook more territory in the eastern Donetsk region on Sunday, a military spokesperson said, following the liberation of the key city of Lyman. Ukraine also struck Russian targets during efforts to win back neighboring Luhansk, the official added.

Ukrainian forces have also made additional gains in the country’s south, pushing towards the occupied city of Kherson and capturing the town of Zolota Balka on the western bank of the Dnipro river, according to a regional official and pro-Russian military blogger.

Catch up on more of the latest headlines from Russia's war in Ukraine:

In an effort to overcome Biden administration resistance to providing it with a new set of powerful, long-range rocket systems, the Ukrainian government is now offering the US full and ongoing visibility into their list of intended Russian targets, multiple officials familiar with the discussions tell CNN.

Why this matters: The remarkable transparency essentially gives the US veto power over Ukrainian targeting of Russia and is meant to convince the administration that providing the critical weapons would not lead to strikes inside Russian territory, which the US fears would escalate the war and draw it directly into a conflict with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

At issue are the Army Tactical Missile Systems, or ATACMS, surface-to-surface missiles that can fly around 200 miles (300 kilometers), about four times the distance of the rockets used by the HIMARS mobile systems the US began sending to Ukraine four months ago.

Despite Ukraine’s proposal, the Biden administration still has not approved the new long-range ATACMS weapons, and argues that Ukraine is doing well with the HIMARS systems it currently has. In fact on Wednesday the administration announced funding for 18 more HIMARS for Ukraine, bringing the total to over 30 US systems.

There are also concerns inside the administration that providing the longer-range ATACMS weapons would cross a red line in the eyes of Moscow, which would see the US becoming “a direct party to the conflict.”

But that red line is becoming murkier with Friday’s annexation of four Ukraine territories by Russia. The US has stated that it will support the use of western weapons inside those zones even if Russia now considers it part of its official territory.

Still, the idea of taking a more active role in discussions over Ukrainian targeting raises American fears of being seen as more involved than it would like.