TOP HEADLINES

· The head of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in Ukraine has been released, U.N. nuclear watchdog chief Rafael Grossi said on Monday after a detention that Ukraine blamed on Russia and called an act of terror.

· The military commissar of Russia's Khabarovsk region, Yuri Laiko, was removed from his post after half of the newly mobilized personnel were sent home as they did not meet the draft criteria, the region's governor Mikhail Degtyarev said.

· Ukrainian forces are recapturing towns along the west bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, report Russian bloggers who have said tanks are advancing through dozens of kilometers of territory. It is the second time in the last week that Russian forces appear to be forced back from the frontline. READ MORE BELOW

· The Kremlin dismissed a call by Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov to use low-yield nuclear weapons in Ukraine. "This is a very emotional moment," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, referring to statements by the ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. "In our country, the use of nuclear weapons happens only on the basis of what is stated in the relevant doctrine."

· Ukraine's capture of Lyman, confirmed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday night, within territory Putin declared is now part of Russia, shows the progress being made and the ability to push back the Russian forces, said NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.

· Sweden sent a diving vessel on Monday to the site of Russian gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea, that ruptured last week following blasts in the area, to probe an incident that has added new tension to Europe's energy crisis.

· Pope Francis, for the first time, directly begged Vladimir Putin to stop the "spiral of violence and death" in Ukraine, saying that the crisis was risking a nuclear escalation with uncontrollable global consequences.

· Russia's parliament is to consider on Monday bills and ratification treaties to absorb four former Ukrainian regions - Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson - the speaker of the lower house said. 

· EU country leaders will discuss how to step up support for Ukraine when they meet on Friday with the European Council President Charles Michel calling for a firm EU response to recent developments, including four regions that have now been made part of Russia.

· U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan pledged Washington's steadfast support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity at talks in Istanbul with Andriy Yermak, head of Ukraine's presidential office, the White House said.

· The EU's foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the placing of four former Ukrainian regions under the Russian flag has made ending the conflict "much more difficult, almost impossible."

Ukrainian troops make advances on second major front, according to reports

Ukrainian forces were reported to be recapturing towns along the west bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine on Monday, with Moscow forced to yield territory along a second major front line just days after claiming it to be part of Russia.

The scale of the Ukrainian advance was unconfirmed, with Kyiv maintaining all but complete silence about the situation in the area. But Russian military bloggers described a Ukrainian tank advance through dozens of kilometers of territory along the bank of the river.

READ MORE

Will Russia's referendum raise nuclear threat?

Iran promises 'transparent' Amini investigation

Chinese student comes to soprano's rescue

In one of the rare comments by a Ukrainian official on the situation, Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to the interior ministry, posted what he said was a video of a Ukrainian soldier waving a flag in Zolota Balka, downriver from the former frontline.

Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute think-tank, cited Russian bloggers as reporting their forces falling back as far as Dudchany, 40 kilometers downriver from where they had opposed Ukrainian troops a day earlier.

"When this many Russian channels are sounding the alarm, it usually means they're in trouble," he wrote on Twitter.

A Ukrainian advance along the Dnipro river could trap thousands of Russian troops on the far side, cut off from all supplies. The river is enormously wide, and Ukraine has already destroyed the major crossings. The reports were the first to describe a rapid Ukrainian advance in the south of the country since the war began and came just a day after Ukraine routed Russian troops in the strategic position of Lyman.

The advances in the east and the south - some of the biggest of the war so far - have all taken place in territory that President Vladimir Putin claimed to have become part of Russia on Friday, with a celebratory concert at the Kremlin. They also come amid reports of chaos in a mobilization ordered less than two weeks ago by Putin, which has seen tens of thousands of Russian men suddenly called up into the military and tens of thousands of others fleeing abroad.

Mikhail Degtyarev, governor of the Khabarovsk region in Russia's Far East, said around half of the men called up there had been found unfit for duty and sent back home. He fired the region's military commissar.

The fall of Lyman in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, hours after Putin declared his annexation, opens the way for Ukrainian forces to strike deeper into Russian-held territory and cut off remaining Russian supply routes.

"Thanks to the successful operation in Lyman we are moving towards the second north-south route ... and that means a second supply line will be disrupted," said reserve colonel Viktor Kevlyuk at Ukraine's Centre for Defence Strategies think-tank.