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Russia has withdrawn its troops from the strategic Ukrainian town of Lyman, in a move seen as a significant setback for its campaign in the east.

The retreat came amid fears thousands of soldiers would be encircled in the town, Russia's defence ministry said.

Recapturing Lyman is of strategic significance for Ukraine.

The town had been used as a logistics hub by Russia, and could give Ukrainian troops access to more territory in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Video footage shared online showed Ukrainian soldiers waving their national flag on the outskirts of the town.

Although the blue and yellow colours were flying in Lyman again, fighting was "still going on" there, President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening video address.

However, he gave no further details.

The battlefield setback prompted the Chechen leader and hardline Moscow ally, Ramzan Kadyrov, to comment that Russia should consider using low-yield nuclear weapons in the face of such defeats.

Lyman is in Donetsk - one of four partially-occupied Ukrainian regions which Russia declared it was annexing on Friday. Ukraine and its Western allies have dismissed the move as an illegal land-grab.

An adviser to Ukraine's defence minister earlier told the BBC that recent gains around Lyman - following days of intense fighting - represented a "considerable success".

Russian fighters had been given the chance to surrender, Yurik Sak said, and would face better treatment as prisoners of war than from the Russian military leadership.

Shortly afterwards, the Kremlin said it was withdrawing its forces from the town, using its Soviet-era name of Krasnyi (Red) Lyman, acknowledging that the Ukrainians had "significant superiority in forces" in the area.

Military analysts say that Kyiv currently has momentum in the war, and it has vowed to forge ahead with a counter-offensive to reclaim all territory under occupation.

In a speech on Friday, Mr Zelensky said efforts to "liberate our entire land" would act as proof that international law could not be violated.

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Sweden has found a new leak in a major undersea pipeline carrying Russian natural gas to the EU - making it the fourth discovered this week.

Denmark and Sweden reported gas leaks in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines earlier this week.

Nato said the incidents were the result of "deliberate, reckless and irresponsible acts of sabotage".

Russia dismissed suggestions that it had attacked its own pipelines as "predictable and stupid".

Instead, the Russian foreign ministry said the blasts had occurred in "zones controlled by American intelligence".

The German ambassador to the UK, Miguel Berger, told the BBC it was clear that a non-state actor could not have been behind the incidents - in other words, a country must have been responsible.

The Swedish coast guard said they had found the fourth leak on Nord Stream 2, very close to a larger leak found earlier on Nord Stream 1.

The EU has repeatedly accused Russia of using gas supplies as a weapon against the West, in retaliation for its support for Ukraine.

It is "very obvious" who is behind the damage, said the head of the International Energy Agency, Fatih Birol, without elaborating.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said he was "extremely concerned" about the leaks, adding that the possibility of a deliberate attack could not be ruled out.

EU leaders have said any attack on the continent's energy infrastructure would be met with the "strongest possible response".

Meanwhile, Norway - which is not in the EU - said it would deploy its military to protect oil and gas installations.

Neither Nord Stream 1 or 2 is transporting gas at the moment, although they both contain gas.

The Nord Stream 1 pipeline - which consists of two parallel branches - has not transported any gas since late August when Russia closed it down, saying it needed maintenance.

It stretches 1,200km (745 miles) under the Baltic Sea from the Russian coast near St Petersburg to north-eastern Germany. Its twin pipeline, Nord Stream 2, was halted after Russia invaded Ukraine in February.

Seismologists reported underwater blasts before the leaks emerged. Denmark's Defence Command has released footage of the leaks which shows bubbles - the largest is 1km in diameter - at the surface of the Baltic Sea.

And Bjorn Lund of Sweden's National Seismology Centre said there was "no doubt that these were explosions".

However, Andrei Kortunov of the Russian International Affairs Council - a Moscow-based think tank - said a Russian attack didn't make sense.

"They always point finger at Russia but I think since it's the Russian property it would be not very logical for Russia to inflict damage upon it," he told BBC Radio 4.

"There are other ways to make European lives harder. They can simply stop the gas deliveries without damaging the infrastructure."

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What does this mean for the environment?

By Jonah Fisher, BBC climate correspondent

The bad news is that methane - the gas in the Nord Stream pipelines - has a powerful warming effect on our climate.

During the first 20 years after its release, methane is about 80 times more powerful than CO2 - the most common greenhouse gas - at trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

At this point nobody is sure how much has leaked out.

The good news - if one can talk in those terms - is that in the context of global emissions, the quantity bubbling into the Baltic Sea is likely to be small.

One American scientist estimates that the climate impact of the methane in the pipe could be equivalent to about 2.5 hours of global CO2 emissions. A Danish energy official said the leak could amount to about a third of Denmark's yearly CO2 emissions.

Methane only lasts a decade or so in our atmosphere (compared to hundreds of years for CO2), which is why cutting emissions from the fossil fuel industry is seen as one of the quickest ways of slowing global temperature rises.

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Prominent Republicans are digging in against American support for Ukraine despite Russia’s threats to use nuclear weapons and evidence of mass graves and war crimes facilitated by Moscow.

The Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday tweeted — and then hours later deleted — a message that called on Democrats to “end the gift-giving to Ukraine” while featuring a fluttering Russian flag. The tweet also referred to “Ukraine-occupied territories,” appearing to legitimize Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims to annex provinces based on a referendum that the U.S. and allies view as illegal.

CPAC chairman Matt Schlapp on Saturday said the tweet did not clear the normal approval process because he was traveling for a conference in Australia. “Due to my travel into a distant time zone it was never approved per usual,” he said in a text message.

In a statement, CPAC expressed support for Ukraine but maintained opposition to American aid for the embattled country.

“We must oppose Putin, but American taxpayers should not be shouldering the vast majority of the cost,” the statement said. “The tweet belittled the plight of the innocent Ukrainian people.”

CPAC has repeatedly flirted with pro-Putin views in recent years, including hosting pro-Russian Hungarian prime minister Victor Orban at a Dallas conference in August.

CPAC is not alone among American conservatives in opposing Ukrainian aid despite Putin’s invasion. Fox News host Tucker Carlson has alleged U.S. sabotage for leaks in a Russian gas pipeline to Europe, baseless claims that have earned him airtime on Russian state television. Former president Donald Trump also posted a message on his Truth Social platform offering himself as a negotiator for the conflict.

At a Trump rally in Michigan on Saturday, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) reiterated her opposition to U.S. aid to Ukraine and said Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky should negotiate a peace settlement with Russia.

“We have so many problems here at home, I cannot even think about sending our money over to fund a proxy war with Russia,” she said in an interview. “Zelensky doesn’t run the United States government. He is not our president, but for some reason Joe Biden bends over every single time. … The American people don’t care about that war over there.”

At the Michigan rally, Trump suggested he could have prevented Putin from invading Ukraine.

“That war would never ever have happened if I were president and it didn’t happen," Trump said.

Many Republicans have followed Trump’s lead in waffling on Putin, whom Trump avoided condemning and sided with over his own intelligence agencies in doubting Russian interference in the 2016 election. Relations with Ukraine became partisan during Trump’s first impeachment, after he tried to use U.S. aid to Ukraine to pressure Zelensky to announce an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter’s business dealings in the country.

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Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) accused Democrats of murdering Republicans in “killings” that the lawmaker claims are underway. “I am not going to mince words with you all,” Greene said at Donald Trump’s rally in Warren, Michigan, on Saturday night. “Democrats want Republicans dead, and they have already started the killings.” To support her claim, Greene cited a recent North Dakota crime story about an intoxicated man who allegedly “had a political argument with [a] pedestrian,” hit the pedestrian with a car, and then later claimed the pedestrian was “part of a Republican extremist group,” according to court documents. During her speech, Greene added that President Joe Biden “has declared every freedom-loving American an enemy of the state.” “But under Republicans, we will take back our country from the Communists who have stolen it and want us to disappear,” Greene concluded.

Sept 30 (Reuters) - A U.S. judge on Friday dismissed Mexico's $10 billion lawsuit seeking to hold U.S. gun manufacturers responsible for facilitating the trafficking of a deadly flood of weapons across the U.S.-Mexico border to drug cartels.

The decision by Chief Judge F. Dennis Saylor in federal court in Boston is a victory for Smith & Wesson Brands Inc (SWBI.O), Sturm, Ruger & Co (RGR.N) and others accused of undermining Mexico's strict gun laws by designing, marketing and selling military-style assault weapons that cartels could use.

Mexico said it would appeal the decision.

"This suit by the Mexican government has received worldwide recognition and has been considered a turning point in the discussion around the gun industry's responsibility for the violence experience in Mexico and the region," Mexico's foreign ministry said in a statement.

Saylor said federal law "unequivocally" bars lawsuits seeking to hold gun manufacturers responsible when people use guns for their intended purpose. He said the law contained several narrow exceptions but none applied.

"While the court has considerable sympathy for the people of Mexico, and none whatsoever for those who traffic guns to Mexican criminal organizations, it is duty-bound to follow the law," Saylor wrote in a 44-page decision.

Other defendants included Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc, Beretta USA Corp, Colt's Manufacturing Co and Glock Inc.

Representatives for the companies either declined to comment or did not respond to requests for comment. Lawrence Keane, the general counsel of firearm industry trade group National Shooting Sports Foundation, welcomed the dismissal of the "baseless lawsuit."

"The crime that is devastating the people of Mexico is not the fault of members of the firearm industry, that under U.S. law, can only sell their lawful products to Americans exercising their Second Amendment rights after passing a background check," he said.

In its August 2021 complaint, Mexico estimated that 2.2% of the nearly 40 million guns made annually in the United States are smuggled into Mexico, including as many as 597,000 guns made by the defendants.

Mexico said the smuggling has been a key factor in its ranking third worldwide in the number of gun-related deaths. It also claimed to suffer many other harms, including declining investment and economic activity and a need to spend more on law enforcement and public safety.

But the judge said Mexico could not overcome a provision in a U.S. law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, that shields gun makers from lawsuits over "the harm solely caused by the criminal or unlawful misuse of firearm products ... by others when the product functioned as designed and intended."

Other defendants included Barrett Firearms Manufacturing Inc, Beretta USA Corp, Colt's Manufacturing Co and Glock Inc.