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The withdrawal of Russian forces from a strategically important town in eastern Ukraine has prompted two powerful allies of President Vladimir Putin to do something rare in modern Russia: publicly ridicule the war machine's top brass.

Russia's loss of the bastion of Lyman, which puts western parts of Luhansk region under threat, touched a nerve for Ramzan Kadyrov, the leader of the southern Russian republic of Chechnya.

Kadyrov, who has been close to Putin since his father and former president of Chechnya, Akhmad, was killed in a 2004 bomb attack in Grozny that also killed a Reuters photographer, suggested that Russia should consider using a small tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine in response to the loss.

The nuclear warning caught the headlines, but his public scorn for Russia's top generals may have been just as significant in a Russia where public criticism of the war effort from within the top echelons of the elite has been taboo.

"Nepotism in the army will lead to no good," Kadyrov said, adding that the commander of Russian forces in the area should be stripped of his medals and sent to the front line with a gun to wash away his shame with blood.

Such public contempt for the generals running Russia's war is significant because it indicates the level of frustration within Putin's elite over the conduct of the war while also piercing the Kremlin's carefully controlled narrative.

Kadyrov, who supports the war and has sent many of his own Chechen units to fight, said his criticism was the bitter truth about a Russian fighting force which he said allowed talentless mediocrities to let down the country.

The defence ministry did not respond to a request for comment. Russian officials say the history of Russian warfare shows that fighting often begins badly until the military can be properly organised. Writing off Russia, they say, is a poor bet.

Asked about Kadyrov's remarks on using a nuclear weapon, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday: "This is a very emotional moment."

"The heads of regions have the right to express their point of view," Peskov told reporters. "Even at difficult moments, emotions should still be excluded from any assessments."

TOTAL WAR?

More than seven months into a war that has killed tens of thousands and triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, even Russia's most basic war aims are far from achieved.

The vast army of a former superpower has been humbled on the field of battle by a much smaller Ukrainian force backed up with weapons, intelligence and advice from Western powers led by the United States.

In a fresh setback for Moscow on Monday, a Russian-installed official confirmed Ukrainian advances along the west bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson region in southern Ukraine, one of four regions Putin claimed last week to have annexed.

Putin says Russia is now locked into an existential battle with the West, which he accuses of seeking to destroy his country. Russia, he says, will prevail in Ukraine - and has warned that he is only just starting to get serious.

On Russian state television, humility appeared to be seeping into the usual jingoistic rhetoric.

"I'd really like us to attack Kyiv and take it tomorrow, but I'm aware that the partial mobilisation will take time," presenter Vladimir Solovyov said on Rossiya 1 state television.

"For a certain period of time, things won't be easy for us. We shouldn't be expecting good news right now."

TOP BRASS

The Chechen leader said he had raised the possibility of a defeat at Lyman two weeks ago with Valery Gerasimov, chief of Russia's general staff, but that Gerasimov had dismissed the idea.

Gerasimov, 67, is the third most powerful man in the Russian military after Putin and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu. Shoigu landed Gerasimov the top military job just a few days after he was appointed defence minister in 2012.

"I do not know what the defence ministry reports to the supreme commander-in-chief (Putin), but in my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken," said Kadyrov, who shed tears for the fallen at a ceremony in the Kremlin last week at which Russia formally annexed the four Ukrainian regions.

In an indication of his influence, Kadyrov's other posts showed him meeting two of the Kremlin's most powerful men: Putin's chief of staff, Anton Vaino, and Sergei Kiriyenko, the powerful first deputy chief of staff.

Asked about Kadyrov's remarks, the powerful founder of the Wagner Group of mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, congratulated the Chechen leader.

"Ramzan - you rock man!" Prigozhin, known as Putin's chef due to his company's Kremlin catering contracts, said in a statement. "All these bastards should be sent barefoot to the front with automatic guns."

When asked if his words should be considered criticism of the defence ministry, Prigozhin doused his reply with irony: "God forbid".

"These statements are not criticism, but merely a manifestation of love and support," said Prigozhin, who the United States says runs a mercenary army that has dabbled in conflicts in Mali, the Central African Republic, Libya and Syria.

"I, and Ramzan Akhmatovich even more so, are the most cultured of people," Prigozhin said, using Kadyrov's patronymic as a sign of respect. (Reuters)

Nepal's ruling coalition will provide incentives for exporters and lift import curbs as part of efforts to put the economy on a higher growth trajectory if it is returned to power in a general election next month, the finance minister said.

Led by the centrist Nepali Congress party and a group of former Maoist rebels, the five-party alliance, which has been in government since July last year, hopes to win voters' confidence in the Nov. 20 vote for the 275-member parliament.

Nepal, one of the poorest countries in Asia wedged between China and India, is recovering steadily after two years of the coronavirus pandemic and surging energy prices this year.

"We'll focus on export promotion for which there are immense possibilities like in hydropower, steel, and cement to narrow the trade deficit rather than limiting imports," Finance Minister Janardan Sharma, a senior leader of the Nepal Communist Party (Maoist Centre), told Reuters in an interview on the weekend.

Sharma said a ban on the import of cars, liquor, and mobile telephones could soon be lifted following an increase in foreign exchange reserves.

In April, the government banned the import of 10 luxury items including cars and televisions after foreign currency reserves dipped. Curbs on many goods were later lifted.

Foreign exchange reserves stood at $9.42 billion, sufficient to cover imports for eight months, Sharma said.

ECONOMIC, POLITICAL STABILITY

Sharma, a three-time parliamentarian who served as a Maoist guerrilla commander, said Nepal's recent economic woes and political stability would be a priority for voters in the election for the national parliament and seven state assemblies.

Maoist rebels battled the government in Nepal, where China and India compete for influence, for a decade from 1996 before agreeing to a ceasefire and entering politics.

But political stability has proven elusive with 10 different governments since the abolition of a 239-year-old monarchy in 2008.

Sharma said the government had taken measures to conserve falling foreign exchange reserves and avoid the sort of economic crisis seen in one South Asian neighbour.

"Some people were saying the economy was heading the Sri Lanka way," he said.

With the growth of remittances from Nepali workers abroad and higher government spending, the economy was showing signs of recovery as reflected in a pickup in bank credit - rising 12.7% in mid-August compared with the previous month, he said.

The government plans to launch big infrastructure projects including an international airport at Nijgadh in the southern plains and highways to boost growth to 8% this financial year, which began in mid-July, from 5.84% last year, he said.

But critics and opposition parties say the economy is still facing huge problems.

The Asian Development Bank said in a report last month Nepal's economic growth was likely to ease to 4.7% year-on-year this fiscal year, reflecting the tightening of monetary policy and higher inflationary pressures.

Defending his government's performance, Sharma said experiments with single-party governments had failed to provide stability in the recent past.

"We believe that voters will return the ruling alliance of parties with different ideologies to power for stability," he said. (Reuters)

Tunisia's powerful UGTT labour union has no deal with the government on reforming subsidies and publicly owned companies and will lead street protests over any "painful" changes, it said on Monday, potentially complicating foreign bailout talks.

The government is in talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a rescue package that could unlock further bilateral aid for Tunisia to help it avert a looming crisis in public finances.

The IMF wants the UGTT on board with economic reforms needed to secure the deal, but so far the union has only struck a formal agreement with the government on public sector wage increases, but not on subsidies or state companies.

"When there are painful choices, we will be with our people in the front lines of the struggle and in the streets," UGTT leader Noureddine Taboubi said in a speech.

He confirmed the recent wages deal did not cover any agreement on subsidies or restructuring state companies - the two other main areas of fiscal consolidation sought by lenders.

Tunisia's central bank governor and its finance and economy ministers are scheduled to meet the IMF in Washington next week for talks on a loan programme that the government hopes to secure this month.

Price increases and food shortages have already spurred some protests in recent weeks against the government, coming after years of low growth and perceived declines in public services that have infuriated many Tunisians.

The UGTT, which says it has more than a million members and has carried out major strikes, has consistently opposed big state spending cuts in recent years, arguing the government should instead tackle corruption and tax evasion.

Tunisia is meanwhile also dealing with political turmoil as major parties reject President Kais Saied's introduction of a new constitution, approved in July in a referendum with low turnout, that expands his own powers. (reuters)

Polish Foreign Minister Zbigniew Rau has signed a diplomatic note to Germany concerning reparations for World War Two, he said on Monday, formalising Poland's demand for compensation ahead of a visit by Berlin's top diplomat.

The move comes after Poland's ruling nationalists last month estimated Germany owed the country 6.2 trillion zlotys ($1.26 trillion). Germany, Poland's biggest trade partner, has said all financial claims linked to the war had been settled.

"(The note) expresses the position of the Polish minister of foreign affairs that the parties should take immediate steps to permanently and effectively... settle the issue of the consequences of aggression and German occupation," Rau told a news conference.

Foreign ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina told reporters that Rau would raise the issue with his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock during her visit to Warsaw on Tuesday.

Some six million Poles, including three million Polish Jews, were killed during the war and Warsaw was razed to the ground following a 1944 uprising in which about 200,000 civilians died.

In 1953, Poland's then-communist rulers relinquished all claims to war reparations under pressure from the Soviet Union, which wanted to free East Germany, also a Soviet satellite, from any liabilities.

Poland's ruling nationalists Law and Justice (PiS) say that agreement is invalid because Poland was unable to negotiate fair compensation. It has revived calls for compensation since it took power in 2015 and has made the promotion of Poland's wartime victimhood a central plank of its appeal to nationalism.

The combative stance towards Germany, often used by PiS to mobilise its constituency, has strained relations with Berlin.

The German foreign ministry did not immediately reply to an emailed request for comment. (Reuters)