Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin orders nuclear weapons drill as Kyiv’s forces ‘inflict maximum casualties’

Sustained Russian attacks on Ukraine’s power grid in recent weeks have forced leaders of the war-ravaged country to institute nationwide rolling blackouts. Without adequate air defences to counter assaults and allow for repairs, though, the shortages could still worsen as need spikes in late summer and the bitter-cold winter.

The Russian airstrikes targeting the grid since March have meant blackouts have even returned to the capital, Kyiv, which hadn’t experienced them since the first year of the war. Among the strikes were an April barrage that damaged Kyiv’s largest thermal power plant and a massive attack on 8 May that targeted power generation and transmission facilities in several regions.

In all, half of Ukraine’s energy system was damaged, Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said.

A Moscow court ruled on Tuesday that Russia’s Investigative Committee is not obliged to investigate two attempts on the life of jailed dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, independent news outlet Mediazona reported.

Moscow-born Kara-Murza, who has both Russian and British passports, was jailed last April for 25 years on treason charges after he repeatedly condemned Russia’s war in Ukraine and lobbied for Western sanctions against Moscow. His appeal against the sentence was rejected this month.

The 42-year-old politician and former journalist has survived two poisoning attempts. He became ill and was hospitalised in Moscow in 2015, a few months after his colleague, opposition leader Boris Nemtsov, was gunned down while walking across a bridge near the Kremlin walls.

In 2017, Kara-Murza was placed in a medically induced coma and put on life support after the onset of similar symptoms.

A joint investigation led by the Bellingcat outlet subsequently found that Kara-Murza was trailed by the same unit of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) that allegedly poisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny in 2020. Navalny died in an Arctic prison in February.

Kara-Murza’s wife Evgenia says the poison attempts have left him with a nerve disorder and she fears for his life in prison

Russian forces have started the first stage of exercises ordered by Vladimir Putin to simulate the launch of tactical nuclear weapons, its defence ministry said.

Ukraine and its Western allies say Putin has repeatedly dangled the threat of nuclear war in Europe since he invaded Ukraine in 2022. The Kremlin argues it is responding to security threats against Russia, such as Emmanuel Macron’s refusal to rule out deploying French soldiers to Ukraine.

The Russian defence ministry said the first stage of the exercise involved Iskander and Kinzhal missiles.

It is aimed at ensuring that units and equipment are ready for “the combat use of non-strategic nuclear weapons to respond and unconditionally ensure the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the Russian state in response to provocative statements and threats of individual Western officials against the Russian Federation”, the ministry said.

The drills involve missile forces in Russia’s Southern Military District, which lies adjacent to Ukraine and also includes parts of Ukraine that Russia now controls.

Belarus, where Russia said last year it was deploying tactical nuclear weapons, will also be involved, the two countries have said.

Nuclear analysts say the exercises are designed as a warning signal by Mr Putin to deter the West from wading more deeply into the war in Ukraine. Western countries have provided weapons and intelligence to Kyiv but have so far refrained from sending troops on the ground.

US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen urged German bank executives on Tuesday to step up efforts to comply with sanctions against Russia and shut down efforts to circumvent them to avoid potential penalties themselves that would cut off dollar access.

Yellen said at the start of a meeting with bankers that the Treasury’s new authority to hit banks with secondary sanctions if they aid Russian military-related transactions had helped to frustrate Russia’s efforts to procure goods needed for its war in Ukraine, but more work was needed.

“Russia continues to procure sensitive goods and to expand its ability to domestically manufacture these goods. We must remain vigilant and be more ambitious,” Yellen said.

“I urge all institutions here to take heightened compliance measures and to increase your focus on Russian evasion attempts,” Yellen said in prepared remarks for the meeting in Frankfurt.

Russian drones struck energy sites in the early hours today and knocked out power to some parts of Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, regional officials said.

The drones hit targets in the cities of Shostka and Konotop, northeast of Kyiv and near the Russian border, Sumy’s regional authority, said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.

Emergency services were working to restore electricity supplies.

Ukrainian officials have warned about a buildup of troops and a possible push into adjacent Sumy region, not far from Kharkiv where an offensive is underway.

Finally having sufficient ammunition in their stockpiles, Ukrainian servicemen operating a howitzer in Kharkiv region near the Russian border are relieved and working around the clock to stop an incursion by Russian troops.

“It’s 24/7, their infantry keeps coming, we keep fighting their attacks. At least we are trying to. Whenever possible, we take them down,” said Pavlo, a gunner of Ukraine’s 92nd Separate Assault brigade operating a howitzer.

“We see them walking down the road, 5km away all the way from Shebekino,” said Vitalii, commander of the brigade’s artillery unit, referring to a town on the Russian side of the border.

“We see them walking on foot to their positions. As they move, we of course try to hit them , to inflict maximum casualties.”

Officers pore over drone footage of Vovchansk, with smoke rising over different districts, to assess the situation below. Monitors are checked, calculations made.

Two men are tasked with ensuring the howitzer is well camouflaged – with tree boughs.

Mr Vitalii is confident that the shells will keep coming as everyone is aware of the importance of holding their line. “Yes, we will be getting ammunition because we are up against a large and serious enemy group,” he said.

Kharkiv has witnessed an increase in fighting in the recent weeks as Russian forces are trying to capture the second largest Ukrainian city but have not been able to break through Kyiv’s line of defences around the region.

Those in the northern districts of Kharkiv region say the fighting is more intense than their previous assignment in Bakhmut, the town in eastern Ukraine seized by Russia last year and reduced to rubble by months of fighting.

Poland’s prime minister announced on Tuesday the re-establishment of a commission to look into undue Russian influence, as Warsaw grapples with what it says is an intense campaign by Moscow to destabilise the country.

While Poland has long said that its position as a key distribution hub for supplies to Ukraine makes it a major target for Moscow’s spies, the defection of a judge to Russian ally Belarus this month put Poland on high alert.

“I issued an order on the establishment of a commission to investigate Russian and Belarusian influence on the internal security and interests of the Republic of Poland in the years 2004-2024,” Prime Minister Donald Tusk told a news conference.

He named the head of the Military Counterintelligence Service, general Jaroslaw Strozyk, as head of the commission.

Ukraine’s military hit the Russian missile ship Tsiklon in Moscow-occupied Crimea on Sunday, the Ukrainian general staff said on Tuesday.

It provided no further details on the matter.

The former commander of Russia’s 58th army, Ivan Popov, has been arrested on suspicion of “large scale fraud”, state-run TASS agency reported on Tuesday.

TASS said a military court had ordered the detention of major general Popov for two months.

Popov’s lawyer Sergei Buynovsky was quoted by Interfax news agency as saying he had already appealed against his custody.

Last year, Popov said he had been dismissed after telling the military leadership

the truth about the then dire situation for Russia on the frontlines in Ukraine.

Russia has since regained the initiative, advancing gradually since February in the east of the country.

Popov, whose military call sign was “Spartacus” and who commanded Russian units in southern Ukraine, explicitly raised the deaths of Russian soldiers from Ukrainian artillery and said they lacked proper weapons systems and reconnaissance to counter it.