President Vladimir Putin has ordered the Russian military to hold nuclear weapons drills involving the navy and troops based near Ukraine, the defence ministry said today

Russia said yesterday its armed forces had seized the village of Ocheretyne in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the latest in a string of small territorial gains for Moscow.

Ukraine said yesterday it had foiled 55 Russian attacks in the eastern Donetsk region, a day after it admitted to a worsening situation on the front line.

Ukraine and Russia both accused each other of deadly strikes on civilians yesterday, as US lawmakers prepared to vote on a $61 billion aid package Kyiv hopes will boost its flagging war effort.

The US House of Representatives on Saturday with broad bipartisan support passed a $95 billion legislative package providing security assistance to Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, over bitter objections from Republican hardliners.

A Ukrainian attack on a military airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea on Wednesday seriously damaged four missile launchers, three radar stations and other equipment, Ukraine’s military spy agency said yesterday.

A Russian missile attack killed at least 16 residents and damaged hospital and municipal infrastructure in the northern Ukrainian city of Chernihiv yesterday, local officials said.

A lack of air defence missiles prevented Ukraine from thwarting a Russian missile attack last week that destroyed the biggest power plant in the region around the capital Kyiv, President Volodymyr Zelensky said.

Russia launched more than two dozen attack drones on Ukraine, hitting critical infrastructure in the central Zhytomyr region and damaging logistics facilities in the south, officials said yesterday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said yesterday that Kyiv will lose the war against Russia if the US Congress does not approve military aid to battle Moscow’s invasion.

Ukraine said yesterday it had destroyed at least six Russian military planes at an airbase in the southern Rostov region in a barrage of overnight drone attacks.

France's defence minister said Paris would deliver "hundreds" of armoured personnel carriers and anti-aircraft missiles as part a new aid package to Ukraine in its war against Russian invaders

Ukraine yesterday said that Russian shelling overnight and in the morning killed two elderly people in the eastern town of Krasnogorivka, and urged civilians still living there to evacuate.

Ukraine warned yesterday that Russian air attacks were putting its electricity supply under “increasing threat”, hours after strikes damaged power stations and killed at least one person. Moscow has stepped up aerial bombardment of Ukraine in recent weeks,

Russia yesterday sought to shift blame for the Moscow concert hall attack onto Ukraine and its Western backers, despite the Islamic State group claiming responsibility for the massacre of at least 139 people.

Russia yesterday admitted two years into its invasion of Ukraine that it was “in a state of war,” as it launched a massive wave of missile and drone attacks on its neighbour’s territory.

Russia said yesterday that its troops had made gains in eastern Ukraine, building on recent advances against Ukrainian forces in critical need of Western aid.

Ukrainian bombardments killed two people and set an oil facility ablaze in Russia yesterday, the second day of showpiece elections guaranteed to cement President Vladimir Putin’s hardline rule.

Ukraine yesterday slammed Pope Francis’s call to negotiate with Russia two years into its invasion, vowing “never” to surrender after the pontiff said Kyiv should “have the courage to raise the white flag”.

Russian shelling and strikes on Ukraine’s Kherson region killed one person and wounded several, with at least two civilians also killed in attacks on the centre and east of the country, Kyiv said yesterday.