Ukrainians conserved electricity and some went without running water yesterday to ease pressure on the grid and allow the repair of infrastructure destroyed by Russian air strikes as Kyiv’s forces advanced towards the city of Kherson.

Ukraine is restricting electricity usage nationwide for the first time on Thursday following a barrage of Russian missile and drone attacks that have destroyed some power plants just before the cold winter months set in.

President Vladimir Putin yesterday introduced martial law in four Ukrainian regions he says Russia has annexed as residents of the occupied city of Kherson left by boat following warnings of a looming assault.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday introduced martial law in Ukraine's Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions that Moscow claims to have annexed.

The new commander of Russian forces in Ukraine made a rare acknowledgment of the pressures they were under from Ukrainian offensives to retake southern and eastern areas that Moscow claims to have annexed just weeks ago.

Ukraine yesterday warned of an emerging “critical” risk to its power grid after President Volodymyr Zelensky said that repeated Russian bombardments had destroyed one-third of the country’s power facilities as winter approaches.

Ukraine announced Monday it had swapped more than 100 prisoners with Russia in what it said was the first all-female exchange with Moscow after nearly eight months of war.

At least 13 people, including three children, were killed after a Russian military plane crashed into a residential area of Yeysk, a town in southwest Russia near the border with Ukraine, Moscow authorities said Tuesday as search operations ended.

Hundreds of Ukrainian towns were cut off from electricity yesterday by Russian attacks against critical infrastructure and deadly kamikaze drone strikes in Kyiv, Ukraine said.

Russia attacked Ukrainian cities with drones on Monday, killing at least three people in an apartment building in downtown Kyiv during morning rush hour, and targeting infrastructure across the country in a second large wave of air strikes in a week.

Waves of explosive-laden suicide drones struck Ukraine’s capital Monday, setting buildings ablaze and sending people scurrying for shelter or attempting to shoot down the kamikazes — a week after Russia unleashed its most widespread strikes against the country in months.

Kyiv was attacked by "kamikaze drones" early Monday, the Ukrainian president's chief of staff Andriy Yermak said after several explosions were heard in the central Shevchenkivsky district of the capital.

Russia’s defence ministry yesterday said its forces had repelled efforts by Ukrainian troops to advance in the Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, inflicting what it described as significant losses against the enemy.

Russia said two gunmen from an ex-Soviet state on Saturday attacked a military training ground killing 11 people who had volunteered to fight in Ukraine and wounding 15 others.

The United States will send munitions and military vehicles to Ukraine as part of a new $725 million security assistance package aimed at bolstering the country’s defence against the Russian invasion, the Defense Department said on Friday.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said yesterday there was no need for massive new strikes on Ukraine and that Russia was not looking to destroy the country.

Repairs to the bridge between the annexed Crimean peninsula and southern Russia, which was damaged in an explosion last Saturday, are to be finished by July 2023, a document published on the Russian government's website said.

In a sign that continuing and sustained Ukrainian military gains along the southern front are worrying the Kremlin, Russia is promising free accommodation to residents of the partially occupied Kherson region who want to evacuate to Russia

The admission of Ukraine to Nato could result in a third world war, Moscow warned yesterday, as Russian missiles pounded more than 40 Ukrainian cities and towns and Nato allies unveiled plans to beef up Europe’s air defences.

Russian missiles pounded the city of Mykolaiv on Thursday, officials said, after a UN General Assembly resolution called Moscow's annexation of Ukrainian territory "illegal" and Ukraine's allies committed more military aid.