Russia rehearsed its response to a nuclear attack yesterday in an exercise that involved nuclear submarines, strategic bombers and ballistic missiles at a time when tensions are high over a “dirty bomb” allegation it has made against Ukraine.

Russia doubled down on a warning that Ukraine is preparing to use a “dirty bomb” on its own territory, an assertion dismissed by the West and Kyiv as false, and was expected to bring the issue to the UN Security Council later yesterday.

Western countries yesterday accused Russia of plotting to use a threat of a bomb laced with nuclear material as a pretext for escalation in Ukraine, as Moscow evacuated civilians from a southern city in anticipation of a major battle.

Under pressure in the south of Ukraine, Russia fired missiles and drones into Ukrainian-held Mykolaiv yesterday, destroying an apartment block in the ship-building city near the front and warning the war was trending toward “uncontrolled escalation”.

Pro-Russian authorities yesterday urged residents in the southern Kherson region, which Moscow claims to have annexed, to leave the main city “immediately” in the face of Kyiv’s advancing counter-offensive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday accused Russia of deliberately delaying the passage of ships carrying grain exports under a U.N. brokered-deal, and said 150 vessels were waiting to be loaded.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the West to warn Russia not to blow up a hydroelectric dam that would flood a swath of southern Ukraine, as his forces prepare to push Moscow’s troops from Kherson in one of the war’s most important battles.

The United States has determined that Iranian military personnel were on the ground in Crimea helping the Russian military operate drones provided by Tehran to conduct strikes across Ukraine, State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Thursday.

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.