Russia-Ukraine war live: Putin orders nuclear weapons drills

Military vehicles carrying ballistic missiles drive along Red Square on Sunday during a rehearsal for the Victory Day military parade.

LIVE – Updated at 10:19

Russia has said it would hold a military exercise that will include practice for the use of tactical nuclear weapons.

10:19

French president Emmanuel Macron has told China’s President Xi Jinping that it is essential they co-ordinate on Ukraine.

Russia testing nuclear weapons in response to West possibly sending troops to Ukraine

10:15

Russia’s tactical nuclear weapon drills are a response to statements from the West about sending troops to Ukraine, the Kremlin said on Monday.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov cited comments by the French President Emmanuel Macron on possibly sending soldiers to Ukraine, as well as statements from the British and US Senate representatives.

Military and other special services are verifying reports about deployment of France’s foreign legion in Ukraine, Peskov added.

Peskov also said a Financial Times report saying that Russia was preparing acts of sabotage across Europe was “not serious” and was “groundless”.

The FT said in a recent report that European intelligence agencies had warned their governments that Russia was plotting violent acts of sabotage across the continent as it committed to a course of permanent conflict with the west.

10:05

French President Emmanuel Macron and EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen were set to press China’s President Xi Jinping on Monday to reduce trade imbalances and use his influence on Russia over the war in Ukraine.

Xi was in Europe for the first time in five years, at a time of growing trade tensions, with the European Union investigating several Chinese industries including electric vehicle exports, while Beijing is probing mostly French-made imports of brandy.

France hopes to nudge China into pressuring Moscow to halt operations in Ukraine, with little progress apart from Xi’s decision to call President Volodymyr Zelenskiy for the first time shortly after Macron visited Beijing last year.

09:50

Electricity had been partly restored in the city of Sumy after a Russian drone attack cut power to 400,000 consumers overnight, local officials said.

Work to restore electricity continued into the morning as 91 settlements out of the 1,325 impacted remained without power in the region, national grid operator Ukrenergo said on Telegram messaging app.

“Electricity supply has been restored in the affected settlements and parts of the city of Sumy,” the region’s military administration said on Telegram.

Ukraine’s air force said that Russia launched 13 attack drones against Ukraine. Air defence systems downed 12 of the air weapons over the Sumy region.

Russia to practise use of nuclear weapons

09:24

Russia has said it would hold a military exercise that will include practice for the use of tactical nuclear weapons, Reuters reports. It comes after what the defence ministry said were provocative threats from western officials.

The defence ministry said the exercise was ordered by President Vladimir Putin and would test the readiness of non-strategic nuclear forces to perform combat missions.

The military drills will include practice for the preparation and deployment for use of non-strategic nuclear weapons, the defence ministry said. Missile formations in the southern military district and naval forces will take part.

“During the exercise, a set of measures will be carried out to practice the issues of preparation and use of non-strategic nuclear weapons,” the defence ministry said. Russia has the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons.

The exercise is aimed at ensuring Russia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty “in response to provocative statements and threats by certain western officials against the Russian Federation”, the ministry said.

In other developments:

A Russian overnight drone attack cut power to over 400,000 consumers in Ukraine’s northeast region of Sumy on Monday, Ukraine‘s energy ministry said in a statement via the Telegram messaging app.

A Ukrainian drone attack hit vehicles carrying workers in Russia’s frontier Belgorod region, killing six people and injuring 35, the governor said Monday. Belgorod has come under an increasing number of fatal Ukrainian attacks in recent months and Monday’s bombardment is the deadliest in weeks.

Ukraine will be one of the main items on the agenda as China’s premier, Xi Jinping, visits France. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, and European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, are expected to urge him to use his influence with Russia.

Italy’s defence minister said on Monday economic sanctions against Russia had failed and called on the West to try harder to negotiate a diplomatic solution with Putin to end the war in Ukraine. Guido Crosetto told daily Il Messaggero that the West had wrongly believed its sanctions could stop Russia’s aggression, but it had overestimated its economic influence in the world. “Instead … the only way to resolve this crisis is to involve everyone, first (to obtain) a truce and then peace,” Crosetto said.