Ukraine-Russia struggle newest: Putin orders nuclear weapons check preparations after Trump menace in new escalation

Russian defence minister Andrei Belousov told Vladimir Putin that recent US remarks and actions meant it was “advisable to prepare for full-scale nuclear tests” immediately.

Russia’s Arctic testing site at Novaya Zemlya could host such tests at short notice, Belousov added.

The comments were made at a meeting between Putin and his Security Council, where parliamentary speaker Vyacheslav Volodin departed from the official agenda of transport safety to ask how Moscow should respond to Donald Trump’s threat to carry out the first US nuclear weapons testing in 33 years.

Trump announced last week that the US would breach a global moratorium on testing nuclear weapons, claiming rivals such as China, Russia and North Korea were already doing the same in secret, but did not offer more details.

General Valery Gerasimov, head of the General Staff, told Putin: “If we do not take appropriate measures now, time and opportunities for a timely response to the actions of the United States will be lost, since the time required to prepare for nuclear tests, depending on their type, ranges from several months to several years.”

No country apart from North Korea – most recently in 2017 – has carried out explosive tests of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.

Security analysts say a resumption of testing by any of the world’s nuclear powers would be destabilising, as it would likely trigger a similar response by the others.

“Action-reaction cycle at its best. No one needs this, but we might get there regardless,” Andrey Baklitskiy, senior researcher at the UN Institute for Disarmament Research, posted on X.

Russia and the US are by far the biggest nuclear powers by numbers of warheads, followed by China, France, Britain, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea, according to the Federation of American Scientists.

Poland is working on a deal to import liquefied natural gas from the US to supply Ukraine and Slovakia, sources familiar with the negotiations said.

The agreement would further tighten the European Union’s ties to American energy.

“We are working with our partners – Americans, Slovaks, Ukrainians – on the possibilities of importing American gas to boost the energy security of our region,” the Polish energy ministry told Reuters late last night, confirming the talks.

Officials expect to announce a joint declaration to boost imports after a meeting of the parties at a transatlantic energy conference in Athens later this week, one of the sources said.

“After that, discussions would follow on terms for supplies to Slovakia,” one of the sources told Reuters. Potential volumes to be shipped south via Poland could be as much as 4 to 5 billion cubic meters of gas per year, about the same as Slovakia’s annual gas consumption, the sources said.

This is expected to be the latest in a series of energy deals struck between European and US government officials and companies on the back of a push from Washington to boost exports of American gas and nuclear technology.

Kupiansk is on Russia’s route towards Kharkiv. The other two control the eastern and southern routes to the last remaining Ukrainian redoubts in Donetsk – Kramatorsk and Slaviansk.

Vladimir Putin has thrown a massive effort into the fight for Donetsk, which Moscow has already illegally “annexed”. Ukraine’s commanders believe there are about 100,000 Russian troops in this sector alone.

Ukraine is reported to have sent its own special forces into the fight for Pokrovsk. If the pattern of previous battles for eastern towns and cities is repeated, it could be a year at least and many tens of thousands of Russian dead, before they fall. If they fall.

Vladimir Putin has ordered the heightened defence of Russia’s oil refineries from Ukrainian drone attacks in a new law.

In a law signed on Tuesday, Putin called on around two million reservists to protect Russian oil facilities from increasing Ukrainian drone attacks.

In recent weeks, Ukraine’s daring strikes deep inside Russia using domestically produced drones have embarrassed Moscow, with officials being unforthcoming about any damage, and unnerved Russians.

Ukraine has taken aim at manufacturing plants, oil refineries and military logistics hubs in a bid to disrupt Russia’s war effort almost four years after Moscow launched an all-out invasion.

On Tuesday, Ukrainian long-range drones attacked an industrial plant around 1,300km (800 miles) inside Russia, local officials said.

American actor Angelina Jolie has visited Ukraine’s southern regions to meet children impacted by the Russian invasion, local media reported.

Jolie was seen playing with Ukrainian children in Kherson, a region that is hit by Russian drones and missiles on a daily basis.

The Tomb Raider star was visiting the war-hit country in her role as a UNICEF ambassador.

The actor was seen wearing a bulletproof vest with a patch from the Legacy of War Foundation, a British non-profit organisation helping civilians during the war.

The visit by Jolie faced an incident with local military recruiters, reported Politico, citing a top Ukrainian official. The official said Jolie had not informed the Ukrainian government about her intention to visit the country, and that she entered on foot.

Russia said its forces were advancing north inside Pokrovsk in a drive to take full control of the Ukrainian city, but the Ukrainian army said its units were battling hard to try to stop the Russians from gaining new ground.

Ukraine has acknowledged that its troops face a difficult position in the strategic eastern city, once an important transport and logistics hub for the Ukrainian army, which Russia has been trying to capture for more than a year.

The Russian defence ministry said two assault groups were destroying Ukrainian troops that were surrounded in several districts of the city and continuing an offensive pushing north through it. Russian forces were clearing Ukrainian troops from settlements on Pokrovsk’s southeastern flank and had repelled Ukrainian attempts to break out of encirclement.

The Ukrainian military denied that its troops were surrounded in Pokrovsk. It said they were trying to stop Russian soldiers from digging in while seeking to secure and protect logistics routes in the wider area.

“Measures are being taken to block the enemy, which is attempting to infiltrate and accumulate in the city of Pokrovsk,” the Ukrainian General Staff said in a statement.

“Active countermeasures are being taken against attempts by enemy infantry groups to gain a foothold.”

Russia sees the city as the gateway to its capture of the remaining 10 per cent, or 5,000 square km (1,930 square miles) of Ukraine’s eastern industrial Donbas region, one of its key aims in the almost four-year-old war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s visit to the frontline shows that the battle between Ukraine and Russia is continuing to intensify rather than slow down.

“Zelensky’s visit to the troops near an embattled town is a clear sign that a ceasefire deal is firmly off the table – at least in the short run,” Dr Bariş Çelik, an academic specialising in security and defence policies in Europe at the University of Sheffield, told The Independent.

“The visit shows that Zelensky’s government is understandably invested in a defensive struggle to maintain Ukraine’s territorial integrity, even if this means a continued and protracted fight against a sustained flood of Russian troops.

“This in turn adds to the doubts over a potential ceasefire between Russian and Ukrainian forces, let alone an end to the ongoing war.”

Ukraine seeks to introduce fixed-term military contracts to allow recruits more flexibility over their futures as the war with Russia shows no sign of ending.

Its current system of conscription enlists soldiers under open-ended contracts, which has led to an army worn down by the relentless intensity of fighting since Russia’s invasion in February 2022.

The new system will allow current service members and recruits to sign deals lasting between one and five years, according to the country’s defence minister Denys Shmyhal who announced the news on Tuesday. The plan will seek to ease the strain on existing military members, and replenish Ukraine’s forces.