Russia-Ukraine war live: Kherson ‘evacuated’ as Zelensky’s troops advance

Civilians have been told evacuate the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Kherson “as fast as possible” as Ukrainian forces surround the region.

Ukraine’s troops “will shortly begin an offensive against the city of Kherson,” said Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the Kherson region, which Russia partially controls.

Russian forces in Kherson have been driven back by 20-30 km in the last few weeks and are at risk of being pinned against the right or western bank of the Dnipro River.

“I ask you to take my words seriously and take them to mean: the fastest possible evacuation,” he said in a late night post on Telegram.

Elsewhere, the new Russian commander in Ukraine has given a rare acknowledgement of Vladimir Putin's troops being under pressure amid a sustained Ukrainian counteroffensive.

"The situation in the area of the 'Special Military Operation' can be described as tense," Sergei Surovikin, the Russian air force general now commanding Moscow’s invasion forces, told state-owned Rossiya 24.

Key Points

• Russian top commander admits ‘situation tense’ for his troops

• Zelensky says Russia politically and militarily ‘bankrupt’

• Ukraine invites UN to inspect ‘downed Iran-made drones’

• Kyiv moves to cut diplomatic ties with Iran

• Russia says it repelled Ukrainian attempt to capture nuclear plant -RIA

• 'Evacuate' Russian-installed official tells Kherson residents

Russia’s men in Kherso pledge to repel looming Ukrainian attack

10:26 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Russian-installed officials in the occupied Ukrainian city of Kherson said on Wednesday they were preparing to defend it from imminent Ukrainian attack.

The Russian-appointed governor of the region, Vladimir Saldo, said in a TV interview: “No one is about to surrender Kherson but it’s undesirable for residents to be in a city where military actions are going to be conducted.”

“We expect an attack, and the Ukrainian side doesn’t hide that,” Saldo said.

Saldo said on Russian TV: “At the current moment we have enough possibilities to repel attacks and go on the counter-offensive, if the tactical situation demands it. The city will hold out, we simply need to protect peaceful residents. The soldiers know what they have to do, they will stand to the death.”

More than 5,000 people had already left in the past two days and an estimated 10,000 people a day would be moved out over the next six days, he said.

Berlusconi reveals he’s ‘reconnected’ with Putin and received a ‘sweet’ letter from Russian leader

10:12 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi has been caught boasting that he recently reconnected with Vladimir Putin after the pair exchanged gifts of vodka, wine and a “sweet” letter for the Russian leader’s recent birthday.

The former Italian premier revealed the inner details of his social calender to his centre-right Forza Italia MPs during a meeting this week in the lower Chamber of Deputies.

“I have reconnected with President Putin,” Italy’s LaPresse news agency reported the 86-year-old as saying.

“He sent me 20 bottles of vodka and a really sweet letter for my birthday. I responded with 20 bottles of Lambrusco (a sparkling Italian red wine) and a similarly sweet letter.”

Berlusconi has ‘reconnected’ with Putin and received a ‘sweet’ letter from Russian

Russian-installed authorities send text messages urging residents of Kherson to evacuate

09:52 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Russian-installed authorities in occupied Ukraine reportedly are sending text messages urging residents of the southern city of Kherson to evacuate, amid the approach of Ukrainian forces.

Russia‘s state news agency RIA Novosti reported Wednesday that one message said “there will be shelling of residential areas by the Armed Forces of Ukraine,” though there was no independent verification of that claim.

The message promised “buses starting from 7 a.m. . to the left bank” of the Dnieper River, toward Russia. Kherson, with a capital of the same name, is one of four regions illegally annexed by Russia last month.

It was one of the first Ukrainian cities seized in Russia‘s Feb. 24 invasion.

The region’s Moscow-appointed head, Vladimir Saldo, said Tuesday that Russian troops are building “large-scale defensive fortifications.”

On Friday, too, Saldo had urged Kherson residents to evacuate to Russia. Russian authorities are promising free travel and accommodation to those who leave.

Russian-backed officials have said evacuations from occupied territories are voluntary. In many cases, the only route out is to Russia.

Continuous attacks in eastern Ukraine, Moscow official warns

09:16 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Russian troop positions in Kupiansk and Lyman in eastern Ukraine and the area between Mykolaiv and Kryvyi Rih in Kherson province were cited by Surovikin as under continuous attack.

He appeared to concede that there was a danger of Ukrainian forces advancing towards the city of Kherson, which lies near the mouth of the Dnipro on the west bank. Russia captured the city in the early days of the invasion and it remains the only major Ukrainian city that Moscow’s forces have seized intact.

Kherson, one of four partially-occupied Ukrainian provinces that Russia claims to have annexed, controls both the only land route to the Crimea peninsula Russia seized in 2014, and the mouth of the Dnipro.

After staging what Moscow called referendums in September, which Kyiv and Western governments denounced as illegal, Putin proclaimed the eastern Ukrainian border provinces of Donetsk and Luhansk - together known as Donbas - as well as Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as full-fledged regions of Russia.

Vladimir Saldo, the Russian-installed Kherson region chief, said the risk of attack by Ukrainian forces had led to a decision to evacuate some civilians from four towns.

“The Ukrainian side is building up forces for a large-scale offensive,” Saldo said in a video statement. The Russian military was preparing to repel the offensive, he said, and “where the military operates, there is no place for civilians”.

Russia attacks Ukraine’s power and water supplies

09:00 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Air strikes have cut power and water supplies to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, part of what the country’s president called an expanding Russian campaign to drive the nation into the cold and dark and make peace talks impossible.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said nearly a third of Ukraine‘s power stations have been destroyed in the past week, “causing massive blackouts across the country”.

“No space left for negotiations with Putin’s regime,” he tweeted.

Depriving people of water, electricity and heat as winter begins to bite, and the broadening use of so-called suicide drones that nosedive into targets, have opened a new phase in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war.

The bombardments appear aimed at wearing down the notable resilience Ukrainians have shown in the nearly eight months since Moscow invaded.

Meanwhile, along the front lines, things remain “very difficult” for Russian troops in the southern region and city of Kherson, according to Russia‘s new commander, Sergei Surovikin.

He told reporters in Moscow that the Russian military would help evacuate civilians ahead of an expected Ukrainian offensive.

Russian attacks on Ukraine infrastructure are war crimes - EU's von der Leyen

08:42 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Russia‘s missile and drone attacks on power stations and other infrastructure in Ukraine are “acts of pure terror” that amount to war crimes, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday.

“Yesterday we saw again Russia‘s targeted attacks against civilian infrastructure. This is marking another chapter in an already very cruel war. The international order is very clear. These are war crimes,” von der Leyen said in a speech to lawmakers in the European Parliament.

“Targeted attacks on civilian infrastructure with the clear aim to cut off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with the winter coming, these are acts of pure terror and we have to call it as such.”

Luhansk governor says progress to ‘de-occupy’ region has been slow

08:20 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Ukraine’s governor of Luhansk has said that progress to “de-occupy” the region has been slower than in other Moscow-annexed areas as “it was in our region that all those soldiers who fled from Kharkiv Oblast gathered.”

In a message on Telegram, Serhai Haidai added that Ukrainian forces fighting to take back Luhansk face “freshly mobilised Russians, prisoners, and a lot of equipment and air defence [that] have arrived in Luhansk region.”

The governor said that “the armed forces of Ukraine have developed a clear de-occupation plan and are clearly following it. When our military enter the liberated settlements we will offer the population evacuation for the winter period, and we will also work to provide people with heat, water, and communication.”

Ministry of Defence says Russia’s leadership is ‘increasingly dysfunctional'

08:05 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

The Ministry of Defence has said “major elements of Russia’s military leadership are increasingly dysfunctional”.

In the latest update, it said: “At the tactical level, there is almost certainly a worsening shortage of capable Russian junior officers to organise and lead newly mobilised reservists.”

'Evacuate' Russian-installed official tells Kherson residents

07:50 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Civilians should evacuate the Russian-controlled Ukrainian city of Kherson as fast as possible because Ukrainian forces could begin an offensive at any moment, a Russian-installed official said.

Russian forces in Kherson have been driven back by 20-30 km (13-20 miles) in the last few weeks and are at risk of being pinned against the right or western bank of the Dnipro River.

Ukrainian forces “will shortly begin an offensive against the city of Kherson,” said Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy head of the Kherson region, which Russia partially controls.

“I ask you to take my words seriously and take them to mean: the fastest possible evacuation,” he said in a late night post on Telegram.

In a later post, he said that as of Wednesday the situation on the front was stable but that civilians should still leave for the left bank.

“Move as fast as possible, please, to the left bank,” he said.

Civilians in Kherson were receiving messages from the Russian-installed administration telling them to leave the city, RIA news agency reported.

Russia says it repelled Ukrainian attempt to capture nuclear plant -RIA

07:35 , Maryam Zakir-Hussain

Russia says Ukrainian forces tried to recapture the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine, but their attempt was repelled after several hours of fighting, state-run RIA news agency reported on Wednesday.

“After shelling the city, a landing attempt was launched, including an attempt to seize Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The battle went on for several hours, at least three to three and a half hours,” RIA quoted Russian-installed official Vladimir Rogov as saying, adding that the attack was “repelled”.

Reuters was not able to independently verify the report.

Ukraine says 12 drones downed in Mykolaiv

07:22 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Ukrainian forces have shot down 12 Iran-made Shahed-136 drones in the Mykolaiv Oblast region overnight on Wednesday, governor Vitaliy Kim said.

The governor added that 11 “kamikaze” drones were shot down by the air defence while one was downed by the National Guard troops.

More than 100 Ukrainian women freed in landmark prisoner swap

07:04 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

A total of 108 Ukrainian women were freed in an “emotional” prisoner-of-war swap with Russia.

On Monday, Moscow and Kyiv carried out one of the biggest prisoner swaps of the war since the invasion of Ukraine was launched in February.

A total of 218 detainees were involved, including the 108 women who have now been reunited with their families in Ukraine.

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff for Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, said there were 85 privates and NCOs (non-commissioned officers), 12 civilians, and 11 officers among the freed women.

“It was the first completely female exchange,” he wrote on the Telegram messaging app.

Lamiat Sabin reports.

More than 100 Ukrainian women freed in prisoner swap with Russia

Zelensky urges Ukrainians to limit power usage during peak hours

06:51 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Volodymyr Zelensky has urged Ukrainians to cut back on electricity consumption during peak hours after Russian strikes destroyed nearly one-third of the country’s power stations in the past week.

“There were new Russian attacks against our energy system,” he said in his nighttime address on Tuesday.

The president said: “... the overall situation still requires a very conscious consumption of electricity and limiting the use of energy-consuming appliances during peak hours.”

“The more conscious our household consumption of electricity is from 5pm to 11pm, the more stable our energy system will be.

“Everyone who follows this simple rule for peak hours helps the entire country.”

Power outage after energy facility in Dnipropetrovsk hit by missile

06:33 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

An energy facility in the Kryvyi Rih district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was hit by a Russian missile on Wednesday, said Oleksandr Vilkul, the head of the military administration.

The strike left a number of settlements in the district and in one area in the city of Kryvyi Rih without power, he added, without providing further details.

The energy outage comes at a time when Ukraine has been plunged into darkness with 30 per cent of its power stations destroyed in missile strikes.

Ukraine moves to cut diplomatic ties with Iran over drones

06:17 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Ukraine has announced that it is moving to cut diplomatic ties with Iran over its supply of “kamikaze” drones to Russia.

Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was submitting a proposal to president Volodymyr Zelensky to cut diplomatic ties.

Mr Kuleba said Kyiv was certain they were Iranian and would be ready to share a “bag of evidence” to European powers in doubt.

“Tehran bears full responsibility for the destruction of relations with Ukraine”, he told reporters. “I am submitting to the president of Ukraine a proposition to sever diplomatic ties with Iran.”

Ukraine urges UN to inspect ‘downed Iran-made drones’

05:53 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Ukraine has written to the UN, inviting its experts to inspect downed Iranian-origin drones used by Russia in violation of a UN Security Council resolution.

Kyiv has accused Moscow of bombarding Ukraine using Iran-made Shahed-136 “kamikaze” drones.

The US, the UK and France are expected to raise alleged Iranian arms transfers to Russia at a closed-door Security Council meeting on Wednesday, Reuters reported.

Zelensky says Russia politically and militarily ‘bankrupt’

05:45 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in his nighttime address on Tuesday said Russia’s appeal to Iran for assistance is a sign of its “military and political bankruptcy”.

Russia has been accused of bombing Ukrainian cities with Iran-made “kamikaze” drones.

Mr Zelensky said: “For decades, they [Russia] have been spending billions of dollars on their military-industrial complex, and in the end they went to bow to Tehran to get rather simple drones and missiles”.

“It won’t help them strategically anyway.“It only further proves to the world that Russia is on the trajectory of its defeat and is trying to draw someone else into its accomplices in terror.”

Russian top commander admits ‘situation tense’ for his troops

05:37 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

The new commander of Russian forces admitted his troops were under pressure as Ukraine toughens its attacks to reclaim southern and eastern areas that Moscow “annexed” just weeks ago.

“The situation in the area of the ‘Special Military Operation’ can be described as tense,” Sergei Surovikin, the Russian air force general now commanding Russia’s invasion forces, told the state-owned Rossiya 24 news channel.

He added that the situation is also “difficult” in Kherson, where the Russian troops have been pushed back by 20-30km in the last few weeks.

04:57 , Alisha Rahaman Sarkar

Welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine.