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.

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.

The UK government is reportedly considering transferring some of the Army’s controversial Ajax armoured vehicles to Ukraine as part of a peacekeeping force.

Ministry of Defence figures show that the Army has at least 128 Ajax armoured fighting vehicles, though an update from defence minister Lord Coaker suggests that only 91 of these are already in service after years of delays.

Around 50 of these vehicles are now ready to be deployed, reported The Telegraph.

The armoured vehicles have been deemed unfit over several problems, most notably the loudness of the noise it produces, which has been harmful to soldiers testing them.

More than 300 British soldiers have had to undergo hearing assessments and around 17 of those involved in the trials have been undergoing treatment for hearing loss, the report added.

At least one person was killed after Ukraine struck Russia with at least 75 drones overnight, officials said.

The attack sparked a fire in an industrial area of the southern city of Volgograd, killing at least one and halting dozens of flights across the country, according to regional officials said.

Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov said a 48-year-old man was killed by shrapnel and that a fire was sparked in an industrial zone in the Krasnoarmeysk district of the city, which was formerly known as Stalingrad.

The district is home to Lukoil's major Volgograd refinery which has been repeatedly targetted by Ukraine. In 2024 the Volgograd refinery processed 13.7 million metric tons of oil, or 5.1 per cent of the total volume at Russian refineries.

Ukraine has for several months been striking Russian oil refineries, depots and pipelines in a bid to undermine the Russian economy as Russian forces advance in eastern Ukraine.

Bulgaria is drafting legal changes that will allow it to seize control of sanctioned Russian oil giant Lukoil's Burgas refinery and sell it to a new owner to protect the plant from US sanctions, local media reported.

Burgas is Bulgaria's only oil refinery, and was a key part of Lukoil's foreign business empire, which is being threatened after the US joined Britain last month in imposing sanctions on Russia's two largest oil companies over Moscow's war in Ukraine.

The draft legislation, first reported by Bulgarian outlet Mediapool yesterday, would permit a special manager to oversee the sale of the Burgas oil refinery, which owner Lukoil would have no right to vote on or appeal against, the reports said.

"There is a lot of logic in this, which is why today we will submit a draft law on the special governor," public broadcaster BNT quoted Boyko Borissov, former prime minister and leader of the GERB party – which heads Bulgaria's coalition government – as saying.

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.