Russia imposed entry bans on 30 Japanese individuals, including a foreign ministry official, in response to sanctions introduced by Tokyo as part of moves to denounce Moscow's actions in its more than three-year-old war in Ukraine.

The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a list of affected Japanese nationals, which included several journalists and academics. It described the prohibition as "indefinite."

Included among those barred was Japanese foreign ministry press official Toshihiro Kitamura.

The Japanese government in September placed sanctions on Russian companies, individuals and several other entities.

Japan also lowered its cap on Russian seaborne crude, following similar moves from Western countries.

Russian forces have taken full control of the eastern part of the city of Kupiansk in Ukraine's Kharkiv region and are actively advancing inside the city of Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, Russia's Defence Ministry said on Tuesday.

The ministry also reported that its troops had taken control of the settlement of Novouspenivske in the southeastern Zaporizhzhia region.

The Independent could not independently confirm the battlefield reports.

Russia’s air defence units destroyed a Ukrainian drone that was heading towards Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of the Russian capital, said this morning.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv has previously said that its attacks are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to conducting Russia's war in Ukraine.

Russia said its forces had pushed deeper into the eastern Ukrainian cities of Pokrovsk and Kupiansk yesterday, with one video showing Russian soldiers rolling into Pokrovsk on motorbikes and even on the roofs of battered cars and vans.

Russian military bloggers published a video showing what they said were Russian forces entering Pokrovsk along a road enveloped in fog, in what some Telegram users said looked like scenes from the 1979 action film "Mad Max", which unfolds in a post-apocalyptic landscape.

The video showed Russian forces on motorcycles and in an odd assortment of cars and other vehicles. Many vehicles, missing doors and windows, were shown driving along a road strewn with debris as soldiers looked on.

Some Russian soldiers sat on the roof of a battered vehicle. A drone was seen beside the road.

The location of the video was not immediately clear as Pokrovsk from the road layout, signs, utility tower, and trees seen in the video, which matched file and satellite imagery of the area.

Moscow says taking Pokrovsk, dubbed "the gateway to Donetsk" by Russian media, would give it a platform to drive north towards the two biggest remaining Ukrainian-controlled cities in the Donetsk region - Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Ukraine's top military commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, told the New York Post that Russia was concentrating some 150,000 troops on a drive to capture the town, which is much prized by Russia.

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”.

Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said it had foiled a plot by Ukrainian and British spies to tempt Russian pilots to steal a MiG-31 jet armed with a Kinzhal hypersonic missile for $3m , state media reported.

The RIA news agency cited the FSB as saying that the hijacked jet was to be flown toward a Nato air base in the Romanian city of Constanta, where it could have been shot down by air defences, the agency reported.

The FSB, the main successor to the Soviet-era KGB, said Ukraine and Britain had planned a large-scale "provocation" using the hijacked aircraft, and that Ukrainian military intelligence had sought to recruit Russian pilots for $3m to steal the fighter.

"The measures taken have thwarted the Ukrainian and British intelligence services plans for a large-scale provocation," RIA cited the FSB as saying.

Japan decried as "absolutely unacceptable" Russia's extension of an entry ban to 30 more citizens, among them a foreign ministry spokesperson, after Tokyo's sanctions over Moscow's nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine.

Following similar moves by Western nations, Japan had placed additional sanctions on Russian companies, individuals and other entities in September, while lowering its cap on Russian seaborne crude.

Russia's foreign ministry issued yesterday a list of Japanese added to those facing "indefinite" prohibition. The new names included the spokesperson, Toshihiro Kitamura, as well as journalists and academics.

Japan has protested against the "regrettable" move, chief cabinet secretary Minoru Kihara told a briefing today, adding that people-to-people exchanges between the two countries remain important.

He accused Moscow of shifting the blame for its invasion of Ukraine.

The head of Russia’s Sberbank German Gref spoke to Russia’s economic problems in a meeting with Vladimir Putin, the Institute for the Study of War said.

His bank was experiencing only “very modest” growth due to “challenging macroeconomic conditions” including a shrinkage of its consumer loan portfolio, while 2025 growth was worse than the bank expected, the US-based think tank said.

“Gref’s statements are notable,” the ISW assessed, “as Russian officials have largely refrained from admitting to any weakness in Russia’s economy and as the Kremlin has undertaken an information campaign to portray the Russian economy as stable and strong”.