Vladimir Putin declares martial law in occupied regions of Ukraine

The crackdown will take place in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, giving Russian forces there new sweeping powers.

Vladimir Putin has declared martial law in the annexed regions of Ukraine, with officials evacuating thousands of civilians from the occupied city of Kherson - which looks set to fall.

The crackdown will take place in Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia. Under Russian law, martial law allows for the strengthening of the military, curfews, limits of movement, censorships and interning of foreign citizens.

“I signed a decree to introduce martial law in these four subjects of the Russian Federation,” Putin said during a televised National Security Council meeting.

“The Kyiv regime refused to recognise the will of the people, rejects any proposals for negotiation, gunfire continues, civilians are dying,” the 70-year-old Russian leader said.

He accused Ukraine of using “terrorist methods”.

“They send sabotage groups into our territory,” he said, claiming Moscow had foiled other attacks after its Crimea bridge was targeted “including at our nuclear power facilities”.

“We are working on solving very complex large-scale tasks to ensure security and protect the future of Russia,” Putin said

Kherson was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops after the February invasion but Ukraine now looks close to retaking it.

Russia is evacuating 60,000 civilians in an operation planned to take six days, implying the city could fall within a week, with all people told to head towards Russia, not Ukraine.

Meanwhile, there are fears Putin could be considering detonating a nuclear warhead over the Black Sea in a show of strength to the West.

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Russian servicemen patrol at the Eternal Flame monument in Kherson (Photo by Olga MALTSEVA / AFP)

Kyiv’s recapturing of swathes of its territory in the east and parts of the south has however been followed by missile and drone strikes that have demolished large parts of Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter.

“The entire administration is already moving today,” to the eastern bank of the Dnieper River, the Kherson region’s Moscow-installed head, Vladimir Saldo, told Russian state television.

But the Ukrainian presidency’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak called the moves a “propaganda show” and accused Russia of “trying to scare the people of Kherson”.

Ukrainian forces “do not fire at Ukrainian cities,” Yermak wrote on Telegram. The city is located on the western bank of the Dnieper, the same side where Ukrainian troops have been moving forward in a counter-offensive that began in August.

Saldo said the pull-out, along with the organised movement of civilians from the city, was a precaution and vowed that Russian forces would continue to fight against Ukraine.

Pro-Russian officials have said civilians would only be allowed to leave towards Russia or Russian-held parts of Ukraine.

Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a Security Council meeting (Photo by Sergei ILYIN / SPUTNIK / AFP)

However, Ukrainian forces have targeted bridges across the river to disrupt supply lines so Russian-installed officials said the evacuations were being done with ferries.

Russia’s Rossiya 24 state television channel showed images of people waiting to board ferries to cross the river.

Local officials said they were planning to move up to 60,000 civilians from the city of Kherson over a period of around six days.

Russia’s military commander for Ukraine operations, General Sergey Surovikin has said the Russian army will ensure “the safe evacuation of the population” from Kherson.

Speaking to Russian state TV on Tuesday, he accused Ukraine of strikes on civilian infrastructure in the region that “create a direct threat to the lives of residents”.

Ukraine has re-captured occupied territory in the east of the country in recent weeks.

Its advance in the south has been far slower but has been gaining momentum in recent days.

There have also been some Russian advances.

Russian forces on Tuesday claimed to have retaken territory from Ukrainian troops in the eastern Kharkiv region.

It was Moscow’s first announced capture of a village there since being nearly entirely pushed out of the region last month.

Russia has also been building up its defences in the territory it still holds. Russia’s Wagner mercenary group said it was working on building a fortified line of defence in Ukraine’s eastern Luhansk region.

“It is a multi-level and layered defence,” the group’s founder Yevgeny Prigozhin said on the social media of his company Concord.

Russian forces meanwhile continue to occupy the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant -- Europe’s largest.

Petro Kotin, head of Ukraine’s nuclear energy agency Energoatom, told AFP on Wednesday that Russian forces were holding “about 50” plant employees in captivity.

A Russian serviceman patrols at a river bank in Kherson (Photo by Olga MALTSEVA / AFP)

Ukraine meanwhile scrambled to rebuild damaged energy facilities across the country following a series of Russian strikes.

The government has warned of an emerging “critical” risk to its power grid after repeated Russian bombardments had destroyed one third of the country’s power facilities as winter approaches.

“It’s necessary for the whole country to prepare for electricity, water and heating outages,” Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the Ukrainian president’s office, told Ukrainian television on Tuesday.

Drones also bombarded Kyiv on Monday, leaving five dead, in what the presidency described as an attack of Russian desperation after a string of battlefield losses.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of using Iranian-made drones in the strikes, a move President Volodymyr Zelensky portrayed as a sign of Russia’s failure.

Ukraine said Wednesday it had shot down 223 Iranian-made drones since mid-September.

But the Kremlin has said it has no knowledge of its army using Iranian drones in Ukraine and Tehran has said the claims that it is providing Russia with weapons are “baseless”.

Nabila Massrali, spokeswoman for EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, said the EU has “sufficient evidence” that Tehran was supplying Russia with drones and would prepare fresh sanctions on Iran