THE West should nuke Russia if Putin tries to launch a nuclear strike on Kyiv, President Zelensky warned as the Kremlin steps up its bombardment of Ukraine.

The war-time President said the West should strike Russian “decision-making” centres and send Putin a clear message.

President Zelensky called on the West to nuke Russia if it launched a nuclear assault on UkraineCredit: YouTube/Office of the President of Ukraine

Putin could launch a warning nuke into the Black Sea, officials claimCredit: Getty

Moscow has stepped up bombardments on Ukrainian infrastructure and homesCredit: Getty

“Nobody knows what Russia will do tomorrow but we do know what the world had to do,” President Zelensky told Canadian broadcaster CBC.

“As to nuclear weapons, it doesn’t matter is Ukraine is a NATO member is not a NATO member, [the war] is happening in Europe, on the European continent. Nobody is allowed to simply blackmail [us] as a terrorist.

“The one who orders to kill people, if you do that, you have to know that in a second, regardless of the result of your hit, there will be a hit at your decision-making centre.”

Analysts feared Putin would detonate a warhead in the Black Sea, potentially unleashing tsunamis and a poisonous gas cloud.

It was also claimed plans were under way to test fire a tactical nuke in the Arctic before launching one on the battlefield in Ukraine.

Recent days have seen a number of Notam messages – short notice warnings to aircraft – and Russian navigation warnings indicating live fire drills in the Barents Sea near the border with Norway.

It comes as pro-Russian authorities on Saturday urged residents in the annexed Kherson region to evacuate “immediately” in the face of Kyiv’s advancing counter-offensive.

It comes as President Zelensky said Russia launched 36 rockets overnight in a “massive attack” on Ukrainian energy infrastructure, causing power outages across the country.

Kyiv’s forces have been advancing along the west bank of the Dnieper river, towards Kherson.

It was the first major city to fall to Moscow’s troops. Retaking it would be a key prize in Ukraine’s counter-offensive.

In recent days, Russia has been moving residents in the region — which Moscow claims to have annexed in September — in efforts described as “deportations” by Kyiv.

“Due to the tense situation on the front, the increased danger of mass shelling of the city and the threat of terrorist attacks, all civilians must immediately leave the city and cross to the left bank of the Dnieper river,” the region’s pro-Russian authorities said on social media.

Meanwhile more than a million households in Ukraine were left without electricity following Russian strikes on energy facilities across the country, the deputy head of the Ukrainian presidency Kyrylo Tymoshenko said on Saturday.

Fresh Russian strikes targeted energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s west, the national operator said earlier, with officials in several regions of the war-scarred country reporting power outages.

Power outages were reported among others in the northwestern Volyn region, parts of the southwestern Odessa region and the city of Khmelnitskyi in western Ukraine with local authorities reiterating calls to reduce energy use.

According to Ukraine’s air force, Moscow’s troops on Saturday fired 17 cruise missiles by aircraft from southern Russia and at least 16 Kalibr cruise missiles from ships in the Black Sea.

Ukraine’s authorities have called on residents to reduce power consumption amid the attacks with some parts of Ukraine reducing their electricity use by up to 20 percent, according to Ukrenergo.

Putin warned he would use ‘all means at our disposal’ to defend its territoryCredit: AFP

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Russian authorities have ordered all residents in the city of Kherson to evacuate in expectation of a Ukrainian advance, it has been reported.

The city has been occupied by Russia since the early days of its invasion in February and the wider region was one of four illegally annexed by Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

Martial law was declared and Russian military leaders in Kherson have described the situation as “tense” in recent days amid reports of shelling attacks.

Kirill Stremousov, the Russian-installed deputy administrator of the Kherson region said in a Telegram message posted late on Tuesday that “in the very near future, the battle for Kherson will begin.”

He said on Saturday that a decision had been made “to evacuate the civilian population for the sake of ensuring security”.

Ukrainian forces are believed to have bombarded Russian positions on Friday, ahead of a full-scale assault.

Meanwhile, Russia has been using its annexation, the largest since the Second World War, to forcibly remove citizens deeper into its territory.

It is believed as many as 60,000 people could be displaced.

Ukrainian officials have urged Kherson residents to resist attempts to relocate them, with one local official alleging that Moscow wanted to take civilians hostage and use them as human shields.

Russian troops patrol an area at the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Station, a run-of-river power plant on the Dnieper River in Kherson region (Photo: AP Photo, File)

The British Ministry for Defence said in an update on Saturday that Russian forces are coming under “increasing pressure” in Kherson and that they “continue to reinforce crossing points over the Dnipro River, and have completed a barge bridge alongside the damaged Antonovsky bridge.”

Neil Bush, the UK’s Ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) warned in a speech earlier this week: “Martial law will mean further ruthless attempts to enforce control in territory to which Russia has no right, and over people who have already suffered heavily at the hands of Russian forces.

“Despite what the Kremlin tells us, these moves highlight Russia’s increasing desperation in the midst of its failing invasion.

“On Kherson, Russia’s plans to forcibly deport Ukrainian civilians are deeply concerning. We remind Russia that any danger posed to civilians is a direct result of its illegal invasion.”

The potential reclaiming of Kherson would represent another humiliation for Russia and comes amid claims that the UK must prepare for a “very dangerous chapter” in the conflict.

Tobias Ellwood, chair of the Commons Defence Committee, warned there were “conversations happening behind the scenes” in government about how to respond if a state used nuclear weapons.

The threat of the first nuclear bomb in 77 years being launched has grown as Vladimir Putin’s forces suffer battlefield reversals.

Civilians leaving the Kherson region, crossing to the other side of the Dnieper River as pro-Kremlin officials say they are pulling out of the key southern Ukraine city (Photo: STRINGER / TELEGRAM / @NM_DNR / TELEGRAM/ @STREMOUSOV_KIRILL / / AFP)

This week, the Defence Secretary, Ben Wallace, and Armed Forces Minister, James Heappey, flew to Washington DC for emergency talks with US counterparts amid growing concern that Mr Putin could launch a nuclear strike.

Mr Ellwood told Sky News: “Clearly, it has moved into a very dangerous chapter. It’s quite incredible what Ukraine has done, who would have thought six months ago that they would have been able to push back the third largest army in the world?

“But with Putin in a corner, now calling for martial law in those areas where he had that sham referendum we must now ask the very difficult questions that perhaps we have avoided in the last 77 years: what do we do if a state uses a nuclear weapon?”

“I am not sure we are quite there in that mindset yet, but I understand those conversations are happening behind the scenes.”

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of thousands of people in central and western Ukraine woke up on Saturday to power outages and periodic bursts of gunfire, as Ukrainian air defense tried to shoot down drones and incoming missiles.

Russia has intensified its strikes on power stations, water supply systems and other key infrastructure across the country, the latest phase of the war as it nears the eight-month mark.

Ukraine’s air force said in a statement Saturday that Russia had launched “a massive missile attack” targeting “critical infrastructure,” hours after air raid sirens blared across the country. It said that it had downed 18 out of 33 cruise missiles launched from air and sea.

“Several rockets” targeting the capital were shot down on Saturday morning, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on the Telegram messaging service.

Similar reports were made by the governors of six western and central provinces, as well as the southern Odesa region on the Black Sea.

The presidential office said in its morning statement that five explosive-laden drones were downed in the central Cherkasy region southeast of Kyiv.

The western city of Khmelnytskyi, which straddles the Bug river and was home to some 275,000 people before the war, was left with no electricity, shortly after local media reported several loud explosions.

The city council urged local residents to store water, “in case it’s also gone within an hour,” in a social media post on Saturday.

The mayor of Lutsk, a city of 215,000 in Ukraine’s far west, made a similar appeal on Telegram on Saturday. Power in Lutsk had been partially knocked out after Russian missiles slammed into local energy facilities, he said.

The central city of Uman, a key pilgrimage center for Hasidic Jews which counted some 100,000 residents before the war, was also plunged into darkness after a rocket hit a nearby power station, regional authorities said on Telegram.

In the capital and four surrounding regions, including Cherkasy, rolling blackouts came into effect on Saturday morning in response to the reduced power supplies. The state energy company Ukrenergo continued to urge all Ukrainians to conserve energy.

Earlier this week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on consumers to curb their power use between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m. daily, and avoid using energy-guzzling appliances such as electric heaters.

Over the past two weeks, Moscow has increased its attacks on key civilian infrastructure across Ukraine. About 40% of the country’s electric power system has been severely damaged, officials said. Zelenskyy said earlier in the week that 30% of Ukraine’s power stations have been destroyed since Oct. 10.

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Kozlowska reported from London.

U.S. Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin attends a news conference during a NATO Defence Ministers meeting in Brussels, Belgium October 12, 2022. REUTERS/Yves Herman