Russia says seized Ukrainian lands are under its nuclear protection

Russia said on Tuesday that four Ukrainian regions whose annexation it proclaimed last month are under the protection of its nuclear arsenal.
 

The statement from the Kremlin came at a moment of acute tension, with both NATO and Russia expected to hold military exercises shortly to test the readiness of their nuclear weapons forces.
 

Asked by reporters if the regions were under Moscow’s nuclear umbrella, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “All these territories are inalienable parts of the Russian Federation and they are all protected. Their security is provided for at the same level as [it is for] the rest of Russia’s territory.”
 

President Vladimir Putin said last month that Moscow was ready to use nuclear weapons if necessary to defend Russia’s “territorial integrity”. US President Joe Biden said on October 6 that his threat had brought the world closer to “Armageddon” than at any time since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when many feared a nuclear war might be imminent.
 

Nearly eight months into his invasion of Ukraine, some analysts believe the likelihood of Putin resorting to nuclear weapons has increased since his army suffered a series of major defeats. Other analysts have argued the nuclear risk is overstated, suggesting it would be suicidal for Putin to embark on such an escalation.
 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is conducting nuclear preparedness exercises this week and has said it expects Russia to hold its own nuclear drills imminently, but Peskov said he had no information on that.
 

Russia has lost ground in the four regions even since it claimed control over them in a lavish Kremlin ceremony on September 30. Peskov said work was still under way to integrate them into Russia’s legal, economic and security systems.
 

Meanwhile, Danish officials on Tuesday confirmed that there has been “extensive damage” to the Nord Stream 1 and 2 gas pipelines in the Baltic Sea off Denmark and that the cause of the damage was “powerful explosions.” 
 

In a statement, the Copenhagen Police said it had carried out a number of preliminary investigations of what it called “the crime scenes,” with assistance from Denmark's Armed Forces and in collaboration with, among others, the Danish security and intelligence agency.
 

Ukraine said Russia had destroyed almost a third of its power stations over the past week, a move the West says is a calculated attempt to disrupt and demoralise. It said it shot down 38 of the 43 drones that Russia used to launch strikes on Monday, accusing Moscow of using Iranian-made devices to hit civilian targets. 
 

In other developments surrounding the war, Iran has promised to provide Russia with surface to surface missiles, in addition to more drones, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told Reuters.  And Germany's national cybersecurity agency has been dismissed following reports of possible ties to Russian intelligence, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday.