An ally of President Vladimir Putin sent a strong new nuclear threat to Ukraine and the West on Tuesday. This cone as the fifth and final day of referendums that Russia said were a prelude to its taking over four Ukrainian regions.
ENERGY
*As European countries rushed to investigate, the Kremlin did not rule out the possibility that sabotage was behind two Russian natural gas pipelines that run under the Baltic Sea near Sweden and Denmark.
REFERENDUMS
Ukrainians who help Russian-backed referendums take over large parts of the country will be charged with treason and given at least five years in prison, said an adviser to the president of Ukraine as voting ended in four regions.
*The British Ministry of Defense said on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is likely to say that occupied parts of Ukraine will join the Russian Federation during his speech to parliament on September 30.
NUCLEAR THREAT
Putin ally Dmitry Medvedev said that the U.S.-led military alliance would not get involved in the conflict in Ukraine if Moscow fired a nuclear weapon there, because they were afraid of a nuclear apocalypse. It was Moscow’s latest warning of this kind as it gets ready to take over part of Ukraine.
Related: What you need to know about Ukraine and Russia right now
Presidential adviser Mikhailo Podolyak told the Swiss Blick newspaper that the use of nuclear weapons is now a question of global security. He said that this is no longer just about Ukraine.
Employees of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhya nuclear power station in southern Ukraine are trying to leave, Ukraine’s general staff said, without saying how many or giving any more details.
FIGHTING
* Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday night that the military situation in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine was hard and that it was the country’s “No. 1 goal” because it was also Russia’s “No. 1 goal.”
* The Ukraine also said that fighting was very bad in Kherson, which is in the south and where it is trying to cut off Russian forces that are occupying the area.
There was no way to check the reports from the battlefield.
Kazakhstan is having trouble taking in tens of thousands of Russians who have fled their country since Moscow announced a military mobilisation last week, officials say, but the Almaty government has no plans to close its border.
Related: Ukraine and Russia are at odds. As Moscow intensifies its demands, Ukraine mobilises its reserves.
Thousands of Russians have fled to Mongolia to avoid being sent to fight in Ukraine. This makes it harder for the government in Ulaanbaatar to stay out of the conflict.
QUOTE
“We would fight for Russia if other countries attacked it. Why do we want to go to Ukraine? What for?” In Mongolia, a young Russian man who said his name was Aleksey said
