Biden said, "We have a person whose military is considerably underperforming, so he's not joking when he talks about the probable use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons"

Regarding the war in Ukraine, US President Joe Biden has warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin may use a tactical nuclear bomb. In his most emphatic words to date against the possibility of nuclear war, the US president said it was the closest the world had come to a nuclear catastrophe in sixty years, since the Cuban missile crisis.

Biden said, "We have a person I know very well and his military is considerably underperforming, so he's not joking when he talks about the probable use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons."

After Vladimir Putin ordered his government to assume control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station in Ukraine, the head of the UN nuclear agency travelled to Kyiv to discuss the establishment of a security area around the facility. Rafael Grossi, the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), posted on Twitter that the need for a protection zone surrounding the site was "more essential than ever" while on his way to Kyiv for key talks.

In the upcoming days, Grossi is expected to travel to Moscow to discuss the factory's situation. The plant's six reactors have been shut down for weeks, but the IAEA reported that it has learned of preparations to reactivate one of them.

On the other side, Russian troops are being pressured on both fronts as Ukrainian forces press their offensive in the east and south. According to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine's military has made significant and quick successes against Russian forces over the past week and reclaimed dozens of towns in the south and east that Russia has annexed.

According to military experts, Russia is at its weakest point, in part due to its decision to delay mobilising and in part due to significant losses of personnel and equipment.

According to the military's southern command, Ukraine has expanded its area of control in the Kherson region by 6 to 12 kilometres. In a speech on Wednesday, Zelenskiy declared that the villages of Novovoskresenske, Novohryhorivka and Petropavlivka had been recaptured and that they had been "liberated from the sham referendum and stabilised."

Moscow's forces have left behind destroyed cities that were once occupied, as well as evidence of mass graves and torture facilities in several locations. More than 50 graves were discovered in Lyman, which Ukrainian forces retook on Sunday.

However, the bodies of 534 people, including 19 children, were discovered after Russian troops fled the northeastern Kharkiv region, where Ukrainian forces reclaimed a large area of territory in September, according to the National Police in Kharkiv. In all, 447 bodies were discovered in Izium.