Russia-Ukraine War Live Updates: Putin says civilians 'need to be removed' from Kherson

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Friday that civilians should be taken out of Moscow-occupied Kherson in southern Ukraine, from where Russian forces have been leading evacuations since mid-October as Kyiv's forces advance.

Group of Seven foreign ministers agreed on the need for a coordination mechanism to help Ukraine repair, restore and defend its critical energy and water infrastructure, a senior State Department official said on Friday. "That's something that will be a core focus of this group in the days and weeks ahead," the official, briefing reporters on the condition of anonymity, said.

In a much-scrutinised meeting Friday with visiting German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Chinese President Xi Jinping called for peace talks between Russia and Ukraine and warned against the conflict going nuclear. The German leader is in Beijing for a one-day visit that has drawn criticism over China's tacit support for Russia, lingering controversies over economic ties and human rights issues.

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said on Friday that he had agreed with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin that grains sent under the Black Sea export deal should go to poor African countries for free. Erdogan made the comment in a speech in Istanbul after Moscow resumed on Wednesday its participation in the U.N.-brokered grain deal.

With all the high-level talk from Moscow, Washington and Kyiv about atomic threats, Ukrainians' conversations these days are studded with phrases like “strategic and tactical nuclear weapons,” “ potassium iodide pills,” “radiation masks,” “plastic raincoats,” and “hermetically sealed food.” Bondarenko said he started making nuclear survival plans when Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant — the largest in Europe — was affected by Russian attacks.

The nuclear fears trigger painful memories from those who lived through the Chernobyl disaster, when one of four reactors exploded and burned about 100 kilometers (60 miles) north of Kyiv, releasing a plume of radiation. Soviet authorities initially kept the accident secret, and while the town near the plant was evacuated, Kyiv was not.

Over dinner tables and in bars, people often discuss which city would be the most likely target or what type of weapon could be used. Many, like Bondarenko, are stocking up on supplies and making survival plans. Nobody wants to believe it can happen, but it seems to be on the mind of many in Ukraine, which saw the world's worst nuclear accident at Chernobyl in 1986.

Ukrainians no longer ask if their country will be hit by Russia with nuclear weapons.

Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said Russia had different weapons, including the ability to "send all our enemies to fiery Gehenna", using a Hebrew term often translated as Hell. Since the war began, Medvedev's rhetoric has become increasingly fierce though his published views sometimes chime with thinking at the top levels of the Kremlin elite. Satan's weapons, Medvedev said, were "intricate lies. And our weapon is the truth. That is why our cause is right. That is why victory will be ours! Happy Holidays!"

Ukraine and the West have repeatedly dismissed President Vladimir Putin's assertions that Ukraine is run by fascists who have persecuted Russian speakers. Instead, they cast the war as a brutal land grab by Moscow.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Friday cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, warning that Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands and triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the Cold War superpowers came closest to nuclear war.

The Ukrainian government has appointed Oleksiy Chernyshov as chief executive of state energy company Naftogaz, it said in an order. The appointment is effective as of Nov. 4.

"Such confrontational actions by the British pose the threat of an escalation and can lead to unpredictable and dangerous consequences," tweeted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia.

British Ambassador to Russia, Deborah Bronnert was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry on November 3 to lodge a protest over the UK's involvement in a "terrorist attack" against the Black Sea Fleet in the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

For North Korea's part, relations with Russia haven't always been as warm as they were during the heady days of the Soviet Union, but now the country is reaping clear benefits from Moscow's need for friends.

The United States said this week it has information indicating North Korea is covertly supplying Russia with a "significant" number of artillery shells, in what would be a further sign of deepening ties between the two pariah states.

Russian central bank denies that its systems were hacked (1 p.m.) Bank of Russia said it had found no evidence that its systems had been hacked, pushing back on a claim made on Telegram by Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine's deputy prime minister for digital transformation. "We checked the archive published by the hackers. All these documents were on the Internet in the public domain," the central bank's press service said in a statement. "No information systems of the Bank of Russia were hacked." Fedorov said earlier that Ukrainian cyberwarfare volunteers hacked into the central bank's internal networks, and posted a link to what he said were 27,000 files obtained by the so-called IT Army of Ukraine.