Fighting Grows Heavier Near Bakhmut As Russia Launches Nuclear Drills

Russia’s strategic forces carried out drills, including a test launch of a ballistic missile from a submarine, further stoking concerns that a nuclear weapon could be deployed in the Ukraine war.

Russian President Vladimir Putin surveyed the drills carried out by his nuclear-capable forces as Moscow persisted in claiming, without offering evidence, that Kyiv was developing a “dirty bomb.”

On Monday the Russian foreign ministry posted photographs of ostensible nuclear materials on social media it said depicted “Ukraine’s capacities to create the ‘dirty bomb.’”

But on Wednesday Slovenia said the photo came from its own nuclear waste management agency and dated to 2010.

According to Dragan Barbutovski, an advisor of Slovenian Prime Minister Robert Golob, it depicted smoke detectors.