Explosions have been reported in three areas of Russia, including one in Moscow and another close to the headquarters of Russia's southern military district command in Rostov.

The RIA news agency reported the suspected attacks on Thursday morning and said the third blast occured in the Bryansk region - although all of the drones were shot down.

Russia's defence ministry blamed the overnight attacks on Ukraine, although Kyiv never takes credit for any strikes on its neighbour.

One drone was said to have targeted Moscow, according to city mayor Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, but was shot down south-east of the city without causing any damage.

Two more drones were shot down over the southern region of Rostov, which borders Ukraine, regional governor Vasily Golubev said, with debris causing damage to vehicles and buildings but only one person was injured.

In Bryansk, governor Alexander Bogomaz reported that drones were shot down but again it was cars and buildings damaged from falling debris.

Russians are set to finish voting on Sunday in regional and local elections that are likely to be interpreted by authorities as a vote of confidence in president Vladimir Putin.

The tightly controlled votes will elect governors in 21 regions, including including Moscow’s powerful mayor, and will come before the next presidential election in March.

Russian-installed authorities in the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, which Moscow unilaterally declared its territory last September, are also holding polls - which Kyiv and its allies have condemned.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was “difficult to overstate the importance” of the round of elections.

UK sanctions have been announced against 11 members of a Russian cybercrime gang behind the hacking of hospitals during the coronavirus pandemic.

Britain and the United States acted together to slap the Russian nationals with asset freezes and travel bans, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office said on Thursday.

The so-called TrickBot Group is accused of infecting millions of computers worldwide with malware that targeted hospitals, schools, local authorities and businesses.

At least £27million was extorted from UK victims by the group, and 180 million US dollars (£144 million) globally, according to the National Crime Agency.

Foreign secretary James Cleverly said that by revealing the identities of those sanctioned, who hid behind online pseudonyms, further ransomware attacks will be disrupted.

Ukraine‘s anti-corruption agency is treating tycoon Ihor Kolomoisky as a suspect in a criminal investigation into embezzlement at lender PrivatBank, it has been reported.

According to Reuters, the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) said in a statement that six people were suspected of embezzling 9.2 billion hryvnias (£200 million) from the bank. It did not name them, but posted a blurred photo of a man resembling Mr Kolomoisky.

“Well there we go: NABU has informed Kolomoisky of a note of suspicion,” said Yaroslav Zheleznyak, the lawmaker, citing the statement.

Reuters could not immediately reach the businessman, one of Ukraine‘s richest men, or his lawyers for comment.

Russia attacked the Ukrainian port city of Izmail for the fourth time in five days, Ukrainian officials have said.

The affront is considered to be part of a sustained campaign to target Ukraine‘s ability to export grain.

The Danube River port area was attacked with Shahed drones aiming at civilian and port infrastructure, the governor of the Odesa region, Oleh Kiper said. A truck driver was wounded and grain silos were damaged, he said.

Ukrainian war crimes prosecutors inspected the wreckage at the scene close to port infrastructure on Thursday, according to a statement from the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office.

The Ukrainian military said it shot down 25 out of 33 drones launched by Russia overnight, most of them at the Odesa region, Ukraine‘s agriculture export hub, as well as the northern Sumy region.

Russia has escalated attacks on Ukraine‘s grain export infrastructure since mid-July, when it exited a UN-backed deal that had allowed for the safe shipping of Ukrainian grain during the war.

One of Vladimir Putin’s commanders used two military helicopters to transport his pet cat during the war in Ukraine, a defected Russian pilot has claimed.

The cat was airlifted in the military-grade helicopter for around one hour, while another flew alongside it to provide cover during the 114-mile journey, according to former Russian airman Maksim Kuzminov.

Romania did not face any direct threat to its territory or territorial waters from Russian attacks on Ukraine on Wednesday night, the Romanian defence ministry said in a statement on Thursday.

Ukraine’s offensive against Russian forces is making slow progress, and there may not be a major breakthrough of Russian lines in the next two months as had previously been envisaged, according to Western officials.

However, “focusing on such tactical issues” is counterproductive and there is a need to look at the bigger picture, the officials said, adding that this shows that Vladimir Putin is losing the war, as Ukraine has retaken a sizeable amount of territory overall since Russia’s invasion began.

Nato’s secretary general Jens Stoltenberg confirmed that Ukraine is making progress in its efforts to regain territory that began in June, contradicting Mr Putin’s claims this week that the counteroffensive “has failed, not stalled”.

Our world affairs editor Kim Sengupta reports:

Russia‘s FSB state security service said on Thursday it has detained a group of smugglers trading in military aircraft parts, some of which had ended up in Ukraine, TASS news agency reported.

The smugglers were from Ukraine and a Central Asian country, TASS cited the FSB as saying.

The use of depleted uranium munitions is fiercely debated; the International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons says ingesting or inhaling even depleted uranium dust can cause cancers and birth defects.

But a United Nations Environment Programme report on the impact of depleted uranium on Serbia and Montenegro, in then- Yugoslavia, found “no significant, widespread contamination”.

The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says that studies in former Yugoslavia, Kuwait, Iraq and Lebanon “indicated that the existence of depleted uranium residues dispersed in the environment does not pose a radiological hazard to the population of the affected regions”.

Some Serbian politicians have disputed this and reported an increased incidence of malignancies, and deaths from them.

Britain’s Royal Society said in a report in 2002 that the risks to the kidney and other organs from the use of depleted uranium munitions were very low, both for most soldiers in the field and for those living in the conflict area.

Britain says in its guidance that inhaling enough depleted uranium dust to cause injury would be difficult.