LIVE UPDATES: Gas Pipeline, School, Three Houses Damaged in Ukrainian Shelling Of LPR, Lugansk Says

Earlier in the month, the mobile town and the necessary equipment were delivered by rescuers of the Don rescue center of the ministry to the Bezimenne village in Donetsk region.

The statement added that the fighter jets took off at 15:58 GMT and escorted the civilian plane until it left the national airspace at 16:24 GMT.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will speak via video link at an extraordinary NATO summit, which will be held on March 24 in Brussels, UNIAN reported citing Zelensky's spokesman Serhiy Nikiforov.

US President Joe Biden is expected to announce this week new US sanctions against more than 300 members of the Russian State Duma over Moscow's special military operation in Ukraine, The Wall Street Journal reported citing American officials.

The report said the Biden administration could announce the sanctions as soon as Thursday when Biden will meet with NATO leaders to discuss the situation in Ukraine.

Earlier in the day, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said Biden will announce new sanctions against Russia while in Brussels to meet with NATO and European partners.

Russia would only use nuclear weapons if it determined the existence of the nation was threatened, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told CNN.

"We have a concept of domestic security, it's public, you can read all the reasons for [Russia's] nuclear arms to be used," Peskov said during an interview. "If it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept."

At the same time, the ambassador mentioned that the US sees signs from Russia that diplomatic ties may be severed.

The spokesman also said that the military of the Donetsk People’s Republic saized the Verkhnetoretskoye settlement, destroyed two tanks and five infantry fighting vehicles.

The Turkish Defence Ministry is taking necessary measures over reports about mines that may be drifting in the Black Sea, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday.

"In connection with this issue, first of all, our defence ministry is taking all necessary measures. Do not worry," Erdogan said.

The Belarusian State Security Committee (KGB) has eliminated a Ukrainian spy network that worked under the diplomatic cover, the state-run Belta news agency reported on Tuesday.

According to Belta, the KGB said that it saw signs of espionage in actions of several Ukrainian diplomas, adding that actions were taken to counter intelligence activities.

The United States tests the deconfliction line with Russia daily and always gets a response, a senior Defense Department official said on Tuesday.

"We test it every day and the Russians are picking up. So, that’s a good thing. There hasn’t been any content delivery over the deconfliction line because there hasn’t been any need to have that conversation with the Russians. There hasn’t been any potential conflicts in NATO airspace or ground space." the official said.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin is not ruling out the possibility of placing more US forces on NATO’s eastern flank to counter Russia, a senior Defence Department official said on Tuesday.

"I have nothing to speak to with respect to additional troops rotating… [Austin] is not taking that off the table, the possibility that we could possibly deploy additional US forces to the eastern flank," the official said.

The UN Security Council will discuss an ammonia leak incident in Ukraine's Sumy on Tuesday, Russia's mission to the United Nations said.

"Today, during consultations ... the Security Council will discuss the situation with chemical incidents in Ukraine," the mission said.

Earlier in the day, Dmitry Zhivitsky, the head of the Sumy regional administration, said that an ammonia leak had been detected at a local chemical facility. The Russian Defence Ministry said that the leak was the result of a provocation by Ukrainian nationalists.

The Ukraine conflict will have a "quite limited" effect on the global economy, International Monetary Fund First Deputy Managing Director Gita Gopinath said.

"I think effect on the rest of the world would be quite limited," Gopinath said during a virtual conversation.

The US Defence Department maintains many ways to communicate US concerns directly to the Russian leadership separate from the new deconfliction line established to prevent a conflict with NATO over Moscow's special operation in Ukraine, a senior Defence Department official said on Tuesday.

"It’s not meant to be an all-purpose complaint line, where we can just pick up the phone and register concerns about what Russia is doing in Ukraine… We have many ways of communicating directly with Russian leaders as we need to," the official said.