LIVE UPDATES: Kiev Regime Plans to Attack Russia Using US Rocket Systems, MoD Warns

There are virtually no contacts between the Kremlin and the US administration now, Russian presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sputnik.

"Now all contacts are next to none," Peskov said when asked whether the Kremlin and the Biden White House are in communication.

More than 18,800 people have been evacuated to Russia over the past 24 hours from dangerous areas of the Donetsk and Lugansk People's Republics (DPR and LPR) and Ukraine, head of the Russian National Defense Control Center, Col. Gen. Mikhail Mizintsev, who also leads Russia's humanitarian response coordination headquarters, said.

"Despite all the difficulties created by the Kiev regime, over the past day, without participation of the Ukrainian authorities, 18,886 people, including 2,663 children, were evacuated to the territory of the Russian Federation from dangerous areas of the Donbas republics and Ukraine," Col. Gen. Mizintsev said at a briefing.

He added that since the start of Russia's special military operation, more than 1.5 million people, including over 250,000 children, have been evacuated to Russia.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) predicts that due to the conflict in Ukraine, about 13-15 million people in the world may get to the verge of starvation this year, Oleg Kobyakov, director of the FAO Office for Liaison with Russia, told Sputnik.

“If we take the statistics of hunger in dynamics, then in 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, 690 million people were starving in the world. The next year, this figure reached 811 million. That is, 120 million crossed the 'red line'... to the state of hunger. This year, according to our forecast, the situation in connection with hostilities in Ukraine will lead another 13-15 million people beyond this line," Kobyakov said.

According to the Russian Defence Ministry, the Kiev regime is planning to attack Russia using the HIMARS rocket systems, which the US has decided to supply to Ukraine. The attack will be launched from the city of Shostka, Sumy region, the MoD warns. The Kiev authorities seek to use Ukrainian and foreign journalists to create fakes, namely photos and videos about "Russians killing civilians", the defence ministry stated. These photos and videos would be picked up by Western media in an instant, the ministry added.

The Defence Ministry also confirmed that Ukrainian nationalists had blown up a tank with nitric acid in Severdonetsk, as they were retreating. A toxic cloud has moved from the site of the explosion to Kremennaya and Rubezhnoye. Numerous civilians have been hurt, the ministry revealed.

"We will continue our dialogue with Russian authorities about the issue of nuclear safety where it is important for our own nuclear preparedness, and to reduce the risk of incidents and nuclear pollution," Strand said, as quoted by the newspaper.

"Like a number of other countries, we expressed our willingness to act as the appropriate negotiating platform should the parties be interested," Kosherbaev said.

Biden has agreed to send the medium-range rocket systems to Ukraine, after refusing to supply Kiev with long-range missile systems that could be used to attack targets in Russia. The Biden administration made the decision, claiming that Volodymyr Zelensky "assured" Ukraine would not use American weapons against Russia. The Kremlin stressed that it had no confidence in Kiev's pledges.

Blinken underscored that the United States will support Ukraine as long as the conflict lasts and ensure that the country has everything it needs to defend itself against Russia.