Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards bag up his excrement while he is abroad so it can be brought back Russia, according to a report.

The bizarre claim was first reported in French news magazine Paris Match by two veteran investigative journalists.

According to the report, members of the Russian president’s Federal Protection Service (FPS) are responsible for collecting his bodily waste in specialised packets which are then placed in a dedicated briefcase for the journey home.

Chiara Giordano reports.

Ukrainian forces are running out of ammunition as Russia steps up its intense bombardment, officials said on Saturday amid reports of street-to-street fighting in the town of Sievierodonetsk.

Vitaly Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region on the southern frontline, said Vladimir Putin’s forces were much more powerful and asked for more international help.

“For now, this is a war of artillery … and we are out of ammo,” he said. “The help of Europe and America is very, very important because we just need ammo to defend our country.”

Alastair Jamieson reports.

A relative of one of the Britons sentenced to death for fighting Russian forces has begged the Government to “do everything in their power to have them returned to us safely, and soon”.

But why are Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner being treated as criminals, and what can ministers do to help them?

Ukrainian forces are running out of ammunition as Russia steps up its intense bombardment, officials said on Saturday, amid reports of street-to-street fighting in the town of Sievierodonetsk.

Vitaly Kim, governor of the Mykolaiv region on the southern front line, said Vladimir Putin’s forces were much more powerful, and asked for more international help.

“For now, this is a war of artillery … and we are out of ammo,” he said. “The help of Europe and America is very, very important, because we just need ammo to defend our country.”

Putin has a favour to ask that could be tied to the case of two men jailed in Donetsk, says Kim Sengupta.

Russian shelling of the Azot chemical plant in the embattled Ukraine city of Sievierodonetsk caused a powerful fire to break out after a leak of tonnes of radiator oil, Luhansk governor Serhiy Gaidai said on Saturday.

Speaking on national television, Gaidai did not say if the fire at the plant, where hundreds of civilians are sheltering, had been extinguished. Reuters could not independently verify the report.

Gaidai said was non-stop fighting was underway in Sievierodonetsk, a small city in Luhansk province that has become the focus of Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine.

“Unfortunately, the enemy’s artillery is simply taking apart, floor by floor, buildings that are being used as shelters,” Gaidai said. Russia denies targeting civilians.

Volodymyr Zelensky has addressed student Ukrainian societies across the UK pledging that he would not give up or “concede”. territory to Russia.

Ukraine’s president spoke to student societies at Birmingham University, Coventry, London School of Economics, UCL, City of London, Oxford, Cambridge, and Glasgow and Manchester over video-link and urged them to help rebuild his country once victory was assured.

Moderator Matt Frei, from Channel 4 News, asked President Zelensky whether there was a stage of the invasion where he would need to cede territory to the Russians given the loss of life in the eastern Donbas region.

Russian bombers have likely been launching 1960s-era heavy, anti-ship missiles meant to destroy aircraft carriers with nuclear warheads against land targets in Ukraine, a British military intelligence report said Saturday.

It said the 5.5-ton Kh-22 missiles, when used in ground attacks with conventional warheads, are highly inaccurate and can cause severe collateral damage and casualties.

Russia is likely using such weapons because it is running short of more precise modern missiles, Britain’s Defense Ministry said in a daily update.