Dutch brewer Heineken, Danish beer-maker Carlsberg, and Universal Music Group are some of the latest Western firms to halt operations in Russia over Moscow's war in Ukraine.

On Thursday, Japanese gaming giants PlayStation and Nintendo announced they would suspend shipments to Russia too, joining the hundreds of multinationals who have taken action. 

Motor racing driver Nikita Mazepin, sacked by the Haas Formula One team after Russia's invasion of Ukraine, on Wednesday was added to the list of Russians sanctioned by the European Union.

His father, oligarch Dmitry Mazepin, the owner and chief executive of chemical giant Uralchem, was also sanctioned.

Dmitry Mazepin "is engaged in activities in

Power has been cut to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, Ukraine said Wednesday, but the UN's atomic watchdog said there was "no critical impact on safety."

The news from the site of the world's worst nuclear disaster came as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said data transmission was also lost at the Zaporizhzhia atomic plant, Europe's

The United States on Wednesday rejected Russian claims that it supports a bioweapons program in Ukraine, saying the allegations were a sign that Moscow could soon use the weapons themselves.

"The Kremlin is intentionally spreading outright lies that the United States and Ukraine are conducting chemical and biological weapons activities in Ukraine,"