Russia-Ukraine live updates: Russia ‘more isolated’ than ever, Biden says, as strikes intensify across Ukraine

As more and more people are injured or killed in Russia’s war against Ukraine, Moscow faces mounting allegations that it has used cluster and vacuum weapons, which can put civilians at increased risk, particularly when used in urban areas.

International rights groups reported that cluster munitions apparently fired by Russia appeared to have hit a preschool in northeastern Ukraine and an area near a hospital in the Kyiv-controlled part of the eastern Donetsk region last week, killing several civilians.

Russian forces, according to Ukraine and rights groups, also used cluster munitions in strikes on Kharkiv, the country’s second-largest city and the center of intense fighting between Ukrainian and Russian forces in recent days.

Videos shared on social media show Russian launchers for thermobaric weapons, often called “vacuum” weapons, rolling down Ukrainian streets. A CNN team reported seeing a Russian thermobaric rocket launcher south of Belgorod, Russia, near the Ukrainian border, on Saturday. And Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, accused Russia of using “vacuum bombs” in its invasion.

It remains unclear whether Russia’s use of the weapons so far would constitute war crimes, since that would depend on a legal question over the extent to which Russian forces minimized risk to civilians.

A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the Biden administration, said Tuesday that Russia has launcher systems in Ukraine “that could be used for a thermobaric weapon” but that U.S. officials could not confirm the presence or use of such weapons themselves in Ukraine.

The Kremlin denied that the Russian military used cluster or vacuum munitions during the invasion.

Here’s what to know about the weapons, their legality and the threat they pose to civilians.

The early days of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have shown that the Kremlin’s plans for its military campaign were flawed at best. Its assumptions about what comes after may be equally unsound.

Minutes after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced his military campaign against Ukraine, the political theater to usher in a puppet leadership appeared to get underway.

On his Telegram channel, an exiled former Ukrainian parliamentarian allied with Russia announced he had returned to Ukraine and began positioning himself as a leader who could sweep in and replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“Friends! As I promised you, we’re taking action! The operation to denazify Ukraine has started,” Oleg Tsaryov wrote on the messaging service. “I’m in Ukraine. Kyiv will be free from fascists!”

After more than a day of fighting, Tsaryov promised his followers, “We’re already close.”

But two days later, as the Russian military faced unexpectedly fierce resistance, Tsaryov was addressing his messages to those who “for some reason have begun to lose heart,” promising that “everything has just begun.”

If the Kremlin believes ushering in someone like Tsaryov — seen as a traitor by a huge swath of Ukrainians — will provide an easy path to indirect rule of the country, or big parts of it, Moscow may be underestimating the difficulty of securing a nation with foreign-imposed regime change, according to scholars who have studied such scenarios.