KYIV: On Friday, the US announced new military aid for Ukraine and vowed to disrupt Russian ties with Iran, which a British envoy said involved Moscow seeking hundreds of ballistic missiles in exchange for unprecedented military support.

Both Tehran and Moscow have denied Western accusations that Russia is using Iranian drones to attack targets in Ukraine, where Ukrainian officials warned on Friday of a winter-long power outage due to repeated Russian attacks on the country's energy infrastructure.

In October, two senior Iranian officials and two Iranian diplomats told that Iran had promised to supply Russia with surface-to-surface missiles as well as additional drones.

According to White House national security spokesman John Kirby Washington was concerned about Iran and Russia's "deepening and burgeoning defense partnership" and would work to disrupt it, including through the use of drones.

The Iranian and Russian UN missions did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Russian President Vladimir Putin previously stated that Moscow would most likely reach an agreement over Ukraine one day, but that Russia's near-total loss of trust in the West would make an eventual settlement, which he did not elaborate on, much more difficult to achieve.

Russia has repressed dissent since its February invasion of Ukraine, and a Moscow court sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison on charges of spreading "false information" about the army.

Yashin had discussed in a YouTube video evidence uncovered by Western journalists of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow denies any involvement in war crimes. Yashin urged supporters to continue opposing the war in a post on his Telegram channel.

According to the governor of the Donetsk region, which is partially occupied by Russia, the entire front line in Ukraine's east is being shelled.

According to the governor, five civilians were killed and two were injured in Ukrainian-controlled areas.

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said that despite enormous difficulties, Ukrainian forces were holding their ground in the Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, but that Russian forces had reduced the town of Bakhmut to ruins.

Putin had previously accused the West of "exploiting" Ukraine and using its people as "cannon fodder" in a conflict with Russia, and he claimed that the West's desire to maintain global dominance was increasing risks.

"They deliberately multiply chaos and aggravate the international situation," Putin said in a video message to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and a group of ex-Soviet states' defence ministers.

He later specifically criticized France and Germany, which in 2014 and 2015 brokered ceasefire accords between Kyiv and Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, saying they had betrayed Moscow by supplying Ukraine with weapons.

"The issue of trust arises. And, of course, trust is almost non-existent... Nonetheless, in the end, we must reach an agreement. I have stated numerous times that we are prepared for these agreements "Putin stated.

On Friday, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin chastised Putin and expressed concern about Russia's growing nuclear arsenal. His remarks came just hours after Putin threatened to wipe out any country that dared to attack Russia with nuclear weapons.

"As the Kremlin continues its cruel and unprovoked war of choice against Ukraine, the whole world has seen Putin engage in deeply irresponsible nuclear sabre-rattling," Austin said, speaking at U.S. Strategic Command, which oversees America's nuclear forces.

Yet in a reminder that, despite the hostilities, Russia maintains lines of communication with the West, Moscow on Thursday freed U.S. basketball player Brittney Griner in return for the release of Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

A plane carrying Griner landed in the United States early on Friday, nearly 10 months after she was detained in Russia on drug charges, while television images showed Bout being hugged by his mother and wife after landing in Moscow.

Putin said further prisoner swaps were possible and the White House said it would work to gain the release of Paul Whelan, a U.S. Marine Corps veteran convicted of espionage in 2020 in a trial that U.S. diplomats said was unfair and opaque.

Separately, Russian and U.S. diplomats met in Istanbul on Friday to discuss a number of technical issues in their vexed relationship, both sides confirmed, though the Ukraine war was not part of those talks.