Ms Fox denied he was a mercenary and said he had no interest in fighting war. “He is so non-military,” she told Reuters. “He never had a gun, owned a gun, done any of that...He’s more of a pacifist.”

“Several enemy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) are over and near the capital,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram, urging people to take cover. Witnesses heard numerous blasts in Kyiv in what sounded like air defence systems in operation and saw objects being hit in the air.

Zelensky added: "He loves his life and his way of life and how he is managing the life of others, I can tell—he has to be afraid to use nuclear weapons." Since the start of the