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Air raid alerts were in place across large parts of Ukraine during the attack early on Tuesday, the country's official air aid map showed, including the Donetsk, Luhansk and Kharkiv regions in the east.

Air raid alerts were in place in the capital, as well as the cities of Kharkiv, Sumy and Luhansk.

Mr Jenkins, a teacher from Melbourne, was captured last December in the Luhansk region.

Just before launching a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin recognised all of Luhansk and Donetsk as independent of Ukraine.

But Russia has on more than one occasion demanded control of the full regions of Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk, Donetsk and Kherson as part of any peace deal.