Footage shows abandoned tanks and destruction in recaptured Lyman, Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin's humiliated troops have fled a major battleground in Ukraine as the tyrant's Chechen warlord said Russia should unleash nukes to retaliate.

After being encircled by fierce Ukrainian forces, Russia pulled its struggling soldiers out of the eastern city of Lyman in a huge embarrassment for Moscow.

Russia admitted its troops had abandoned their bastion of Lyman to avoid being encircled by Ukraine's army.

Ukraine also claimed that Russian forces have withdrawn after an assault near Bakhmut and Saitseve in Donetsk and are now forcibly mobilising residents in Melitopol and Berdyansk.

"Allied forces were withdrawn from the settlement of... Lyman to more advantageous lines because of the creation of the threat of encirclement," Russia's Ministry of Defence said.

After the major new defeat, Ramzan Kadyrov, head of Russia's Chechen region, said Moscow should now consider using a low-yield nuclear weapon in Ukraine.

In a chilling message, he wrote: "In my personal opinion, more drastic measures should be taken, right up to the declaration of martial law in the border areas and the use of low-yield nuclear weapons."

Russia has the world's largest atomic arsenal - including low-yield tactical nuclear weapons designed to be deployed against opposing armies.

Other top Putin allies, including former president Dmitry Medvedev, have suggested Russia may need to resort to nuclear weapons - but Kadyrov's call was the most urgent and explicit.

It comes after hours of silence from Moscow after Kyiv said it had surrounded thousands of Russian troops in Lyman and its forces were inside the city.

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www.thesun.co.uk/news/19976993/putin-humiliated-troops-flee-occupied-city-nuke-warning/

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