Vladimir Putin has been accused of war crimes after allegedly using devastating vacuum bombs and cluster munitions during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Also known as thermobaric weapons, vacuum bombs suck in oxygen from the surrounding air to create a more powerful high-temperature explosion capable of vaporising human bodies.

Oksana Markarova, Ukraine’s ambassador to the United States, told reporters after meeting with White House lawmakers on Monday that they have been deployed during the ongoing incursion.

She said: ‘They used the vacuum bomb today. The devastation that Russia is trying to inflict on Ukraine is large.’

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What is a thermobaric weapon?

Dubbed the ‘father of all bombs’, they draw in oxygen from the surrounding air to generate a high-temperature explosion.

The so-called vacuum bombs are much deadlier than conventional weapons, capable of vaporising human bodies, crushing internal organs and reducing cities to rubble.

The US dropped a thermobaric bombs on the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2017. It weighed 21,600 pounds and left a crater more than 300 metres wide after it exploded six feet above the ground.

In a study, the CIA states that vacuum bombs can ‘obliterate’ anybody ‘near the ignition point’.

The US intelligence agency adds: ‘Those at the fringe are likely to suffer many internal, thus invisible injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possibly blindness.’

Western officials have voiced concerns that Russia may resort to using them against Ukrainians if their fierce resistance continues to slow their advance.

Reports claim TOS-1 rocket launchers capable of firing thermobaric weapons have been spotted among Russian troops.

One Western official said their presence is a cause for ‘considerable concern’, the Independent reports.

The official added: ‘Certainly, if it is used in any built-up area, there is no way you can eradicate the risk of significant civilian casualties.’

There has been no official confirmation that thermobaric weapons have been used in the conflict in Ukraine and Ms Markarova did not reveal where the bomb she referred to was used.

White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said she had also seen reports of them being unleashed, adding: ‘If that were true, it would potentially be a war crime.’

Pavel Kuzmenko, the mayor of Akhtyrka, a small city northwest of Kharkhiv, claimed a vacuum bomb had been dropped on an oil depot there.

He said: ‘A vacuum bomb has been dropped on an oil storage depot, containers with oil have been torn off. The enemy vilely uses vacuum bombs banned by the Geneva Convention.’

Russia has also been accused of using cluster bombs to ‘indiscriminately’ target innocent civilians.

Amnesty International has condemned their reported use in Ukraine, saying an attack on a pre-school ‘may constitute a war crime’.

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The human rights charity said ‘a 220mm Uragan rocket dropped cluster munitions on the Sonechko nursery and kindergarten in the town of Okhtyrka in Sumy Oblast’ on Friday.

Amnesty said three people were killed in the attack, including a child, while another child was wounded.

Cluster munitions scatter or release smaller munitions or bomblets over a wide area, increasing the potential for casualties and damage.

More than 100 countries have committed never to use the weapons under the Convention on Cluster Munitions, including the UK – but neither Russia nor Ukraine have signed the agreement.

Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International, said: ‘It is stomach-turning to see an indiscriminate attack on a nursery and kindergarten where civilians are seeking safe haven.

‘Plain and simple, this should be investigated as a war crime.’

Human Rights Watch said it has also identified examples of cluster munition use.

On Friday, it said a cluster bomb had been used the day before by the Russian military in the town of Vuhledar. Four civilians were killed in the attack, the organisation said.

Bellingcat, a website specialising in investigations and verification, said on Sunday that it had located multiple sites in Ukraine where cluster munitions had been used.

It outlined two, at a pre-school in the city of Okhtyrka, and in Kharkiv, where it had verified social media reports of cluster munition attacks.

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Bellingcat said: ‘Open source evidence from Ukraine appears to suggest that the cluster munitions… are not being carefully targeted. Instead, we have identified multiple examples that have impacted civilians, schools and hospitals.

‘As the fighting begins to move further into urban areas, there is a danger there could be significantly more examples of such usage of cluster munitions.’

Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, said he plans to open an investigation ‘as rapidly as possible’ into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity in Ukraine.

It comes as Boris Johnson flies to Nato’s border with Russia today, pledging that Mr Putin will ‘feel the consequences’ for invading Ukraine.

The Prime Minister will meet counterparts in Poland and Estonia and visit British troops as he pushes for Western unity in punishing the Russian president for starting a conflict that has taken ‘hundreds’ of lives in only five days.

Prior to his trip to Eastern Europe, the Prime Minister urged allies to ‘speak with one voice’ to ensure ‘Putin must fail’.

Foreign Secretary Liz Truss is also embarking on a diplomatic mission as she prepares to address the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva.

The Cabinet minister is expected to tell the council that Mr Putin has ‘blood on his hands’ and that he has been ‘murdering Ukrainians indiscriminately’.

The comments are due to be made only 24 hours after Moscow suggested it had put the Russian nuclear deterrent on high alert in response to unspecified comments made by Ms Truss.

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