Russia-Ukraine updates: Putin suspends key US-Russia nuclear treaty in speech denouncing West

Photos show Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on a visit to newly freed Ukrainian territories in the east.

Hand on heart, Zelenskyy watched Ukraine's flag rise above the recaptured city of Izium. Zelensky looked on and sang the national anthem.

"The view is very shocking, but it is not shocking for me," Zelenskyy told journalists while standing on a pile of rubble. "We began to see the same pictures from Bucha, from the first de-occupied territories, the same destroyed buildings, killed people."

The Ukrainian Armed forces said Tuesday that it liberated more than 300 settlements, freeing around 150,000 people in recent days.

Ukrainian engineers have made further progress in repairing vital power infrastructure in the vicinity of the Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it was informed Tuesday.

The engineers are providing the plant with renewed access to a third back-up power line. This means all three back-up power lines to the power plant have been restored, according to the IAEA.

But, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano still warned that safety at the plant remains precarious as it is under the control of Russian forces, but operated by a Ukrainian staff.

While there has been no shelling at or near Zaporizhzhya in recent days, it was still occurring in the wider area, Mariano said.

Zaporizhzhya's four main external power lines are all down and it is not currently providing electricity to households, factories and others.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky

The Ukrainian Armed Forces said Tuesday that it liberated more than 300 settlements in Kharkiv Oblast.

Ukrainian soldiers have de-occupied 3,800 square kilometers since Sept. 6, according to Deputy Ukrainian Defense Minister Hanna Malyar.

According to Malyar, the Russian forces deprived local residents of any communication. They allegedly told residents Ukraine no longer exists, that the country already had a different president, and that Ukraine will not come for them.

Roughly 150,000 people have been freed from Russian control in recent days, according to Malyar.

About 1.1 to 1.2 million people are still living in areas occupied by Russian forces. Of those people, 300,000 are in Donetsk, 500,000 are in Kherson, and 350,000 are in Zaporizhzhia oblast, according to Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk.

-ABC News' Will Gretsky

Russian troops have been surrendering en masse — even escaping the Luhansk region in stolen cars and bicycles, with some replacing their uniforms with stolen civilian clothes, according to a spokesperson for Ukrainian military intelligence.

"They understand the hopelessness of their situation," the spokesperson said.

More than 20 towns and villages have been freed in 24 hours as the Russian military and its local collaborators flee, the spokesperson said.

Russian troops are allegedly making attempts to contact Ukrainian officers in an effort to independently negotiate the surrender of their units, as long as they get assurance of being treated according to the Geneva Conventions, according to the Ukrainian military spokesperson.

So many have surrendered that the country is running out of space to accommodate Russian prisoners of war, a Ukrainian presidential adviser said on Monday.

-ABC News' Tomek Rolski