As Vladimir Putin calls for Russians in Kherson to evacuate, former president Dmitry Medvedev paints conflict with Ukraine as a bid to banish Satan

Former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev has cast Russia's war in Ukraine as a sacred conflict with Satan, and said Moscow could send all its enemies to the eternal fires of Gehenna.

Key points:

• Former president Dimitry Medvedev's rhetoric has become increasingly fierce since the war began
• Vladimir Putin says civilians in Kherson "should not suffer" as Russian officials say they'll soon give up parts of the city 
• German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has asked China to step in and ask Russia for peace 

His comments came as current President Vladimir Putin called for civilians in Ukraine's Kherson region to evacuate, his first acknowledgement of a deteriorating situation in a region Russia illegally annexed.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine has killed tens of thousands and triggered the biggest confrontation with the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis when the Cold War superpowers came closest to nuclear war.

Mr Medvedev, who once cast himself as a liberal moderniser as president from 2008 to 2012, said Moscow was fighting "crazy Nazi drug addicts" in Ukraine backed by westerners who he said had "saliva running down their chins from degeneracy".

The Nazi line is one that Mr Putin has repeatedly used throughout the conflict without proof and Ukraine and the West have repeatedly dismissed his assertions that Ukraine is run by fascists who have persecuted Russian speakers.

Instead, they cast the war as a brutal land grab by Moscow.

In a message marking Russia's Day of National Unity, Mr Medvedev said the task of the fatherland was to "stop the supreme ruler of Hell, whatever name he uses — Satan, Lucifer or Iblis".

Mr Medvedev, now deputy chairman of Russia's Security Council, said Russia had different weapons, including the ability to "send all our enemies to fiery Gehenna", using a Hebrew term often translated as Hell.

Satan's weapons, Mr Medvedev said, were "intricate lies ... and our weapon is the truth, that is why our cause is right. That is why victory will be ours."

Putin wants people to leave Kherson

Mr Putin has now called for civilians in Kherson to be evacuated from the conflict zone, telling pro-Kremlin activists on Russia's Day of National Unity that residents should be removed from "the zone of the most dangerous actions".

"Now, of course, those living in Kherson should be removed from the zone where the most dangerous actions because the civilian population should not suffer from the shelling, from the offensives, counter-offensives or any other actions connected to the military activities," he said

His remark, which came unprompted after one activist told the Russian president on Red Square about his work delivering Russian flags to Kherson, was shown on state television and reported by state news agency RIA.