Russian supermodel Irina Shayk has been accused of supporting Russia’s war in Ukraine after she posed on the cover of an American fashion magazine with blood-red hands, the colours of Russia’s flag on her face and a giant ‘V’ symbol.

The ‘V’ is one of the symbols, as well as the letters ‘Z’ and ‘O’ that can be seen painted on Russian military vehicles taking part in the invasion of Ukraine.

American fashion magazine V Magazine is in hot water with netizens after releasing the photos online showing the cover of its upcoming issue, with Shayk, 36, seen sporting a green dress.

V Magazine captioned their post: “Need a bit of red and green to brighten up the holidays? Let our latest digital cover star Irina Shayk show you how!”

The magazine then quotes Dutch-American fashion photographer Inez Van Lamsweerde as saying: “I really appreciate how much you give on set, and how much you’re a part of making the image. I feel like this cover shoot we just did sort of feels like it has the two sides of you.”

Shayk is then quoted as saying: “Sometimes it’s not easy what we do, but for me, it’s like an escape from reality. I’m so grateful to have this job because I never imagined that I would be a model one day.”

The emerging scandal has been picked up by both Ukrainian and Russian media.

Russian media outlet Life has gone with a headline saying: “Irina Shayk shamed for the cover of the magazine, and all because of the ‘bloody hands’ and the letter V”.

While UNIAN, also known as the Ukrainian Independent Information Agency of News, a Kyiv-based Ukrainian news agency, have a headline saying: “‘Is that blood on your hands?’: Ukrainians ‘have nightmares’ about the famous gloss for the cover with Iryna Shayk”.

The images have also attracted considerable criticism in Russian, Ukrainian and English on the magazine’s Instagram posts, with the vast majority disgusted by what they saw as tacit support for Vladimir Putin’s war crimes in Ukraine.

One netizen called ‘alya_gonta’ commented: “‘Escape from reality’? Reality is that her people raping and killing our kids and she supports that!” (sic)

And ‘tanya1olifirenko’ said: “why irina is on the cover while ppl die cuz of lack of electricity not only rockets? i cant even call ambulance or police, i have internet far from home. its her country that puts my home into darkness and disaster. and she s okay with that. same on u” (sic)

While ‘olia_ly357’ said, perhaps sarcastically: “Don’t forget to tag the link #dress was stolen in Gostomel, #panties from Bucha, #gloves from Kherson.” (sic)

And ‘missanet 13’ said: “To an international court of law! For supporting war and genocide!”

And ‘wusuuy’ said: “She supports the war and genocide.”

While ‘nastya.protasenko’ said: “Do you know that V and Z write on russian tanks which occupied cities? The torture people on occupation.” (sic)

And ‘nata_snn’ said “This is ugly” followed by three face with open mouth vomiting emojis, adding “No one is reading anymore so decided to hype with terr***st supporter???” (sic)

Many other critical netizens also used the hashtag #russiaisaterroriststate and posted the face with open mouth vomiting emoji and the nauseated face emoji.

A number of apparently pro-Russia netizens posted messages of support, often with emojis of the Russian flag and of the V (for victory) sign.

Russia invaded Ukraine on 24th February in what the Kremlin is still calling a “special military operation”. Today marks the 280th day of the war.

The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported that between 24th February and 30th November, Russia had lost about 88,880 personnel, 2,914 tanks, 5,872 armoured combat vehicles, 1,902 artillery units, 395 multiple launch rocket systems, 210 air defence systems, 280 warplanes, 261 helicopters, 1,562 drones, 531 cruise missiles, 16 warships, 4,429 motor vehicles and fuel tankers, and 163 units of special equipment.

Russia has claimed that its casualties have been much lower but provides infrequent updates on its latest figures.

NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg has renewed his pledge that Ukraine will eventually become a member of the world’s biggest security alliance.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called NATO a “criminal entity” and warned the Alliance against providing Ukraine with Patriot missile defence systems.

Medvedev said added: “If, as Stoltenberg hinted, NATO were to supply the Ukrainian fanatics with Patriot systems along with NATO personnel, they would immediately become a legitimate target of our armed forces.”

Ukraine’s state energy company Ukrenergo, has said that it is still struggling to restore power a week after Russian missile strikes hit power facilities across the country.

Artur Lorkowski, the director of Energy Community, an international organisation made up of the European Union and a number of non-EU countries, which are coordinating an emergency response to get Ukraine the spare parts it needs to survive the winter, has said that the energy situation in Ukraine is critical.

Lorkowski added: “They have some equipment which they stored before the war, but this storage is running out. The stored equipment will not to be enough continue the repair activities.”

Ukraine is reportedly in dire need of spare parts, with Russia targeting the country’s substations, in an attempt to fragment its grid “into small isolated units”.

Lorkowski said that transformers are the “top priority”, which are used in substations and “are being intensively targeted by Russia” to render the network incapable of transmitting “the output of [electricity] generation units for Ukraine.”

Roman Starovoyt, the Governor of the Kursk region in Russia has said that a power plant in Kursk was hit on Tuesday in multiple attacks that caused electricity outages

Starovoyt said: “In total, there were about 11 launches. A power plant was hit.”

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attacks.

China’s President Xi Jinping has said that he is ready to “forge a closer partnership” with Russia to “maintain international energy security”.

Xi said: “China is willing to work with Russia to forge a closer energy partnership, promote clean and green energy development and jointly maintain international energy security and the stability of industry supply chains.”

Germany’s Minister of Justice Marco Buschmann has said that his country contributed to the outbreak of Russia’s war in Ukraine by “adhering” to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline despite Russia annexing Crimea in 2014.

Buschmann added that Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure were a “terrible war crime”.

He said he was “certain that at the end, we will see war crimes cases at the international criminal court against senior Russian leadership.”